Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(42)

He said, quietly, “Did any of these guys work on your car?”

“Peter did,” Shorty said.

“Why?”

“He said he looked after the quad-bikes, so we asked him to take a look.”

“He doesn’t look after the quad-bikes.”

“Did he screw it up?”

Karel looked left and right.

“He cut the main positive feed coming out of the battery.”

“How? By accident?”

“Not possible by accident,” Karel said. “It’s a pure copper wire thicker than your finger. You would need a big pair of pliers with a wirecutter blade. It would take some strength. You would definitely know you were doing it. It would be an act of deliberate sabotage.”

“Peter had a pair of pliers. Yesterday morning. I saw him.”

“It’s like disconnecting the battery completely. Zero electrical activity anywhere. The vehicle is paralyzed. Which is exactly your symptom.”

“I want to see,” Shorty said.

“Me too,” Patty said.

Karel said, “Look underneath.”

They took it in turns, leaning deep over the engine bay, ducking down, twisting their necks. They saw a stiff black wire, clearly chopped in half, the ends displaced, the cut faces gleaming as fresh as new pennies. They walked back to where Karel was standing. He said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t really know these guys very well. I have to assume this was their idea of a practical joke. But it’s a really stupid one. It won’t be cheap to fix. That kind of wire is almost rigid. It’s like plumbing. You have to remove a whole bunch of other components just to get near it.”

“Don’t fix it,” Patty said. “Don’t even think about it. Just get us out of here this minute. Give us a ride right now.”

“Why?”

“It wasn’t a practical joke. They’re keeping us here. They won’t let us leave. We’re like prisoners.”

“That sounds pretty weird.”

“But it’s true. They’re stringing us along. Everything they tell us is lies.”

“Like what?”

“They said we were the first guests in this room, but I don’t think we are.”

“That’s totally weird.”

“Why?”

“There were people in this room a month ago. I know that for sure, because I had to bring a tire to a guy in room nine.”

“They said you were their good friend.”

“That was the second time I ever met them.”

“They implied they had been here at least three years.”

“That’s not right. They showed up a year and a half ago. There was a big fight over a building permit.”

“They said their phone was out yesterday. But I bet it wasn’t. They just wanted to keep us here.”

“But why would they? Money?”

“We thought of that,” Shorty said. “We were about to run out. Anyone would run out sooner or later. Then what would they do?”

“This is very weird,” Karel said.

He stood there, uncertain.

“Please give us a ride,” Patty said. “Please. We have to get out of here. We’ll pay you fifty bucks.”

“What about your car?”

“We’ll leave it here. We were going to sell it anyway.”

“It wouldn’t be worth much.”

“Exactly. We don’t care what happens to it. But we’ve got to go. We have to get out. Right now, this minute. You’re our only hope. We’re prisoners here.”

She stared at him. He nodded, slowly. Then again, taking charge. He stepped back, and looked left and right, craning over both his shoulders. He glanced at his giant truck, and the dimensions of the lot, measuring it, scoping it out, and then he glanced into the room, at the neat arrangement of luggage.

“OK,” he said. “Time to arrange a jailbreak.”

“Thank you,” Patty said.

“But first I need to ask an embarrassing question.”

“What?”

“Did you pay your bill? I would get in trouble if I helped you skip out in secret. There are innkeeper laws here.”

“We paid last night,” Shorty said. “We’re good until noon.”

“OK,” Karel said. “So let’s think for a minute. We should err on the side of caution. We should assume the worst case. We don’t know how they’re going to react to this. Therefore it’s probably better if they don’t see it happening. Agreed?”

“Much better,” Patty said.

“So you guys stay out of sight, while I turn the truck around, so it’s facing in the right direction, then you guys grab your bags and hop on board, and away we go. By which time nothing will be able to stop us. Even a Mercedes-Benz would bounce right off. OK?”

“We’re good to go,” Shorty said.

Karel looked in the door at the suitcase.

“That’s pretty big,” he said. “Can you lift it? Want me to come back and help?”

“I can do it.”

“Show me. A delay could screw this up.”

Patty went in first. She picked up the overnight bags, one in each hand, and stood out the way, so Shorty could get to the main attraction. He wrapped both fists around the new rope handle, and hauled, and the case came up six inches in the air. Karel watched from the doorway, as if judging.