Read Mind Prey for Free Online Page A

trail away.
    "Let me go pluck," Lucas said.
    George Dunn's house was a modest white ranch, tucked away on a big tree-filled lot on a dead-end street in Edina. Lucas left the Porsche in the driveway and climbed the stone walk to the front door, pushed the doorbell. A thick-faced cop, usually in uniform, now in slacks and a golf shirt, pushed open the door.
    "Chief Davenport..."
    "Hey, Rick," Lucas said. "They've got you watching the phones?"
    "Yeah." In a lower voice, "And Dunn."
    "Where is he?"
    "Back in his office--the light back there." The cop nodded to the left.
    The house was stacked with brown cardboard moving boxes, a dozen of them in the front room, more visible in the kitchen and breakfast area. There was little furniture--a couch and chair in the living room, a round oak table in the breakfast nook. Lucas followed a hall back to the light and found Dunn sitting at a rectangular dining table in what had been meant as a family room. A large-screen TV sat against one wall, the picture on, the sound off. A stereo system was stacked on a pile of three cardboard boxes.
    Dunn was huddled over a pile of paper, with a crooked-neck lamp pulled close to them, his face half-in and half-out of the light. To his left, a half-dozen two-drawer file cabinets were pushed against a wall. Half of them had open drawers. Another stack of cardboard boxes sat on the floor beside the file cabinets. On the far side of the room, three chairs faced each other across a glass coffee table.
    Lucas stepped inside the room and said, "Mr. Dunn."
    Dunn looked up. "Davenport," he said. He dropped his pen, pushed back from the table, and stood to shake hands.
    Dunn was a fullback ten years off the playing field: broad shoulders, bullet head, beat-up face. His front teeth were so even, so white and perfect, that they had to be a bridge. He wore a gray cashmere sweater, with the sleeves pushed up, showing a gold Rolex; jeans, and loafers without socks. He shook hands, held the grip for a second, nodded, pointed at a chair, sat down, and said, "Ask."
    "You want a lawyer?" Lucas asked.
    "I had one. It was a waste of money," Dunn said.
    Lucas sat down, leaned forward, an elbow on his thigh. "You say you were in your car when your wife was taken. But you don't have any witnesses and you made no calls that would confirm it."
    "I made one call to her, while she was on her way over to the school. I told that to the other guys..."
    "But that was an hour before she was taken. A prosecutor might say that the call tipped you off to exactly where she'd be, so you'd have time to get there. Or send somebody," Lucas said. "And after that call, you were out of your office, and out of everybody's sight."
    "I know it. If I'd done... this thing... I'd have a better alibi," Dunn said. He made a sliding gesture with one hand. "I'd have been someplace besides my car. But the fact is, I spend maybe a quarter of my business day in my car. I've got a half-dozen developments going around the Cities, from west of Minnetonka to the St. Croix. I hit every one every day."
    "And you use your car phone all the time," Lucas pointed out.
    "Not after business hours," Dunn said, shaking his head. "I called the office from Yorkville--that's the job over in Woodbury--and after that, and after I talked to Andi, I just headed back in. When I got here, the cops were waiting for me."
    "Who do you think took her?" Lucas asked.
    Dunn shook his head. "It's gotta be one of the nuts she handles," he said. "She gets the worst. Sex criminals, pyromaniacs, killers. Nobody's toocrazy for her."
    Lucas gazed at him for a moment. The gooseneck lamp made a pool of light around his hands, but his pug's face was half in shadow; in an old black-and-white movie, he might have been the devil. "How much do you dislike her?" Lucas asked. "Your wife?"
    "I don't dislike her," Dunn said, bouncing once in the chair. "I love her."
    "That's not the word around town."
    "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He put his fingers to his