Better off Dead (Jack Reacher #26)(31)

I found the page the town was on in the atlas. Nothing was circled. There were no marks. No addresses scrawled in the margins. No phone numbers written down. I tried the door pockets. The floor, front and back. The trunk. Under the carpet and around the spare wheel. There was nothing. No receipts from drugstores or gas stations. No carryout menus or to-go cups from a coffee shop. The car was completely sterile.

I climbed in behind the wheel, trying to figure out where to look next, and something hit my thigh. It was the guy’s keys. They were hanging down from the ignition. One was a mortise. It was scratched and worn. I compared it with the one on Mansour’s keyring. It was identical. I’d thought it might be for a garage, or a store. But now I had another theory as to what it would unlock. And, I realized, another person to worry about. Ever since the guy had dumped Fenton’s foot on my table at the Prairie Rose, I’d been completely focused on finding her. But the guy had known where to find me. That was clear. And there was only one way he could have found that out.





Chapter 20


I knocked on the morgue door and went straight in. Dr. Houllier was there. Alone. He was on the floor, slumped against his autopsy table. His head was on his chest. Blood was dribbling out of one nostril and the corner of his mouth. His lab coat was hanging open. Its buttons had been ripped off. His tie was stretched and askew. He’d lost one shoe. His right wrist was fastened to the table leg with a cable tie. I stepped toward him and he raised his head, then turned away. Fear flashed across his face. Then he recognized me and turned back.

“Are you all right?” He sounded breathless. “Did that ape find you? I’m so sorry. I had to tell him where you went.”

I said, “You did the right thing. I’m fine. But what about you? Are you hurt?”

Dr. Houllier dabbed at his face with his free hand. “It’s nothing serious. Yet. The ape said he was going to get you, then come back for me.” He shivered. “And take me to Dendoncker.”

    “That guy won’t be coming back.” I crossed to the autoclave and picked up a scalpel. Then I went back to the table, cut the cable tie, put the scalpel in my pocket, and helped Dr. Houllier to his feet. “But others might. Do you have a car?”

“Yes. Of course. Would you like to borrow it?”

“Where is it?”

“Here. In the staff parking lot.”

“Good. I want you to get in it. And drive out of town. Directly out. Don’t go home. Don’t stop to buy anything. Can you do that?”

Dr. Houllier touched his face again. “I’ve worked here for more than forty years…”

“I know. You told me. But you have to think about your patients. You can’t help them if you’re dead. These guys are serious.”

Dr. Houllier was silent for moment. Then he said, “How long would I have to stay away?”

“Not long. A day? Two? Give me your number. I’ll call you when it’s safe to come back.”

“I guess the world won’t stop spinning if I go away for forty-eight hours.” He crossed to his desk and scrawled a number across the bottom of one of his forms. “What are you going to do?”

“Things you’re better off not knowing about. They’ll conflict with your Hippocratic Oath. That’s pretty much guaranteed.”

Dr. Houllier retrieved his shoe, dropped his ruined lab coat in the trash, straightened his tie, and led the way to his parking spot. A Cadillac was sitting in it. It was white. Maybe from the 1980s. It was a giant barge. It looked like it should have been in a soap opera, with cattle horns on its hood. Dr. Houllier climbed in. I watched him drive away then found my way back to the ambulance bay. The Lincoln was still there, exactly where I left it. I was relieved. Ever since I found Dr. Houllier on the morgue floor, a worry had been nagging at the back of my mind. I figured there was a chance Dendoncker’s guy had come across it when he was looking for me.

    I opened the back door. The guys in the suits were awake. Both of them. They started wriggling. Trying to get out. Or trying to get me. And also trying to speak. I couldn’t understand what they wanted to say. I guess their jaws were messed up. I took the scalpel out of my pocket and held it up so they would be clear what it was. I tossed it behind the guy in the darker suit’s back, on the floor, where he could reach it. I threw Mansour’s keys in after it. Then I closed the door and went back inside. I hurried to the main entrance. Passed the woman with the pearls. Crossed under the globe and the dome and emerged onto the street. I looped around the outside of the building to the place where I’d left the Caprice. It was in a gap between two smaller, municipal-style buildings diagonally opposite the ambulance bay’s gate. I pushed a dumpster in front of it. It wasn’t great cover but it obscured the car a little. It was better than nothing.

It took me four and a half minutes to get from the Lincoln to the Chevy. After another nine I saw the ambulance bay gates twitch. They began to slide open. I started the Chevy’s motor. As soon as the gap between the two halves was wide enough the Lincoln burst out onto the street. It turned right, so it didn’t pass in front of me. I waited two seconds. That wasn’t nearly long enough, but it was as long as I could risk in the circumstances. I swung around the dumpster and turned to follow.

The conditions were terrible for tailing anyone. I was in a car that might well be recognized. There was no traffic to use as cover. I had no team members to rotate with. The streets were twisty and chaotically laid out so I had no option but to keep close. Which was easier said than done. Whoever was driving the Lincoln knew where he was going. He knew the route. He knew when to turn. When to accelerate. When to slow down. And when he didn’t have to.