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Reacher stood for a long moment and ran through his options and then unlocked the truck and swept pebbles of broken glass off the seats and the dash. He raked them out of the driver’s footwell. He didn’t want the brake pedal to jam halfway through its travel. Or the gas pedal. The truck was slow enough already.
Three miles back to town, twelve to the line, and then five to the center of Hope. A twenty-mile drive, cold and slow and very windy. Like riding a motorcycle without eye protection. Reacher’s face was numb and his eyes were watering by the end of the trip. He parked outside the diner a little before nine o’clock in the morning. Vaughan’s cruiser wasn’t there. She wasn’t inside. The place was three-quarters empty. The breakfast rush was over.
Reacher took the back booth and ordered coffee and breakfast from the day-shift waitress. The college girl was gone. The woman brought him a mug and filled it from a flask and he asked her, “Did Officer Vaughan stop by this morning?”
The woman said, “She left about a half-hour ago.”
“Was she OK?”
“She seemed quiet.”
“What about Maria? The girl from San Diego?”
“She was in before seven.”
“Did she eat?”
“Plenty.”
“What about Lucy? The blonde from LA?”
“Didn’t see her. I think she left town.”
“What does Officer Vaughan’s husband do?”
The waitress said, “Well, not much anymore,” as if it was a dumb question to ask. As if that particular situation should have been plain to everybody.
That particular situation wasn’t plain to Reacher.
He said, “What, he’s unemployed?”
The woman started to answer him, and then she stopped, as if she suddenly remembered that the situation wasn’t necessarily plain to everybody, and it wasn’t her place to make it plain. As if she was on the point of revealing something that shouldn’t be revealed, like private neighborhood business. She just shook her head with embarrassment and bustled away with her flask. She didn’t speak at all when she came back five minutes later with his food.
Twenty minutes later Reacher got back in the damaged truck and drove south and crossed Third Street, and Fourth, and turned left on Fifth. Way ahead of him he could make out Vaughan’s cruiser parked at the curb. He drove on and pulled up behind it, level with the mailbox with the perfectly aligned letters. He idled in the middle of the traffic lane for a moment. Then he got out and walked ahead and put a palm on the Crown Vic’s hood. It was still very warm. She had left the diner nearly an hour ago, but clearly she had driven around a little afterward. Maybe looking for her Chevy, or looking for him. Or neither, or both. He got back in the truck and backed up and swung the wheel and bumped up onto her driveway. He parked with the grille an inch from her garage door and slid out. Didn’t lock up. There didn’t seem to be much point.
He found the winding path and followed it through the bushes to her door. He hooked her keyring on his finger and tapped the bell, briefly, just once. If she was awake, she would hear it. If she was asleep, it wouldn’t disturb her.
She was awake.
The door opened and she looked out of the gloom straight at him. Her hair was wet from the shower and combed back. She was wearing an oversized white T-shirt. Possibly nothing else. Her legs were bare. Her feet were bare. She looked younger and smaller than before.
She said, “How did you find me?”
He said, “Phone book.”
“You were here last night. Looking. A neighbor told me.”
“It’s a nice house.”
She said, “I like it.”
She saw the truck keys on his finger. He said, “I have a confession to make.”
“What now?”
“Someone broke all the windows.”
She pushed past him and stepped out to the path. Turned to face the driveway and studied the damage and said, “Shit.” Then it seemed to dawn on her that she was out in the yard barefoot in her nightwear and she pushed back inside.
“Who?” she asked.
“One of a thousand suspects.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Where?”
“I stopped by the metal plant.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the glass.” He slipped the keys off his finger and held them out. She didn’t take them. Instead she said, “You better come in.”
The house was laid out the way he had guessed. Right to left it went garage, mudroom, kitchen, living room, bedrooms. The kitchen seemed to be the heart of the home. It was a pretty space with painted cabinets and a wallpaper border at the top of the walls. The dishwasher was ru
Her personality, he guessed.
It seemed to him that one mind had chosen everything and one pair of hands had done everything. There was no evidence of compromise or dueling tastes. He knew that way back a kitchen was considered a woman’s domain. Certainly it had been that way in his mother’s day, but she had been French, which had made a difference. And since then he had been led to believe that things had changed. Guys cooked now, or at least left six-packs lying around, or put oil stains on the linoleum from fixing motorcycle engines.
There was no evidence of a second person in the house. None at all. Not a trace. From his position by the sink Reacher could see into the living room through an arch that was really just a doorway with the door taken out. There was a single armchair in there, and a TV set, and a bunch of moving boxes still taped shut.
Vaughan said, “Want coffee?”
“Always.”
“Did you sleep last night?”
“No.”
“Don’t have coffee, then.”
“It keeps me awake until bedtime.”
“What’s the longest you ever stayed awake?”
“Seventy-two hours, maybe.”
“Working?”
He nodded. “Some big deal, twenty years ago.”
“A big MP deal?”
He nodded again. “Somebody was doing something to somebody. I don’t recall the details.”
Vaughan rinsed her coffee pot and filled her machine with water. The machine was a big steel thing withCuisinart embossed on it in large letters. It looked reliable. She spooned coffee into a gold basket and hit a switch. She said, “Last night the deputies from Despair headed home after an hour.”
“They found me in the bar,” Reacher said. “They flushed me west with the phone call and then came after me. It was a trap.”
“And you fell for it.”
“Theyfell for it. I knew what they were doing.”
“How?”
“Because twenty years ago I used to stay up for seventy-two hours at a time dealing with worse folks than you’ll ever find in Despair.”
“What happened to the deputies?”
“They joined their full-time buddies in the infirmary.”
“All four of them?”
“All six of them. They added some on-site moral support.”
“You’re a one-man crime wave.”
“No, I’m Alice in Wonderland.”
Now Vaughan nodded.
“I know,” she said. “Why aren’t they doing anything about it? You’ve committed assault and battery on eight individuals, six of them peace officers, and you’ve wrecked two police cars. And yet you’re still walking around.”
“That’s the point,” Reacher said. “I’m still walking around, but in Hope, not in Despair. That’s weirdness number one. All they ever want to do is keep people out of there. They’re not interested in the law or justice or punishment.”