The Midnight Line (17 page)

They left Noble in the house, and drove back to Laramie, with Reacher sprawled across the rear seat, and Mackenzie upright in the front, and Bramall at the wheel, one-handed. They agreed on the chain hotel Reacher and Bramall had used the night before. It had proved adequate, except for no coffee. Reacher said the diner he had found was a good substitute. Bramall agreed. He had found it too. He said breakfast there was excellent.

“But then what?” Mackenzie said. “What do we do after breakfast? What's our next move? We have nothing now.”

“Thanks to the DEA,” Bramall said. “Trust them to start a stampede.”

“We have more than some folks,” Reacher said. “I agree, losing Billy is an inconvenience. But it's worse for others. Like that lady up near the old homestead. Even all the way out there. She needed something bad today. She was getting scratchy. She was waiting for Billy. But he isn't coming. So what next for her? Tomorrow she'll be desperate. She'll come looking, surely. She'll come to town. They all will. If Rose is an addict, she'll come to us.”

They met in the lobby at eight in the morning. Bramall was in a fresh shirt and Mackenzie was in a fresh blouse. Reacher's clothes were a day old, but he felt OK in their company. He had used a whole bar of soap in the shower. They walked up to the diner and got a table. Mackenzie was OK with it.

She said, “Maybe six weeks ago the price of pills had gone especially high, and that's why she had to sell her ring. To afford them.”

“Maybe,” Reacher said.

“I want it to be pills,” she said. “Not needles in a toilet stall.”

“Of course.”

“I'm sure Special Agent Noble was speaking broadly when he said there are no pills on the black market anymore. There must be some.”

Reacher said nothing.

Mackenzie said, “Before this is over, I'll want to know why it happened.”

“Probably our fault,” Reacher said. “Depends on the wound she got. Could have been a scratch, but if it was something serious on the battlefield, with the medics under fire and so on, then she'll have gotten a morphine jab ahead of a rough evacuation. Then maybe another morphine jab ahead of triage, and another while she was waiting for surgery. And then she got two weeks in a recovery room with a big tub of opioid pain medication by the bed. She was probably an addict before she left the hospital.”

“Depending on the wound. Maybe it's still painful. Maybe that's why she needs the pills. Or the powder, now. With the needles in the toilet stall. If Agent Noble is right.”

“Did your sister wear silver clothes?”

“Why?”

“Porterfield's neighbor might have seen her in his car. She remembers a silvery color.”

“Was it winter?”

“A month before the start of spring.”

“You can get winter coats in silver. Almost like foil. Like a high-tech material.”

“Would she wear that color?”

“I might,” Mackenzie said.

Reacher thought about it. The hair, the eyes, the face, with a silver foil coat. She would look like the picture on the back of a shiny magazine.

An exact replica.

They drove to the university geography department and took another look at the giant book of maps. They traced the settlements westward, from the Mule Crossing turn. First came Billy's place, south of the dirt road, and then Porterfield's, north of it, and then his neighbor's, south again. They had seen all of those. Beyond them lay twelve more places. Six each side of the road, altogether stretching forty long miles into the mountains. Then the dirt road ended. No way out, except to turn around. Not really a bowl, not really a valley. Just a chain of rising foothills, with a road that quit when the mountains came.

Mackenzie said, “You think she's in there somewhere.”

Reacher said, “She was either living with Porterfield, or she was visiting with him on a regular basis, yet no one ever saw her, except maybe one occasion. If she lived anywhere else, she would have to drive in and out through Mule Crossing every single time. More people would have seen her, surely. Maybe even the old guy in the post office. But no one ever did. She must have been driving there and back the other way. Deeper into the hills. A buck gets ten she's there right now. Where else would she go?”

“She doesn't own a car,” Bramall said. “Not according to the Wyoming DMV. Or any other state.”

“She camps out in abandoned ranch houses. Either she finds cars or steals them. She doesn't care whose name is on the title. All a car has to do is start up when she needs it.”

“I want to go there,” Mackenzie said. “Back to Mule Crossing. It's like the neck of a funnel. If she's in there, she's got to come out sooner or later. I want to be there when she does.”

“If I'm right,” Reacher said.

“If you're wrong, we'll find her in town tonight. Or tomorrow.”

They pulled over and sat in the car, near the old post office, in a spot where they would get a good head-on view of anything coming down the dirt road. Just before the turn, where everyone would slow right down, and look first one way, and then the other, carefully, before making the left or the right on the pavement. Close enough for faces. At first it was awkward. Reacher figured they were all having the same trouble, picturing exactly what it was they expected to see. They knew the theory. The lack of Billy would draw the addicts out. But what would that look like? Reacher had seen his share of movie trailers. The walking dead. All kinds of zombies. He realized he was expecting some kind of apocalyptic vision.

The first candidate approached out of the west in an ancient pick-up truck that was lurching and bouncing and trailing a dust cloud a mile long. Not Rose Sanderson. The driver turned out to be a thin-faced man, with a turned-down mouth, as disapproving as an old-time preacher. Maybe an addict, maybe not. He looked left and right and turned toward Colorado.

The dust cloud settled.

They waited.

From the back seat, Reacher asked Mackenzie, “Where were you, when Rose was at West Point?”

She turned around.

“University of Chicago,” she said. “Then Princeton, for postgrad.”

“Studying what?”

“English literature. Different, I know.”

“Not so different. Some of them can read at West Point now. If you take it slow and point to the letters.”

She smiled.

“I didn't mean it like that,” she said. “I know Rose is as smart as I am. Obviously. It's a scientific fact. I meant she was prepared to kill people, and I wasn't.”

“That was the big dispute?”

“It was never a big dispute. We never fell out. But things happened so fast back then. All of a sudden Rose was in the army. And that was a serious thing. Our resources were stretched thin. She was hardly ever home for nine years. I was never told where she was. I couldn't go visit. Most of the time I couldn't even call. Meanwhile I was working. I got married. That's how it was. We had real lives. Like everyone else with a sibling.”

“Except she was prepared to kill people, and you weren't.”

“I don't mean she wanted to, or planned to. It was an ethical discussion. That's all. We were eighteen. I wasn't saying it had to be all or nothing. In fact it never is. No one says always or never. Everyone says sometimes. But her sometimes were not the same as mine. She would pull the trigger before I would. Which was OK. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was naïve. It wasn't the difference of opinion that bothered me. We always had different opinions. It was that she had thought about it, seriously, carefully, and decided yes, she could do it. For real. Which changed her a little. She changed herself, by deciding it. For the first time ever I felt not the same as her.”

Reacher said nothing.

She turned back.

They waited.

The second candidate for the apocalypse was the woman who had given the strawberry pie to Sy Porterfield. His neighbor. Second place on the left. She was in a battered Jeep SUV. She looked left and right and turned toward Laramie. Maybe heading to the market. Maybe planning to spend time in the fruit aisle.

The third vehicle they saw came from behind them. It turned in off the two-lane, and passed them by, and set out down the dirt road west.

It was a pick-up truck.

On the front it had snowplow pistons, bolted to the frame.

Bramall looked a question, and Mackenzie and Reacher both nodded, so he started the engine and bumped up on the dirt road. A unanimous decision. The obvious play. It cost them nothing to follow the pick-up at least as far as Billy's place. Their eyes would be on the neck of the funnel throughout. Any random driving dead would pass right by, close enough to touch. Certainly close enough to eyeball in great detail. Then in the end if the pick-up kept on going, they could coast to a stop and turn around, and call the snowplow pistons a weird coincidence.

“What if it turns in?” Mackenzie said.

“Maybe it's a competitor just heard the news,” Reacher said. “Maybe he wants Billy's Rolodex. Maybe snowplowing is a very competitive business.”

“Suppose it's Billy himself.”

“I'm sure the Boy Detective changed the locks. Or glued them up, or whatever they do now. Either one of which will make our boy good and mad. He'll get all cross and frustrated. He'll go get his deer rifle from his truck, to shoot the locks. He'll be standing right there on the porch with it when we show up. Finger on the trigger.”

“Only if we turn in too.”

“He hasn't heard the phone message. He'll think we're Mormons. Or whichever it is let women join in now.”

By that point they had caught up to about a hundred yards behind the pick-up. Which would be considered a very close pursuit, in such a vast landscape, but they were invisible, because of the dust cloud. The pick-up's mirrors couldn't see them.

They rolled on, in secret convoy. The pronghorn herd was grazing a new patch of pasture. Two miles gone. Less than a minute remaining, at their current speed.

The pick-up slowed. They saw it loom large and ghostlike in the cloud ahead. Bramall backed off. The pick-up braked, lights flaring, all the way down to walking speed, and then it turned a wide slow left into the mouth of Billy's driveway.

“Go for it,” Reacher said. “Go after him.”

Bramall looked at Mackenzie.

She hesitated.

Reacher said, “He hasn't heard the phone message. He doesn't know who we are. We're just three random people.”

Mackenzie said, “He knows where Rose is.”

Bramall turned in. No dust on the driveway. It was a forest track, all rock and grit and gravel. Now the Toyota was plainly visible. They hung back. They saw the pick-up through the trees. Two hundred yards ahead of them, flashing through the sun and the shadows.

“Stupid to run and come right back,” Reacher said.

“Maybe he wants his money,” Mackenzie said.

They rolled on, keeping pace. The pick-up drove through the final curve and out of sight. Another fifty yards it would be out of the woods. Then the last hundred, over the beaten red dirt, to the house.

“Let me out here,” Reacher said. “I'll walk the rest of the way, in the trees. I can cut the corner. I can get there faster.”

“Is that smart?” Bramall said.

“It's smarter than sticking together. A good squad never bunches up. Too big of a target.”

Bramall stopped the car and Reacher slid out. Bramall drove on. Reacher watched him go, and then he threaded his way into the woods, and set out on what he hoped was a straight line to the last tree before the house. He got close just in time to see the pick-up drive across the last of the dirt, and park near the house.

He waited.

A hundred yards away in the mouth of the driveway he saw Bramall roll to a stop. His Toyota was well hidden. No glint of paint, no gleam of chrome. All completely covered with thick red dust. Better than desert camouflage.

He waited.

The pick-up's engine turned off.

The driver's door opened.

A guy got out. He was young. Early twenties, maybe. Six feet tall. Couple hundred pounds. Maybe more. Most of it fat. He was a big shapeless guy. He looked slow and clumsy.

Not Billy.

Billy wore a thirty-two waist, and a thirty leg, and an eight and a half shoe.

The big guy took a ring of keys from his pocket, and stared at it like he had never seen one before. He carried it up on the porch, and walked to the door. He chose a key and bent down to the hole.

He looked puzzled.

He touched the keyhole with his fingertip.

Then he straightened up and spun around, as if he was suddenly certain someone was behind him. With a camera, maybe. For kids to watch on their phones. And laugh.

Reacher stepped out of the trees.

He walked across the dirt, and waved a come-on to Bramall. The guy by the door watched him all the way. Not reacting. Still looking puzzled. Reacher stepped up on the porch. Up close the guy looked harmless. His shape made his clothes tight and smooth. There were no unexplained lumps or bumps in his pockets. He was unarmed. He was very young. He was no kind of a physical threat.

Maybe not the smartest kid, either.

Not a whole lot going on behind his eyes.

Reacher said, “Who are you?”

The kid said, “I came by to get something.”

Which was technically non-responsive, but Reacher let it go. Bramall and Mackenzie stepped up on the porch. The kid looked at them. Still puzzled. Reacher looked at the keyhole. There was a bead of glue in it. The Boy Detective had changed one lock, maybe at the back, and glued all the others. Efficiency. Saving taxpayer money.

The kid said, “Who are you?”

Reacher said, “I asked first.”

“I'm doing nothing wrong.”

“Just tell me your first name.”

“It's Mason.”

“OK, Mason, it's good to meet you. Why are you here?”

“I came by to get something.”

“For who?”

“For me. Billy said I could have it.”

“Who is Billy?”

The kid said, “He's my brother.”

“Is he?”

“Well, half.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don't know. He ran off again.”

“Has he done that before?”

“Two times that I can remember. This time he called me and told me where he left his truck. He said I could have it. And something in his house, too.”

“Where was the truck?”

“Up near Casper.”

Reacher nodded. Nearer Mule Crossing than Billings, Montana. The other guy had driven more miles than Billy. Why? Must have been their agreed-upon vector. They were planning to head southeast. Through Nebraska, and away.

He said, “What kind of something did he leave in the house?”

“I'm not sure I should tell you.”

“Was it money in a box?”

The kid looked surprised.

“Yes,” he said. “In a shoebox.”

“Did he want you to bring it to him?”

“No sir, it's for me. He said he's already with a guy who has plenty.”

“Where?”

“He didn't tell me. He wouldn't. No way. He used to say to me, Mason, if you ever have to run, you tell no one where you're going, not even me.”

“You completely sure he didn't tell you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What does Billy do for a living?”

“He works the snowplow.”

“What about the summer?”

“I think he buys and sells things.”

“What kind of things does he sell?”

“Just things. Like flea-market things.”

“Where does he sell them?”

“I think all around. Wherever people are who want to buy them.”

“Do you know any of his customers?”

“No.”

“Have you ever seen a woman who looks like my friend here?”

“No.”

“Do you know what an accessory is?”

“Something you put on your truck.”

“Also a legal word,” Reacher said. “It means if you know a secret, and you don't tell, then you go to jail too. Billy has strayed far from the narrow path of righteousness, I'm afraid. He has made some poor choices in his life. The government seized this house yesterday. A federal agent put glue in the lock. That's what they do now. So this is our last chance to help you, Mason. If you know where Billy is, you better tell us, right now.”

“I don't know where Billy is,” the brother said, kind of happily. “But don't worry. He'll be back in a year or two. That's what happened the last two times.”

Reacher looked at Bramall, who shrugged. Then at Mackenzie, who nodded. She believed the kid.

Who said, “How do I get in the house?”

“You don't,” Reacher said. “No point. The money is long gone. It was in a federal evidence locker before you woke up this morning. But you can keep the truck. Get a blade for the plow, and you could set up in business.”

They watched the kid drive away. Mackenzie stayed on the porch and looked at the view. The wide empty plains on the right. The old post office, and the firework store. The pronghorns, about a mile away. The red road, still neatly scraped, still nicely cambered. On the left, the low jagged peaks, like miniature mountain ranges.

She said, “Logically we should keep on going. She's not here. She's not at Porterfield's place, which is next. She's not at the pie lady's place, which comes after that. So logically we could just keep on going, and then stop before the fourth place. We'd be closer. Nothing could happen behind us. It would still all be ahead of us.”

“If Reacher is right,” Bramall said. “Which he might not be.”

“Then why has no one seen her?”

Bramall didn't answer.

Reacher said, “I guess the gift of the truck was a cowboy kind of thing. Billy was making sure someone looked after his best horse, so to speak, come what may. All that kind of good stuff. But ten grand in a box is different. That's a lot of money to give away. I don't think he wanted to. I think he was out on the road when he got the call from Montana. Too far from home to come back and get it. The pact meant he had no time. He had to go to Casper immediately. And given the direction the other guy was driving from Billings, we have to assume they carried on east through Nebraska. And if we time it from Scorpio's first voicemail, this all was at least forty-eight hours ago. They're in Chicago by now. Except I don't think they went to Chicago. I don't think they would have felt at home there. My guess is they turned south for Oklahoma. They could make some kind of living there. Or the same kind of living.”

“Possible,” Bramall said.

Mackenzie said, “But Special Agent Noble will never be able to figure that out, because he'll never know where the truck was found, because of our decision to give it to the brother.”

Bramall said, “Our?”

“Nothing to be ashamed of. I'm sure it was done with the best of intentions. Job creation is a wonderful thing. But I want Special Agent Noble to have a shot at finding Billy. Because I think he would tell us if he does. Why wouldn't he? I think we should call him. I think we should tell him about Oklahoma.”

“It was only a guess,” Bramall said.

“Based on a fact,” she said. “Which Noble hasn't got.”

“He might guess different.”

“At least he'll get a chance to.”

“You really want me to call him?”

“I think we should.”

Bramall looked at Reacher.

Reacher said, “He cooked, after all. Normally we would send a note of some kind.”

Bramall took out his tortoiseshell reading glasses, and a small notebook. He opened it with his thumb.

Reacher said, “You have Noble's number in there?”

Bramall said, “Just the western division's switchboard.”

He dialed and played phone tag for a long minute, saying the name over and over again, with variations, Special Agent Kirk Noble, Special Agent Noble, Kirk Noble. Eventually the guy himself must have come on the line, because Bramall reminded him who he was, in terms of the bacon-and-egg dinner, and then he said now there was very strong reason to believe the fugitives had gone to Oklahoma.

Evidently Noble asked to speak to Reacher.

Bramall passed the phone.

Noble said, “There's a problem with Porterfield.”