No Man's Land Read online

  him on the road. It was a silver late-model Mercedes convertible with the top down.

  And the bikini woman was driving though she was now wearing a floral sundress.

  Rogers hurriedly put the van in gear and pulled onto the road to follow her.

  This might just be the opening he needed, he thought.

  Chapter

  27

  THEY DROVE FOR about five miles. The woman was a reckless driver, taking curves too sharply and often veering into the oncoming lane on the two-lane road before sliding back in the nick of time to avoid traffic coming the other way.

  Rogers kept far enough behind her so she wouldn’t grow suspicious, although in the five miles they had passed at least six other white vans. It was the vehicle of choice for the legion of contractors and service people who made their living catering to the homeowners and landlords around here.

  At last she slowed and pulled into the driveway of a large stucco-sided home with a red-tiled roof set on the beach. It looked as if it had been magically teleported from Florida to North Carolina.

  Rogers pulled past, rounded a bend, steered the van off the road, jumped out, and quickly made his way back to the house, settling in behind some high grass that was part of the perimeter landscaping.

  The woman had climbed out of the car at the same time the front door of the house opened. The young man who stepped out was wearing khaki shorts and a white T-shirt. He was tall, young, and handsome.

  And Rogers had seen him before.

  Josh Quentin, he of the VIP room back at the Grunt with his own private room and pretty ladies who let him stroke their derrieres with abandon.

  Rogers continued to watch as Quentin and the woman collided about halfway up the front walk. She kissed him tenderly and in return he grabbed her ass.

  Such was life, thought Rogers. Mars and Venus.

  They were already starting to undress each other as they staggered, limb-locked, up to the front door and then inside.

  It was pretty obvious what the couple was about to do, and Rogers had no interest in witnessing it. He sat on his haunches and attempted to think this through.

  What was Josh Quentin doing down here? Was this his house? And who was the woman? Was she married to Ballard and this was just a lover closer to her own age?

  Rogers rubbed the spot on his head. The sun overhead was hot and that heat was intensified on the narrow patch on his scalp. He closed his eyes and imagined what was going on inside his brain right now.

  They had talked to him about what it would feel like, what could possibly happen. But more had happened to him than they could ever have foreseen. As they had explained to him, this was virgin territory. It was risky. It was perilous. Some of it, perhaps most of it, could not be predicted.

  As it turned out, there were very good reasons for this.

  As it turned out, they had no idea what the hell they were doing.

  His gaze floated up to a window in the stucco house. He had seen a flash of something. Perhaps it was the woman’s dress being flung away.

  He thought back to the slaughter in the alley after his bus ride from prison. The two young lovers, now both dead.

  He didn’t much care for young lovers.

  Mostly because he’d never had the chance to be one.

  He felt a searing impulse to break into the house and kill them both.

  He rubbed his head vigorously, trying to force this thought away.

  He still needed information and he had yet to get any.

  He decided to rectify that.

  He looked around, saw no one, and skittered over to the convertible. On the front seat was the woman’s purse. She’d been in such a rush to lip-lock Quentin, she’d forgotten it.

  He took out her wallet and snapped a photo of her driver’s license with his phone.

  Her name was Suzanne Davis.

  He stole over near the house and looked up. He could climb it, no problem. The house was mostly shielded from the road by overgrown bushes. He peered into the window of the garage and saw one car. It was a Maserati convertible. He figured it was Quentin’s ride. The prick seemed to like everything expensive.

  He went around to the back. There was a swimming pool fenced in so it was private from anyone lounging on the beach.

  He tried the back door. It was unlocked. He doubted Quentin had bothered to think about engaging any alarm before hustling the lady upstairs, but still, he was ready to run if need be.

  But an alarm didn’t sound.

  He eased inside to find a room that was barely furnished.

  The layout of the house was open and spacious, but the few pieces of furniture all looked generic. Rogers wondered if this was Quentin’s home or simply a rental.

  He looked around for a minute and found a piece of mail with the house’s address on it. The addressee was a corporation: VacationsNC, LLC. So this was probably a rental.

  He headed up the stairs, conscious of every sound in the house.

  From upstairs he heard what he expected to hear. Two young people screwing each other’s brains out.

  But they would finish at some point. People always did.

  He reached the landing and followed the sounds down to the last bedroom on the left. There was another room catty-corner from that. He slipped in there and kept the door partially open. From this vantage point he could see into the bedroom across the hall.

  A naked Suzanne Davis was astride Quentin.

  Well, they’d be occupied for a while.

  Rogers retreated into the room he was in and looked around.

  He spied it almost immediately. A leather briefcase. He opened it and rummaged quietly around inside. He pulled out several papers and looked at each one. It was only when he reached the fourth one that his attention was held.

  It was a document marked Confidential. It appeared to be an internal corporate document.

  The writing on the document meant nothing to him.

  What was at the top of the page meant everything to him.

  Atalanta Group.

  Rogers looked in the direction of the bedroom.

  Quentin was with Atalanta Group? Was this the company that Helen Myers had mentioned Quentin owning?

  Did Jericho work for him? He shook his head. In truth, Jericho worked for no one except herself. He put the papers back, closed the briefcase, and stepped back over to the doorway.

  His gaze reached the couple in the bed just as Quentin flipped Davis over on her back so he was on top. He lifted her feet on top of his shoulders and quickly finished his business with a loud grunt before collapsing on top of her.

  So much for romance, thought Rogers.

  Quentin rolled off her and sat up against the headboard.

  “Damn, that was good, babe,” he said. “Wasn’t it?”

  Davis pulled the blanket up over her and leaned back next to him. “Yeah,” she said automatically. “It was great,” she added, her enthusiasm artificially pumped up, at least in Rogers’s mind.

  “How’s the old man?” Quentin asked.

  Rogers tensed.

  “The same. Enjoying his leisure time.”

  “I bet.” Quentin leaned over, opened the drawer of a nightstand, took out a small box, opened it, and rolled two joints, handing one to Davis. They lit up and both inhaled deeply.

  He said, “She’s one smart lady. I think I can hold my own, but some days I’m not sure.”

  Davis took another puff of the joint and settled back against the headboard.

  “Did she get off okay?” he asked.

  “Jet left a couple hours ago. She’ll be back soon.”

  Rogers tensed even more, praying that they would say the woman’s name.

  Quentin took another drag on his joint. “Well, it’ll be nice not to have her looking over my shoulder the whole time.”

  “Just don’t screw up.”

  Quentin put an arm around Davis’s bare shoulders and feigned a hurt expression. “Hey, babe, I know what I�
�m doing, okay?”

  “I gotta go.”

  She rose and quickly dressed.

  A minute later Rogers heard her heels clicking down the steps.

  When he turned back to look into the bedroom, Quentin had finished his joint and lay stretched out on the bed. A few moments later the snores reached Rogers.

  I could go in and kill him right now. But what would be the point? I need to know more. So he’s more valuable to me alive than dead.

  This is truly your lucky day, Josh. You got laid and you get to live.

  He waited until he heard the car start up outside and then made his way back down the stairs and out the rear door. A few minutes later he was sitting in his van and staring down at the photos he’d taken.

  Suzanne Davis.

  He put that name in a search and added Chris Ballard to it.

  He got many hits on Ballard, but nothing on anyone named Suzanne Davis who seemed to have a connection to him.

  He next searched Josh Quentin. Lots of hits came up, but none that he wanted.

  For a guy on the fast track, there was nothing about him out there.

  But he would find Claire Jericho.

  For Rogers, there was no Plan B.

  Chapter

  28

  I’M NOT SURE what to make of that.”

  Knox looked over at Puller, who was staring out the windshield of his Malibu.

  They were still parked in Vincent DiRenzo’s driveway.

  “Did you hear me, Puller?”

  “I heard you.”

  “The guy basically said he was stonewalled on looking into the serial murders in Williamsburg.”

  Puller stayed quiet.

  “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

  Puller slid the car into gear. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to check into it, have I?”

  He pulled out of the driveway and pointed them on a route that would take them back to eastern Virginia.

  “Why does it seem like this case is getting muddier the more we step into it?” said Knox.

  “Maybe it was designed that way.”

  She shot him a glance. “Designed? What do you mean by that?”

  Puller just stared out the window.

  She glared at him. “Are you officially shutting down on me? Do I have to talk to myself all the way back?”

  “You can do what you want, Knox. No one’s stopping you. You always do what you want, right?”

  She gazed at him stonily before saying, “You just keep piling on the insinuations, don’t you?”

  “Is that what you call them?”

  “What do you call them?”

  “I don’t have to call them anything. I’ve got a case to investigate.”

  “You really do like to dance in circles, don’t you?”

  He kept his gaze on the road. Finally he said, “What would you do?”

  She started to say something but then seemed to catch herself. “Talk to the Williamsburg cops who worked the case.”

  “We’ve seen the files.”

  “But we tracked down DiRenzo, and look what he delivered up that was not covered in the files. Maybe the Williamsburg cops will do the same.”

  “We need to find out who they are.”

  “I already did that. The two lead detectives are still on the force.”

  “From thirty years ago?”

  “They were young when they worked it. They’re close to retirement, but not quite there. I set up a meeting with them for later this afternoon.”

  “Without telling me?”

  “I’m telling you now, Puller.”

  “And you wonder why I can’t trust you?”

  She stared at him for a moment and then broke it off and kept her gaze pointed out the window the whole ride back.

  * * *

  Always concrete walls, thought Puller.

  Unlike on TV shows with all the glitzy bells and whistles, real cops lived on frugal department budgets that tacked far closer to painted cinderblock and dented gunmetal gray desks.

  Puller was sitting opposite homicide detectives Jim Lorne and his partner Leo Peckham in a precinct building in Williamsburg.

  They were both tall, thin, balding men in their sixties. Their faces carried the strain of having a job that required them to witness the dead bodies of the brutally murdered and then find out who had done it.

  Lorne was twirling a pen between his long fingers.

  Peckham gazed directly at Puller and Knox. He said, “We got your call, Agent Knox. And we know you requisitioned the files. You explained a little but not a lot. I’m afraid we’re going to need to hear the whole story before we can jump into this again.”

  Lorne looked up from his pen-twirling. “And what’s the Army’s connection?”

  Puller answered, “We’re trying to see if your serial killer might have abducted someone from Fort Monroe about thirty years ago.”

  “He killed. He didn’t abduct.”

  “And he might have killed this woman too, but her body wasn’t found,” noted Knox.

  Peckham shook his head. “Don’t think so. Way the bodies were disposed of, the guy wanted them to be found.”

  “So you’re sure it was a man?” asked Knox.

  “Four women murdered? Pretty sure it was a guy.”

  “The women weren’t sexually assaulted,” pointed out Knox.

  Lorne shook his head. “But they were beaten to death, or strangled, or their throats were cut. Now, granted, a woman could have cut a throat, but the beating and strangling, that’s a guy’s fingerprint.”