Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(65)

“Is that a yes?”

“What is going to happen to us?”

“We’ll discuss that very soon. Before the end of the day, certainly. All we need right now is a decision on the window blind. Up or down?”

“Up,” Patty said.

The TV turned itself off. The screen went blank, and the circuitry rustled, and a tiny standby light glowed red.

Then inside the window unit the motor whirred and the blind came up, slow and steady, with warm sunlight pouring in underneath. The view was the same. The Honda, the lot, the grass, the wall of trees. But it was beautiful. The way it was lit. Patty put her elbows on the sill and her forehead on the glass.

She said, “The microphone is not in the light.”

Shorty said, “Patty, we’re not supposed to be talking.”

“He said I didn’t need to get on the bed. How did he know I got on the bed? How did he know I was about to right that minute?”

“Patty, you’re saying stuff out loud.”

“It’s not just a microphone. They have a camera in here. They’re watching us. They’ve been watching us all along.”

Shorty said, “A camera?”

“How else could he know I just stood up, ready to get on the bed? He saw me do it.”

Shorty looked around.

“Where is it?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What would it look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s a weird feeling.”

“You think?”

“Were they watching when we were asleep?”

“I guess they can watch whenever they want.”

“Maybe it’s in the light fixture,” he said. “Maybe that’s what he meant. Maybe he was saying it’s the camera in the light, not the microphone.”

Patty didn’t answer. She pushed off the sill and stepped back to the bed. She sat down next to Shorty. She put her hands on her knees and stared ahead through the window. The Honda, the lot, the grass. The wall of trees. She didn’t want to move. Not a muscle. Not even her eyes. They were watching her.

Then right in front of her a man peeked in the window.

He was on the boardwalk outside, craning around. Peeking in, one eye. Then he stepped more into view. He was a big guy with gray hair and a rich man’s tan. He stood square on and stared. A frank and open gaze. At her. At Shorty. At her. Then he turned away and waved. And beckoned. And spoke. Patty couldn’t hear what he said. The window was soundproof. But it looked like he said, their blind is up now.

In a happy and triumphant tone of voice.

Another man stepped into view.

And another.

All three men looked in the window.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, an inch from the glass.

They were staring, and judging, and evaluating. Their eyes were narrowing in contemplation. Their lips were pressing together.

They were starting slow, satisfied half smiles.

They were pleased by what they saw.

Patty said, “Mark, I know you can hear me.”

No response.

She said, “Mark, who are these people?”

His voice came out of the ceiling.

“We’ll discuss that very soon,” he said. “Before the end of the day, certainly.”





Chapter 26


The library was a handsome construction, built of red and white stone, in a revival style that would have worked equally well on a college campus or in a theme park. As promised it was surrounded on all sides by landscaped gardens, with trees and bushes and lawns and flower beds. Reacher took a paved path from a gate near where the Reverend Burke parked the Subaru. Inside there were people strolling, and people sitting on benches, and people lying flat on the grass. No one looked wrong. No one stood out. No police anywhere.

Up ahead on the street beyond the gardens beyond the building was a white panel van. Parked at the curb. Diametrically opposite the Subaru. The other side of the square. It had ice blue writing on the side. Every letter had a loaf of snow on top. An air conditioning repairman. Reacher walked on. Two minutes, Burke had said. A wild overestimate. It was going to be closer to fifty seconds. So far four people had passed him by on the narrow winding path, almost cheek to cheek, and four people had looked at him, from static positions on benches and lawns. Three others had paid him no attention. Eyes closed, or in a dream.

He went up the steps and in through the door. The lobby had the same red and white stone inside as outside. Granite, he thought. In the same ornate style. He found the stair to the basement. He came out in a big underground room with shelves like the spokes of a wheel. The reference section. Just like old Mr. Mortimer had promised. They get anything, he had said.

There was a woman at a desk. She was half hidden behind a computer screen. Maybe thirty-five. Long black hair, in a cascade of tiny curls. She looked up and said, “Can I help you?”

“The birdwatching club,” Reacher said. “Someone told me you have the old records.”

The woman pattered on her keyboard.

“Yes,” she said. “We have those. What years?”

Reacher had never known Stan when he wasn’t a birdwatcher. There was no before and after. But neither was there in the way Stan had talked about it. He had sounded like he had been a birdwatcher forever. Which was plausible. A lot of people started a lifelong hobby at a very young age. He could have joined the club right then. But he wouldn’t have been trusted to write the minutes. Not as a kid. He wouldn’t have been taken seriously by the hobby magazine. He wouldn’t have been elected secretary. Not until much later. So as a starting point Reacher gave the woman four consecutive years, from when Stan was fourteen, up to when he left home to join the Marines.