One Shot

The barber did the thing with the hand mirror, to show Reacher the back.

“Happy?” he asked.

Reacher nodded. It looked OK, except that there was a half-inch margin all around where his skin was dead white. He had had longer hair in Miami and the tan hadn’t penetrated. The barber brushed the clippings off his collar and removed the towel. Reacher gave him his seven bucks and tipped him a dollar. Then he walked around the block. Nobody followed him. He unlocked his room and washed his face and shaved under his sideburns again. There was a new half-inch of stubble there. The barber’s clippers had been a little blunt.

The Metropole interviews were finished by nine-twenty and they gave Emerson absolutely nothing at all. The night porter swore blind that he knew nothing about the girl. There were only eleven guests and none of them was promising. Emerson was an experienced and talented detective and he knew that people sometimes tell the truth. And he knew that accepting the truth was as important a part of a detective’s professional arsenal as rejecting lies. So he conferred with Do

Then a guy named Gary called, from the auto parts store.

Gary had gotten to work at eight and had found himself really short-staffed. There was still no sign of Jeb Oliver and Sandy hadn’t shown, either. At first he had been a

Gary agreed to close the store for the day and Emerson sent a patrol car to pick him up. First stop was the morgue. Gary identified the body and was white and badly shaken when he arrived in Emerson’s office. Do

So Emerson started in, gently, with all the usual cop questions. Last time you saw her? Know anything about her private life? Family? Boyfriends? Ex-boyfriends? Weird phone calls? Did she have any enemies? Problems? Money troubles?

And then, inevitably: Anything unusual over the last couple of days?

And so by ten-fifteen Emerson knew all about the stranger that had come to the store the day before. Very tall, heavily built, tan, aggressive, demanding, wearing olive-green pants and an olive-green fla

Emerson left Gary with Do

“Your lucky day,” he said. “We’ve got a nineteen-year-old female homicide victim. Someone broke her neck.”

“How does that make me lucky?”

“Her last unexplained contact was yesterday, at her place of work, with a guy that sounds a whole lot like our pal Jack Reacher.”

“Really?”

“We got a pretty good description from her boss. And her neck was busted by a single blow to the side of the head, which ain’t easy unless you’re built like Reacher is.”

“Who was the girl?”

“A redhead from the auto parts store out toward the highway. There’s also a boy missing from the same store.”

“Where did this thing happen?”

“Outside the Metropole Palace Hotel.”

“Is that where Reacher is staying?”

“Not according to the register.”

“So is he a suspect or not?”

“Right now he looks pretty damn good for it.”

“So when are you going to bring him in?”

“As soon as I find him.”

“I’ll call Helen,” Alex Rodin said. “She’ll know where he is.”

Rodin lied to his daughter. He told her that Bellantonio needed to see Reacher to correct a possible misunderstanding about part of the prosecution’s evidence.

“What part?” Helen asked.

“Just something they discussed. Probably nothing important, but I’m playing this very cautiously. Don’t want to hand you grounds for an appeal.”

The traffic cone, Helen thought.

“He’s on his way to the airport,” she said.

“Why?”

“To say hello to Eileen Hutton.”

“They know each other?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s unethical.”

“To know each other?”

“To influence her testimony.”

“I’m sure he won’t do that.”

“When will he be back?”

“After lunch, I think.”

“OK,” Rodin said. “It’ll keep.”

But it didn’t keep, of course. Emerson left for the airport immediately. He had met Reacher twice face-to-face and could pick him out of a crowd. Do

CHAPTER 9

Reacher didn’t go to the airport. He knew better. Senior military perso

So Reacher walked south and east to the library. Asked the subdued woman at the desk where the Yellow Pages were stored. He went where she pointed and hauled the book out onto a table. Opened it to H for Hotels. Started looking. Almost certainly some JAG Corps office grunt had done the equivalent thing the previous day, but remotely, probably online. Hutton would have told him to book her a room. He would have been anxious to please, so he would have turned first to the street map and found the courthouse and the road in from the north. Then he would have chosen a decent place convenient for both. Somewhere with parking, for the rental car. Probably a chain, with an established government rate accessible by a code number.

The Marriott Suites, Reacher thought. That’s where she’ll be headed. Off the highway, south toward town, an obvious left turn east, and there it was, three blocks north of the courthouse, an easy walk, breakfast included. The office grunt had probably printed out driving directions from the internet and clipped them to her itinerary. Anxious to please. Hutton had that effect on people.

He memorized the Marriott’s number and put the book away. Then he walked out to the lobby and dialed the pay phone.