Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(32)

Chapter 14


It took them a fraction more than thirty minutes to push the two-plus miles. They rolled to a stop where the track came out of the trees. It ran on ahead of them, gray and ghostly in the moonlight, through the flat two acres, to the curve of buildings in the distance. The motel, dark and quiet. The barn, dark and quiet. The house, dark and quiet. Five-thirty in the morning, by Patty’s watch. Easily an hour before the first hint of daylight.

All good.

They pushed on, as quiet as they could, nothing but the hiss of the tires and the slap of their soles on the last of the blacktop. Then they bumped down into the motel lot, and their progress got louder, with crunching steps and squelching stones, past the office, past room one, and two, all the way to the dead Honda, and onward, past room twelve’s corner, straight toward the barn. They could see eight ghostly shapes, neatly parked, and the ninth slot empty, like a punched-out tooth in a smile. Shorty pointed and gave Patty a thumbs-up. She was right. The first daylight glance out the window would have raised the alarm.

They cut the last corner across the grass, and rolled real slow on the parking area’s gravel. Putting the bike back in place was easy. Just a question of lining it up and pushing it in, nose first, and then nudging it dead level with the others, and stepping away. Job done. Perfect. Undetectable. They tiptoed across the gravel, and they walked away on the grass, back to the track, where they stood for a second and took a breath. Ahead of them were the same two-plus miles. All over again. But this time they had nothing to push. This time they would be walking, plain and simple. Walking away, forever.

Behind them a door opened. Over at the house. Relatively distant. A faraway voice called out, “Hey guys, is that you?”

Mark.

They stood still.

“Guys?”

A flashlight beam lanced beyond them, with their shadows cut out, which meant light was playing on their backs.

“Guys?” Mark called again.

They turned around.

Mark was walking through the dark toward them. He was fully dressed. His day had already begun. He was keeping his flashlight low, and so were Shorty and Patty, all three beams acting polite, trying to illuminate, but not dazzle.

They waited.

Mark arrived.

He said, “This is the most amazing coincidence.”

Along with the flashlight he was carrying a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.

Patty said, “Is it?”

“I’m sorry, I should have asked, is everything OK?”

“We’re fine.”

“Just out for a walk?”

“Why is it a coincidence?”

“Because literally at this very moment I have the mechanic on the phone. He starts work at five, to be ready for rush hour. This morning he woke up with a sudden thought. He remembered we had mentioned you drove down from Canada. He realizes at the time he instinctively assumed you were Americans returning home. Then this morning he realized it was equally likely you were Canadians visiting the other way around. In which case you would have a Canadian-spec car. In which case you would have the mandatory winter package, which back then was a different heater and no AC. In which case his diagnosis was wrong. That’s a U.S.-spec problem. In Canada it’s the starter motor relay that fries. He needs to know which part to pick up at the scrapyard. He’s heading there now. He literally just sent me out to get the ID number off your windshield.”

He held up the paper and pencil, as if in proof.

Then he said, “But obviously it will be a lot quicker for all concerned if you come in and answer his questions yourselves.”

He mimed the relative distances by chopping his palms closer together and further apart, first showing the long way still to go to the Honda, plus the even longer way back again, versus a short sharp one-way trip from where they were standing to the phone in the house. A dramatic difference. Impeccable logic. Shorty looked at Patty. She looked at him. All kinds of questions.

Mark said, “We could make a pot of coffee. We could ask the guy to call us back when he’s actually got the part he needs in his hot little hand. And then again, when he’s actually in his truck and on his way to you. I want you to hear it from the horse’s mouth. I feel at this point a little reassurance is in order. I feel that’s the least we can do. You folks have been messed around enough already.”

He held out his hand, in a courtly after-you gesture.

Patty and Shorty walked toward the house. Mark walked with them. All three flashlight beams bounced along in the same direction. At the end Mark sped up and then waited at the kitchen door, ushering them in. He flicked on a light and pointed ahead to the inner hallway, where the dead phone had been demonstrated at lunch the day before. Now the receiver was lying tethered by its cord on the seat of a chair. On hold, the old-fashioned way.

Mark said, “His name is Carol. Probably spelled different. He’s from Macedonia.”

He held out his hand, toward the phone, in a courtly help-yourself gesture.

Patty picked up the receiver. She put it to her ear. She heard a kind of spacy noise. A cell connection somewhere, doing its best.

She said, “Carol?”

A voice said, “Mark?”

“No, my name is Patty Sundstrom. My boyfriend and I own the Honda.”

“Oh man, I didn’t mean for Mark to wake you guys up. That isn’t polite.”