Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30) - John Sandford Page 0,50

three shots on the paper, but all over the face of it.

“It’s not the gun,” he said aloud. It was his shooting.

He marked the three shots with a Sharpie pen and went back to the five-hundred-yard stand. He’d have to hold very high at that range, but he didn’t know exactly how high. He started by holding one paper-height—eighteen inches over the center of the target—fired a shot, held about twelve inches over, fired another, held on the top of the paper, six inches above the bull, and fired a third. He tried to do it all correctly, as was taught in the rifle magazines: good hold, steady trigger pull, breath held with the squeeze . . .

At the target, he found no new bullet holes at all. This would get tedious. He walked the five hundred yards back, fired a single shot, holding what he estimated was two feet over the target. No hole. Held about three feet over. No hole. He stapled another target face with the bull four feet over the primary target, to use as an aiming mark. No bullet hole. Maybe he’d overcorrected to the left, he thought. He gave the scope two clicks to the right. Nothing.

“It’s not the gun,” he said again. He thought he might be unconsciously flinching, yanking the trigger in anticipation of the recoil. At five hundred yards, with good gun support, plenty of time to shoot and no stress, he couldn’t hit a target as big as a grown man’s chest.

He needed analysis, and it occurred to him that he had a handy little computer in his pocket. He took out his phone and went out on the internet. After browsing for a while, he found a simple .308 ballistics chart and was astonished to find that he should be holding a full six feet over the primary target.

He restapled the aiming marker at six feet, and fired three more rounds at five hundred yards. This time, he found two holes on the extreme right side of the target, one five inches above the other; the third, he thought, was probably farther right.

He corrected the scope to shoot farther to the left, fired three more shots, and finally placed all three on the target, but not neatly grouped. His shoulder was getting sore from the repeated recoil, and he walked to the cabin to gather his gear and return home. On the walk back, another thought struck. While it wasn’t entirely the rifle, some of it might be. And, he reminded himself, he didn’t necessarily have to kill the kid, just hit him or come close.

At the cabin, he sat in his truck and went back to his iPhone. If he were to shoot a fairly high-powered .223 round, from a good rifle made for target shooting, he might be able to tighten his groups, and the much-reduced recoil might help prevent any tendency to flinch.

He was disappointed to find that he might reduce bullet drop only by six inches to a foot. That was better, though, and he might find the rifle more congenial to shoot. He deleted the app and shut down the phone.

He did know where he could get an anonymous high-quality .223, if he had the balls to go get it.

And if the cops hadn’t been there first.

* * *

—

DUNN GOT TO THE PLAINS at seven o’clock, with the sun right on the horizon. He first cruised the Stokeses’ house without slowing down. There were no signs of a police presence—no crime scene tape, no cop cars, nothing. He continued over to Warrenton, in the growing darkness, stopped at a Safeway, bought groceries for the next few days and a box of throwaway latex gloves.

At his house, he stowed the groceries, thought hard about it, and at nine o’clock, in full darkness, he cruised the Stokes place again. Again: no sign of life. He continued on for five miles, pulled off the road for a moment, got the lug wrench out of the back of his truck and put it on the floor behind the passenger seat.

The next trip back, he turned into the drive, continued past Randy’s parked car and around to the back of the house, out of sight, but still on gravel; his heart thumping like a drum.

He put on the gloves and got out and listened—nothing but crickets. He went to the back door, listened again, tried the doorknob: locked. He pressed against the door’s glass window with the wedge-end of