Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(94)

No one spoke.

Mark said, “More advice, if I may. Please don’t plan to sit in your room. It might feel smart, but it’s faulty strategy. It never works. As soon as they realize what you’re doing, they’ll move in, until they have you surrounded. You’ll have six guys at your door. They’ll be disappointed. They didn’t get their sport. They’ll take it out on you. They’ll make you last all night, but not in a good way.”

No one spoke.

Mark asked, “Did you talk about splitting up and going solo?”

Shorty looked away.

“I know,” Mark said. “Tough choice. The percentage play would be go for it. Problem is, you would never know what happened to the other person. In their final moments, I mean.”

—

Burke drove north. The phone died bar by bar. Reacher laid down the law. Burke was to let him out at the mouth of the track, and then go home and stay home, safe and secure. Never to return. Not saying yes and then doubling back and waiting. Not following on foot, just to see what was happening. None of that. Go home, stay home, forget all about it. No argument. No discussion. Not a democracy. That was the deal.

Burke agreed.

Reacher asked him again.

Burke agreed again.

They drove into the trees. It was already full dark under the canopy. Burke used his headlights. The twisted posts showed up five miles later. Right on time. Right where they should be. Burke stopped the car. Reacher got out. Burke drove away. Reacher stood on the road and watched him go. Eventually his tail lights disappeared, way far in the distance. Silence came down. There was thin moonlight on the road, from a gray night sky. Under the trees was darkness. Reacher set out walking. Alone in the dark.

—

Patty tried the door. She hoped it wouldn’t open. Not yet. They weren’t ready. They were leaning toward staying together. At least at first. As long as they could. But they hadn’t said so out loud. Not yet. They were leaning toward heading west. Directly away from the track. The opposite direction. A longer route out. Counterintuitive. Maybe a good idea. Maybe predictable. They didn’t know. They hadn’t committed. Not yet. They had debated taking a map from the car. In the end they decided not to. It was a compass they needed. They were worried about getting lost in the woods. They might walk in circles forever.

The door was still locked.

Patty stepped back and sat on the bed.

—

Two minutes later Reacher arrived at the tow truck. Its hard bulk loomed up out of the gloom. The darkness made its paint look black. Its chrome looked dull and gray. He knelt behind it and felt ahead for the fat rubber wire. He found it and logged its position in his mind. He stepped over it. He forced his way along the side of the truck, leading with his shoulder, elbow high, one side of him sliding easy on the waxed and polished paint, the other side of him getting pelted and scratched with twigs and leaves. He came out at the front and felt his way around to the center of the radiator grille. Which was the center of the track. He lined himself up and set out walking. Two miles to go.

—

They heard the quad-bikes start up. First one, and then another. The distant shriek of a starter motor, the nervous bark of a high-strung engine, the fast and anxious idle. Then a third machine, and a fourth. The noise beat back off the barn wall. Then a fifth and a sixth. Then all of them, growling and rumbling and buzzing, milling about, snicking into gear, accelerating away one by one, across the grass, onto the track, turning right, away from the house, toward the motel.

For a second Shorty wondered who had gotten the bike they had pushed to the road and back.

Patty tried the door.

Still locked.

The bikes formed up into what sounded like single file. They drove through the lot. Shorty turned and watched out the window. A procession. The boardwalk lights were still on. The bikes drove by, left to right, one by one. The riders were all dressed in black. They all had bows slung across their backs. They all had quivers full of arrows. They all had weird one-eyed night-vision goggles strapped to their heads. Some of them were blipping their engines. Some of them were up out of their saddles, raring to go.

They all rode away.

For a second Shorty wondered who had bet on the west.

Patty tried the door.

It opened.





Chapter 36


Patty pulled the door all the way open, and stood staring out, from one inch inside the threshold. The outside air was soft and sweet. The sky was dark as iron.

“This is crazy,” she said. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here. I feel safe here.”

“We aren’t safe here,” Shorty said. “We’re sitting ducks here.”

“We’re sitting ducks everywhere. They have night vision.”

“There are only six of them.”

“Nine,” Patty said. “You think the assholes are going to be impartial?”

“We can’t stay here.”

Patty said nothing. She put her hand out the door. She opened her fingers. She felt the air. She pushed it and cupped it, like swimming.

“We’ll go to Florida,” Shorty said. “We’ll have a windsurfer business. Maybe jet skis too. We’ll sell T-shirts. That’s where the money is. Patty and Shorty’s Aquatic Emporium. We could have a fancy design.”

Patty looked back at him.