"I don"t believe you. You"re a cop."
"You saw what was in my pockets."
"You left your badge in your room."
"I didn"t. You want to check? My room is right here."
She stared at him in panic and put both hands on the door jambs like he was about to seize her around her waist and drag her away to his quarters. The motel clerk stepped out of the office, forty feet to Reacher"s left. She was a stout woman of about fifty. She saw Reacher and saw the girl and stopped walking and watched. Then she moved again but changed direction and started heading toward them. In Reacher"s experience motel clerks were either nosy about or else completely uninterested in their guests. He figured this one was the nosy kind. He stepped back a pace and gave Lucy Anderson some air and held up his hands, palms out, friendly and rea.s.suring.
"Relax," he said. "If I was here to hurt you, you"d already be hurt by now, don"t you think? You and your husband."
She didn"t answer. Just turned her head and saw the clerk"s approach and then ducked back to the inside shadows and slammed her door, all in one neat move. Reacher turned away but knew he wasn"t going to make it in time. The clerk was already within calling distance.
"Excuse me," she said.
Reacher stopped. Turned back. Said nothing.
The woman said, "You should leave that girl alone."
"Should I?"
"If you want to stay here."
"Is that a threat?"
"I try to maintain standards."
"I"m trying to help her."
"She thinks the exact opposite."
"You"ve talked?"
"I hear things."
"I"m not a cop."
"You look like a cop."
"I can"t help that."
"You should investigate some real crimes."
Reacher said, "I"m not investigating any kind of crimes. I told you, I"m not a cop."
The woman didn"t answer.
Reacher asked, "What real crimes?"
"Violations."
"Where?"
"At the metal plant in Despair."
"What kind of violations?"
"All kinds."
"I don"t care about violations. I"m not an EPA inspector. I"m not any kind of an inspector."
The woman said, "Then you should ask yourself why that plane flies every night."
26
Reacher got halfway back to his room and saw Vaughan"s old pick-up turn in off the street. It was moving fast. It bounced up over the curb and headed through the lot straight at him. Vaughan was at the wheel in her cop uniform. Incongruous. And urgent. She hadn"t taken time to go fetch her official cruiser. She braked hard and stopped with her radiator grille an inch away from him. She leaned out the window and said, "Get in, now."
Reacher asked, "Why?"
"Just do it."
"Do I have a choice?"
"None at all."
"Really?"
"I"m not kidding."
"Are you arresting me?"
"I"m prepared to. I"ll use my gun and my cuffs if that"s what it takes. Just get in the car."
Reacher studied her face through the windshield gla.s.s. She was serious about something. And determined. That was for sure. The evidence was right there in the set of her jaw. So he climbed in. Vaughan waited until he closed his door behind him and asked, "You ever done a ride-along with a cop before? All night? A whole watch?"
"Why would I? Iwas a cop." a cop."
"Well, whatever, you"re doing one tonight."
"Why?"
"We got a courtesy call. From Despair. You"re a wanted man. They"re coming for you. So tonight you stay where I can see you."
"They can"t be coming for me. They can"t even have woken up yet."
"Their deputies are coming. All four of them."
"Really?"
"That"s what deputies do. They deputize."
"So I hide in your car? All night?"
"d.a.m.n straight."
"You think I need protection?"
"My town needs protection. I don"t want trouble here."
"Those four won"t be any trouble. One of them is already busted up and one was throwing his guts up the last time I saw him."
"So you could take them?"
"With one hand behind my back and my head in a bag."
"Exactly. I"m a cop. I have a responsibility. No fighting in my streets. It"s unseemly." She pulled a tight U-turn in the motel lot and headed back the way she had come. Reacher asked, "When will they get here?"
"The plant shuts down at six. I imagine they"ll head right over."
"How long will they stay?"
"The plant opens up again at six tomorrow morning."
Reacher said, "You don"t want me in your car all night."
"I"ll do what it takes. Like I said. This is a decent place. I"m not going to let it get trashed, either literally or metaphorically."
Reacher paused and said, "I could leave town."
"Permanently?" Vaughan asked.
"Temporarily."
"And go where?"
"Despair, obviously. I can"t get in trouble there, can I? Their cops are in the hospital and their deputies will be here all night."
Vaughan made a right and a left and headed down Second Street toward the diner. She stayed quiet for a moment and then she said, "There"s another one in town today."
"Another what?"
"Another girl. Just like Lucy Anderson. But dark, not blonde. She blew in this afternoon and now she"s sitting around and staring west like she"s waiting for word from Despair."
"From a boyfriend or a husband?"
"Possibly."
"Possibly a dead boyfriend or husband, Caucasian, about twenty years old, five-eight and one-forty."
"Possibly."
"I should go there."
Vaughan drove past the diner and kept on driving. She drove two blocks south and came back east on Fourth Street. No real reason. Just motion, for the sake of it. Fourth Street had trees and retail establishments behind the north sidewalk and trees and a long line of neat homes behind the south. Small yards, picket fences, foundation plantings, mailboxes on poles that had settled to every angle except the truly vertical.
"I should go there," Reacher said again.
"Wait until the deputies get here. You don"t want to pa.s.s them on the road."
"OK."
"And don"t let them see you leave."
"OK."
"And don"t make trouble over there."
"I"m not sure there"s anybody left to make trouble with. Unless I meet the judge."
27
For the second time that day Vaughan gave up her pick-up truck and walked home to get her cruiser. Reacher drove the truck to a quiet side street and parked facing north in the shadow of a tree and watched the traffic on First Street directly ahead of him. He had a limited field of view. But there wasn"t much to see, anyway. Whole ten-minute periods pa.s.sed without visible activity. Not surprising. Residents returning from the Kansas direction would have peeled off into town down earlier streets. And no one in their right mind was returning from Despair, or heading there. The daylight was fading fast. The world was going gray and still. The clock in Reacher"s head was ticking around, relentlessly.
When it hit six-thirty-two he saw an old crew-cab pick-up truck flash through his field of vision. Moving smartly, from the Despair direction. A driver, and three pa.s.sengers inside. Big men, close together. They filled the cramped quarters, shoulder to shoulder.
Reacher recognized the truck.
He recognized the driver.
He recognized the pa.s.sengers.
The Despair deputies, right on time.
He paused a beat and started the old Chevy"s engine and moved off the curb. He eased north to First Street and turned left. Checked his mirror. The old crew-cab was already a hundred yards behind him, moving away in the opposite direction, slowing down and getting ready to turn. The road ahead was empty. He pa.s.sed the hardware store and hit the gas and forced the old truck up to sixty miles an hour. Five minutes later he thumped over the expansion joint and settled in to a noisy cruise west.