“Why are they hanging around?”
“Maybe that salesman’s gonna give them a good-bye kiss. I wonder what that young man and his girlfriend are doing for this guy.”
Quinn watched as the man in the muscle shirt walked out of the house. “What now?”
“McKinley and his boy know my car. I got away with tailin’ him a little while ago, but I was lucky. I’m gonna need you to follow McKinley, you don’t mind. Shame you got that car says, Look at me, but you play it smart and don’t get too close to him, you’ll be all right. When you’re satisfied he’s not going after the Stokes girl, get over to the nail salon where she works and sit tight in the lot. I’ll meet you there later on.”
“What are you gonna do about the girl then? You can’t watch her all night.”
“I was thinkin’ I’d take her home, to Janine’s, I mean, for a couple of days. Until me and Ives can get her someplace else.”
“Look, I got some business to take care of,” said Quinn, thinking of Linda Welles and the boys at the apartment house on Naylor Road. His reluctance to talk to them earlier had been eating at him since.
“Still looking for Sue’s runaway?”
Quinn nodded. “I want to check out a lead.”
“Fine. I know you don’t want to get involved in the Granville case. But this here is something else; you’ll be doing one of those good things you been wanting to do. Just make sure Devra’s all right.”
“What’re you gonna do?”
“Follow that young couple, they move out of here. Like I said, I’m curious.”
“Leave your cell on,” said Quinn.
Strange shook Quinn’s hand. Quinn turned and booked through the trees.
chapter 28
LOOKING at the needle on his gas gauge, Strange began to worry that he was going to run out of fuel. He’d been driving for a half hour now, following the Avalon, and as yet the young man behind the wheel had shown no signs of nearing a destination.
The Avalon was on Route 1 in Virginia, heading south. Strange had tailed him and the woman on the Beltway, over the Wilson Bridge, and onto 1, at that point called Richmond Highway.
To Strange, Virginia’s Route 1 looked the same as Maryland’s stretch of Route 1 from Laurel to Baltimore, a blacktop badland now dominated by chain and family-style restaurants and big-box retailers but still littered with trick-pad motels, last-stand truck stops, and drinker’s bars. Confederate flag stickers appeared on some cars the farther south he drove, “Tradition, Not Hatred” written below the stars and bars. Strange realized just how far off his turf he had come.
The road had stoplights but was straight and heavily trafficked, the easiest kind of tail job. Being made wasn’t the problem, though. The problem was keeping up, as the boy was a lane changer with a lead foot.
Strange listened to Let’s Stay Together, front to back, on the trip. The one had Green looking like a high school kid on the cover, “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” a highlight of the set. Ordinarily he’d enjoy a drive like this, the window down, the Reverend Al at his peak on the box. But he was worrying about the gas gauge, and the Stokes girl, and Quinn. And wondering if the boy in the Avalon was ever going to slow down.
Down below the Marine Corps base in Quantico, on a stretch of deep forest–lined highway absent of any commercial enterprise, he saw the Toyota’s right turn signal flash. The car pulled off on the shoulder and then went into a graveled lot cut out of the woods. Strange stayed behind a Chevy pickup and kept his foot on the gas, glancing over at the Avalon as he kept his speed. The boy was parking in front of what looked like an old house, standing alone well back off the road. A sign, going the width of the house’s porch, said “Commonwealth Guns.”
Strange drove for another mile or so, found a cut in the median strip intended for official use only, and made an illegal turn. He drove north and made the same kind of turn a mile past the store. He drove into the graveled lot and parked beside the Avalon. These were the only two cars in the lot, and anyway, there wasn’t any place to hide his car. If the young man hadn’t made him yet, he’d be all right.
Strange walked about fifty yards up a path to the house. He stepped onto the front porch, where a Harley Softail was chained and padlocked to a post. He entered the shop.
It had the feel of a sportsman’s store at first glance. The displays showed rods, bows, and knives, in addition to rifles and shotguns. Signs supporting gun ownership and gun owners’ rights were hung on all the walls. Accessories, holsters, and cleaning kits crowded the aisles. The aisles led to the destination point, a glass case in the back of the store.