serial murders to see if they were possibly connected to my mother’s

disappearance?” “I thought about it. I thought about it a lot, actually.” “And?”

said Knox. “And any answer I came away with scared the shit out of me. So I

finally stopped thinking about it.”

 

Chapter 26

 

SO THIS WAS how the other half lived. Well, the one-tenth of the one percent,

anyway.

 

Rogers was leaning next to a tree off a road paralleling the beach.

 

The drive here had taken less than two hours. It was not even noon. He would

have to get back in time for work. But he still had several hours to accomplish

some things.

 

He was staring up at a home behind a high wall and steel gates that would have

stopped a runaway Abrams tank. This was the palatial retirement home of Chris

Ballard, the founder of what was now CB Excelon Corp.

 

Rogers had left his van back at a public parking lot just in case there were

surveillance cameras posted by the front gate. He imagined they might film every

car that went by the mansion. He did not want to be on that tape.

 

His eyes took in all points of the compound, for that’s what it was behind the