Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(100)

The Gainesville job site would be on his way back to Washington, the woman said: “It’s right off the highway, but . . . today’s Sunday. There won’t be anybody working.”

Lucas thanked them, took a last look at the Dunn house, and headed back east toward Washington. Had Dunn skipped? Had Sandberg skipped? Maybe they were out on the river, rowing their boats. He spotted the new Gainesville development, raw dirt and idle heavy equipment sitting around, doing nothing on a cool Sunday afternoon. Then he saw a man get into a trailer . . .

What the hell, he had a minute. Lucas pulled over, made a U-turn and went back to a turnoff into the development. The trailer was battered-looking, like every construction trailer Lucas had ever seen. He knocked on the door and a man shouted, “Who is it?”



* * *



—

THE MAN’S NAME WAS SPENCER MONROE and he was a foreman on the job site who’d come in to look at grading plans.

“He wouldn’t be working today. I got no idea what he does on weekends,” Monroe said of Elias Dunn.

Monroe was a large red-faced man sitting behind a metal desk with an illegal paper spike stacked with spiked papers. A bright yellow hard hat was hung on a rack behind him. “He put in a full day on Friday. Why are you looking for him?”

“We want to talk to him about a friend of his, actually,” Lucas said. “A background check for a federal job.”

“That’s a weird thing to do on a Sunday,” Monroe said; there was a tone of skepticism in his voice.

“We normally wouldn’t, but I was supposed to meet him at his house,” Lucas lied. “Said it was the only time he had free. But he wasn’t there.”

“Huh. He’s normally a reliable guy. Punctual,” Monroe said. “So you’re not investigating the murders?”

“What murders?”

“A guy who worked here,” Monroe said. “Him and his sister were killed up by The Plains.”

Lucas thought his mouth might have dropped open. “The Stokeses?”

“Yeah, Randy Stokes and his sister, she was, like, Roberta or something. You know about them?”

“Rachel,” Lucas said. “I don’t know exactly where I am. I’ve been following a navigation app. How far is The Plains from here?”

Monroe shrugged: “Right up I-60—maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Then how far is it from Warrenton?”

Another shrug. “I dunno. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.” He picked up a pencil and drew a triangle on a piece of scratch paper and made points at the tips of each angle. “This is us here in Gainesville. This is The Plains, this is Warrenton.”

“Did Elias Dunn know Randy Stokes?”

“Sure. I don’t think they’d hang out together, they wouldn’t be pals. Randy was sort of a dumbass and El isn’t. But they’d run into each other. In fact, I think I seen them talking.”

“Did Stokes ever talk about his shooting hobby?”

“All the time—that’s about all he did talk about, other than how unfair life was. Drank like a fish, hungover every morning. I’m not the big boss here, but I kinda think Randy wasn’t going to make it through to the end of this project. He was going to get his sorry butt fired for pure laziness.”



* * *



—

LUCAS WALKED OUT to his car and called Chase.

She picked up and said, “We haven’t gotten the IRS—”

“Forget it,” Lucas said. “It’s Elias Dunn.”





CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE



Lucas headed back to Warrenton and Dunn’s house. On the way, he called Henderson, who was in his car, on his way home from church. “Quite the interesting sermon,” Henderson said, without even saying hello. “The minister—junior minister, actually—spoke on the Book of Common Prayer, the history of it, and how it should guide individual members of different political beliefs. Quite enchanting, even if he did have his head up his ass. So, what’s going on?”

“I believe I’ve identified the shooter . . .”

“Yes!”

“. . . but I don’t have him yet. Can you either loan me your plane for a flight to Macon, Georgia, or get me a first-class ticket for a flight to Macon? For tonight?”

“Can’t get you the plane, my wife is in Los Angeles with some woman named Oona, trying to exhaust each other on Rodeo Drive.”

“Do you care?”

“I do not. I can get you on any flight you wish, any class you want. That’s because I know people. What time do you want to fly and where do you want to fly from?”

“National or Dulles, either one. Macon if possible, but I’ll take Atlanta. One flight if possible, before dark.”

“I’ll have my assistant call you back,” Henderson said. “I want you to call Porter and tell him. He’s now suspicious of our relationship and you need to kiss and make up.”



* * *



—

LUCAS CALLED PORTER SMALLS, who hadn’t gone to church, and who said, “I’ll look forward to the denouement. I’m looking at my vocabulary-word-of-the-day calendar, and denouement means the point in a narrative when the different pieces of the plot are pulled together and we reach the climax.”