Jack and Kill

Duffy projected loudly, “That’s my plan. There’s a diner on Grand Boulevard about a mile past the police station. Head north. I’ll tell you where to turn.”

Gaspar pulled the big car onto the northbound lane and joined the spotty traffic traveling now at normal speeds. New Hope was a tidy town populated with Disney-like storefronts and gaslights and lined with flower boxes still sporting fall mums in yellow hues. The sidewalks were swept clean. The only thing missing were shoppers, but given the weather and the hour and the excitement back at the intersection, an absence of pedestrians was not surprising.

Three miles beyond the crime scene stood a freestanding red brick building with white Doric columns and an impressive double door. Once, it might have been a bank. Now, The New Hope Family Diner advertised breakfast all day. Duffy said, “Park in the side lot. There’s an entrance there.”

Also in the side lot were a dozen vehicles of various makes and models. At the end of the row, Kim noticed a standard issue government black SUV with dark tinted windows all around the back. The driver was clean cut, well groomed, and infinitely patient.

Duffy led the way inside the diner and chose a booth in the back away from the other patrons. Duffy sat with her back to the exit, leaving Kim and Gaspar the best position choice. Surprising, Kim thought, as she and Gaspar sat facing the door.

After the waitress had taken their orders and delivered the coffee, Duffy said, “You’ve been out of the loop on this situation so let me fill you in first. The Vice President’s daughter and her husband are divorcing. The divorce is contentious and not going well for her.”

Kim had heard the rumors. Sally Armstrong had been a wild child when her father was one heartbeat away from leading the free world. Substance abuse was alleged, but never admitted. Marriage hadn’t tamed her.

Gaspar watched Duffy closely while drinking his coffee, but he asked no questions, which was odd for him. His behavior had been erratic since his wife called earlier. Kim continued to worry about his Miami issues, but she could only handle one major problem at a time.

“Go on,” Kim said.

Duffy said, “Six days ago, young Brook Armstrong III was kidnapped from his home in Arlington by his na

“Otherwise known as ‘Jill Hill’ and the dead truck driver I suppose,” Kim said.

Duffy nodded. “Jillian had disabled the surveillance cameras, but she wasn’t aware of additional surveillance inside and outside the Armstrong house. As a result, the Vice President’s team knew fairly quickly that the two had abducted the boy. The kidnapping was well pla

Gaspar wiped his hand across his face and made a strange, almost moaning noise. His voice filled with anger and accusation. “Meaning Jillian executed the kidnapping with the cooperation of one of Brook’s parents, and you were one of the people supposed to keep that from happening, and then the team lost visual contact before they could be apprehended, right?”

Duffy’s a

Kim quickly put the timeline together in her head. “So you were working the case three days ago, when we saw you in DC.”

Pieces of the puzzle were clicking into place, but what did the full picture look like?

Duffy had lowered her gaze and drank a few sips of black coffee before she continued. “We got a lucky break today. I received an anonymous tip—”

Gaspar’s fist pounded the table, nostrils flared, a deep flush rose from is collar to his hairline. “Seriously? You expect me to believe that?”

A few diners glanced toward their table, maybe alarmed, maybe curious about the fuss. Duffy cleared her throat and continued as if he’d never spoken. “I received an anonymous tip a few hours ago. Brook was seen riding in a vehicle involved an insignificant rear end collision here in New Hope. While we put everything in place to pick him up here, the truck driver got out of hand. You arrived before we did.”

“What a load of crap,” Gaspar said, angrier than Kim had seen him in their brief time as partners. Was he angry because of Duffy’s lies? Or was it something else?

Duffy’s eyes flashed anger now, too. But she remained seated. She drank coffee and, like Kim, waited for Gaspar to settle down. When he did, she handed them a hand-held video device.

“Press the play button,” she said.

5.

Otto and Gaspar watched the scene unfold on Duffy’s video like a silent movie. The video was obviously spliced from images captured by several sources. The early segments were recorded by drones without soundtrack and maybe some kind of interior vehicle cameras. Later portions contained some sound and a bit of dialogue, indicating they were recorded by traffic cams and maybe other sources. The images were good enough. Clear enough to confirm some things. Not clear enough for others.

The sign advising sixteen miles to New Hope’s city limits was four miles back on the road before the video’s start. The hitchhiker was hunched into his jacket like cold and damp and heavy November air chilled his bones even as he trudged westward along the road’s uneven shoulder at a warming clip. Stinging wind assaulted his face so he kept his head down.

Nothing to see, anyway. The bleak landscape was less welcoming than any Kim had traveled before, which was quite a feat. He probably felt the same.

Experience must have told him to keep moving until, maybe, the right vehicle came along. A farmer or trucker could have offered him a ride; maybe that’s how he reached this point. Otherwise, he’d walk another four hours before he found hot coffee and a decent diner and, if he could muster a little luck, a warm bed for the night.

He’d made such trips before and Kim figured he expected more long walks down empty roads toward new towns in his future.

But Kim recognized him immediately because she’d seen him twice before. She recognized his clothes, too. The same heavy work boots probably kept his feet warm enough, dry enough. The brown leather jacket’s collar was turned up and his hair covered his ears, but a cap and gloves would have improved things, weather-wise. Indigo jeans and a work shirt surely weren’t sufficient. She wondered why he didn’t wear something warmer, at the very least.

“That’s Reacher, isn’t it?” Kim asked. A test for Duffy. How far could she be trusted?

Duffy replied, “Can’t see the face.”

Which wasn’t exactly true, but Kim figured Duffy knew the value of plausible deniability, too, and maybe Duffy’s response was better than an affirmation for now.

“Why was he there?” Kim asked.

“I’m not a mind reader,” Duffy said, a little huffily this time.

So she doesn’t know why. And she’s pissed off about it. Interesting.

Reacher looked less like a guy down on his luck and more like a threat, but there was nothing he could do about his travel costume then, even if he’d cared about fashion, which he probably didn’t.

Kim wondered aloud, “Why he was headed to New Hope along that lonely road this afternoon? He was already here yesterday. Where did he go and why was he coming back?”

No one answered. Maybe someday, Kim would have the chance to ask him. She felt her stomach churn at the thought and controlled it by turning her attention back to the video.

Heavy clouds threatened to snow blanket the countryside again before nightfall. He could have slept outside. He’d done it many times before when he was in the army. But maybe he had a plan for a room in New Hope, although everything she knew about him said he wasn’t much of an advance pla