Storm Prey by John Sandford Page A

beside the golf course, unsnapped her seat belt and turned to watch traffic, as she pulled out her cell phone and punched in 911.
    “Is this an emergency?”
    “My name is Weather Karkinnen, and I’m a surgeon. A man just tried to kill me. He’s on I-94 going east toward Snelling on a motorcycle. He’s going really fast ...”

    LUCAS SHOWED up fifteen minutes later.
    Weather had driven around the golf course to the clubhouse. She parked, went inside, told the restaurant manager that she was waiting for police. The first cops arrived two minutes later; in the interval, she’d called Lucas.
    “I’m pretty sure,” she told him on the phone. “Whatever it was, the gun, if it was a gun, he dropped it, and then he took off.”
    “You know where he dropped it?” Lucas asked.
    “Just after 280. Right there ... maybe three or four hundred yards east,” she said.
    “Okay. Any chance he saw where you went? That you’re at the club?”
    “No. I called nine-one-one, and then came right here to wait for the police,” she said.
    “Stay there, stay inside. I’m coming.”
     
     
    WHEN THE FIRST St. Paul cops showed up, they were skeptical. When she explained that she might have seen the face of one of the robbers who took down the hospital, they became interested. When she mentioned that Lucas was her husband, and that she had some familiarity with assholes, and this particular asshole may have dropped a gun on the highway, they got busy.
    Lucas arrived in the truck, shouldered past the cops and asked, “You okay?”
    “I’m fine.” She was fine, but she could see that he was not. He was white-faced with anger.
    He turned to one of the cops and said, “Did you get somebody to look for a weapon?”
    The cop nodded. “We’re rolling on it. We’ve got a highway patrol guy to block off 94, and two of our cars down there with him. It’s gonna be a mess, though. Rush hour.”
    Back to Weather: “The guy you saw yesterday. He’s got to be the robber. What kind of a bike was it? Anything you recognize?”
    “It wasn’t a Harley, that’s all I know,” she said. “The guy’s legs were behind him, so he was leaning over the handlebars. When he took off, the front wheel came right off the ground. He was wearing a black helmet. But he was kind of a small guy, I think. That’s the impression I got.”
    “Crotch rocket,” one of the cops said. “The highway patrol guy had a stop just east of downtown, and when Miz Davenport called, they passed the word to him and he was looking for the bike. Nothing came through, so the guy got off somewhere.”
    “Not many bikes at this time of year,” the other cop said. “Too much snow and ice.”
    “Clear right now,” Lucas said.
    “On I-94 it is, but you wouldn’t want to cut any corners on the back streets,” the cop said.
    Lucas nodded: the cop was right. “Had any reports of stolen bikes?”
    “We’ll check.”
     
     
    LUCAS TURNED BACK to Weather. “We’ve got to lose you until we find the guy. We could put you in the University Radisson....”
    Weather shook her head. “Nope, nope. I need my sleep, and I need to be at home, with the kids, and I need to get to the hospital at the right time every day. And maybe in the middle of the night.”
    “How’re the twins?”
    “Sara’s heart is a problem,” Weather said. “They’re working on it now, but the stuff they need to give her causes problems for Ellen. So—maybe we’ll be good tomorrow.”
    “Tired?”
    She shrugged. “Not terribly—but it could get bad if this goes on for a few days. We knew it might, but hoped it wouldn’t. That’s why I need to be at home.”
    Lucas said, “What would you think about a house guest?”
    She shook her head. “Lucas, I don’t want Shrake or Jenkins bumbling around the house. I mean, those guys could fall on the piano and break it.”
    “I called Virgil. He said he would be here in an hour.”
    She nodded. “Virgil would be okay. Besides, it sounds like