Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(56)

“Did you?”

“Not yet.”

“She’s taking it seriously,” Reacher said.

“She has to. We can’t let anything bad happen. We’ll be crucified.”

“I’m heading back to my hotel now.”

“No sir, you need to come with me.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Sir, Detective Amos informed us of your prior service in the MPs. We’re happy to extend every courtesy.”

“Yes or no?”

“You’re about an inch away,” the kid said, bright and alert and resolved. And sure of himself. And sure of his orders, and the law, and his bosses.

Happy days.

Reacher thought about coffee. Nearly three hours in the future, in the innkeeper’s lobby. No doubt an ever-present fixture in the police station.

“An arrest won’t be necessary,” he said. “I’ll ride with you of my own free will. But in the front. Call it a rule.”

They got in the car, and they drove on, at the same speed Reacher had heard in the distance, slow and deliberate, nosing around corners, dutifully completing whichever lap it was of the night-long patrol. Reacher’s seat was cramped by an overspill of equipment from the center console. There was a laptop computer on a gooseneck stalk. There were holders and holsters for small specialist items. The vinyl on the dash was shiny and clean. The air smelled new. The car could have been a month old.

Then whichever lap it was on ended, and Davison turned a corner near the city office, and set out on a wider street, in a direction that Reacher recognized led to the station. A straight shot. About half a mile. Davison drove it a little faster than before. With panache. With a certain swagger. The master of the nighttime universe. He pulled in outside the lobby doors. He got out. Reacher got out. They went inside together. Davison explained the situation to the night guy. Who was unclear on only one point.

He said, “Until nine-thirty, do I need to lock him up?”

Davison looked at Reacher.

He said, “Does he?”

“Not really necessary.”

“You sure?”

“I don’t want anything bad to happen either. All I want is coffee.”

Davison turned back to the night guy.

He said, “Find him an office to wait in, and get him a cup of coffee.”

Then ahead of them the double doors swung open and Brenda Amos walked through.

“We’ll use my office,” she said.





Chapter 23


The first arrival happened well before dawn. A repeat customer. He lived in the far northern part of Maine, in a wooden house in the center of eighty square miles of forest, all of which he owned. As always he drove only by night, in a beat-up old Volvo wagon, not worth a second glance, but just in case it got one, it was also fitted with fake Vermont plates made up with an unissued number. His phone told him where to turn, but of course he remembered the place anyway. From his first visit. How could he forget? He recognized the mouth of the track, and the sketchy blacktop, and the fat rubber wire. Which rang a bell somewhere, to scare up a welcome.

Which this time was offered in the motel office. By Mark only. The others were nowhere to be seen. Watching the security cameras, the new guest assumed. And hoped. Mark offered him room three, and he took it. Mark watched him as he parked the wagon. Watched him as he carried his bags inside. He was wondering which bag held his money, the new guest assumed. He set his stuff down near the closet and stepped outside again, to the predawn darkness. To the soft misty air. He couldn’t contain himself. He crept along the boardwalk, past room four, past five, toward a dead-looking Honda Civic, crouching blackly in the moonlight. He stepped out into the lot at that point and looped around behind it, so he could take in the whole of room ten from a distance. The first look. It was occupied. The e-mail said so. But it was currently blank and quiet. The window blind was down. There was no light inside. No sound. Nothing was happening.

The new guest stood for a minute, and then he walked back to room three.

—

Reacher took coffee from the squad room pot, and then Amos walked him back to her office. The same as before. The old structure, the new contents. The desk, the chairs, the cabinets, the computer.

She said, “I asked you to play it safe, for my sake.”

He said, “Something woke me up.”

“Is there a law that says therefore automatically you have to get up?”

“Sometimes.”

“They could have been arriving right then.”

“Exactly. I thought I should at least get my pants on. Then I went out to take a look. Nothing doing, except an excellent performance from Patrolman Davison. With which I had no problem. I’m happy to wait here. All good. Except I’m sorry you had to get up early.”

“Yeah, me too,” Amos said. “You also went out for dinner.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Take a guess.”

Because of blood on the street, he thought, or a random traffic stop a block or two later, or both. The guys from the apple farm. Had to be.

But out loud he said, “I don’t know.”

“Carter Carrington told us,” she said. “You walked eight blocks to the same bistro he was in. And eight blocks back. That wasn’t playing it safe.”