Lee Child - Echo Burning

Alice shrugged and nodded all at the same time.

"Good theory, I guess," she said. "Good logic. Question is, were they following the same logic?"

"I hope so," Reacher said. "Because we don't have time for a big search. I don't think we have much time for anything. I'm getting a bad feeling. I think she's in real danger now."

Alice said nothing.

"Maybe the others were supposed to call in regularly," he said. "Maybe this third guy is about to panic."

"So it's a hell of a gamble."

He said nothing.

"Do the math," she said. "A forty-five-mile radius gives you a circle over six thousand square miles in area. And you want to pick one tiny pinpoint out of it?" He was quiet again, another mile.

Roll the dice, Reacher.

"I think they were pretty smart and careful," he said. "And their priorities were pretty obvious. They were looking at the same maps we are. So I think that's how they'd have done it."

"But are you sure?"

He shrugged.

"Can't ever be sure," he said. "But that's how I'd have done it. That's the trick, Alice. Think like them. Never fails."

"Never?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes."

The sleeping crossroads hamlet was dead ahead. The school, the gas station, the diner. Pecos straight on, Old Fort Stockton to the right.

"Well?" she asked.

He said nothing.

"Well?" she asked again.

He stared through the windshield.

"Decision?" she said.

He said nothing. She braked hard and skidded a yard on the soaked road and came to a complete halt right on the melted stop line.

"Well?"

Roll the damn dice, Reacher.

"Make the turn," he said.

* * *

The driver decided to take a shower first. An excusable delay. He had time. The room was locked. The child was fast asleep. He stripped off his clothes and folded them neatly and placed them on his chair. Stepped into the bathroom. Pulled the shower curtain and set the water running.

Then he unwrapped a new bar of soap. He liked motel soaps. He liked the crisp paper packets, and the smell when you opened them. It bloomed out at you, clean and strong. He sniffed the shampoo. It was in a tiny plastic bottle. It smelled of strawberries. He read the label. Conditioning Shampoo, it said. He leaned in and placed the soap in the porcelain receptacle and balanced the shampoo on the rim of the tub. Pushed the curtain aside with his forearm and stepped into the torrent.

* * *

The road northeast out of Echo was narrow and winding and clung to a hilly ridge that followed the course of the Coyanosa Draw. Now the big Ford was no longer ideal. It felt oversized and soft and ungainly. The blacktop was running with water flowing right to left across its surface. Heavy rills were pushing mud and grit over it in fan-shaped patterns. Alice was struggling to maintain forty miles an hour. She wasn't talking. Just hauling the wallowing sedan around an endless series of bends and looking pale under her tan. Like she was cold.

"You O.K.?" he asked.

"Are you?" she asked back.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just killed two people. Then saw a third die and a house burn down."

He glanced away. Civilians.

"Water under the bridge," he said. "No use dwelling on it now."

"That's a hell of an answer."

"Why?"

"Doesn't stuff like that affect you at all?"

"I'm sorry I didn't get to ask them any questions."

"Is that all you're sorry for?"

He was quiet for a second.

"Tell me about that house you're renting," he said.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"My guess is it's a short-term kind of a place, people in and out all the time, not very well maintained. My guess is it was kind of dirty when you moved in."

"So?"

"Am I right?"

She nodded at the wheel. "I spent the first week cleaning."

"Grease on the stove, sticky floors?"

"Yes."

"Bugs in the closets?" She nodded again. "Roaches in the kitchen?"

"A colony," she said. "Big ones."

"And you got rid of them?"

"Of course I did."

"How?"

"Poison."

"So tell me how you felt about that."

She glanced sideways. "You comparing those people to cockroaches?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I like cockroaches better. They're just little packets of DNA scuttling around, doing what they have to do. Walker and his buddies didn't have to do what they did. They had a choice. They could have been upstanding human beings. But they chose not to be. Then they chose to mess with me, which was the final straw, and they got what they got. So I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I'm not even going to give it another thought. And if you do, I think you're wrong."

She was quiet for another twisting mile.

"You're a hard man, Reacher," she said.

He was quiet in turn.

"I think I'm a realistic man," he said. "And a decent enough guy, all told."

"You may find normal people don't agree."

He nodded.

"A lot of you don't," he said.

* * *

He stood in the warm water long enough to soak all over, and then he started on his hair. He lathered the shampoo into a rich halo and worked on his scalp with his fingertips. Then he rinsed his hands and soaped his face, his neck, behind his ears. He closed his eyes and let the water sluice down over his body. Used more shampoo on his chest where the hair was thick. Attended to his underarms and his back and his legs.

Then he washed his hands and his forearms very thoroughly and carefully, like he was a surgeon preparing for a procedure.

* * *

"How far now?" Alice asked.

Reacher calculated from the map.

"Twenty-five miles," he said. "We cross I-10 and head north on 285 toward Pecos."

"But the ruins are on the other road. The one up to Monahans."

"Trust me, Alice. They stayed on 285. They wanted access."

She said nothing.

"We need a plan," Reacher said.

"For taking this guy?" she said. "I wouldn't have a clue."

"No, for later. For getting Carmen back."

"You're awfully confident."

"No point going in expecting to lose."

She braked hard for a corner and the front end washed wide. Then the road straightened for a hundred yards and she accelerated like she was grateful for it.

"Habeas corpus," she said. "We'll go to a federal judge and enter an emergency motion. Tell the whole story."

"Will that work?"

"It's exactly what habeas corpus is for. It's been working for eight hundred years. No reason it won't work this time."

"O.K.," he said.

"One thing, though."

"What?"

"We'll need testimony. So you'll have to keep this one alive. If that's not too much to ask."

* * *

He finished washing and just stood there in the warm stream of water. He let it flow over his body. He had a new thought in his head. He would need money. The others weren't coming back. The killing crew was history. He knew that. He was unemployed again. And he was unhappy about that. He wasn't a leader. He wasn't good at going out and creating things for himself. Teamwork had suited him just fine. Now he was back on his own. He had some money stashed under his mattress at home, but it wasn't a whole lot. He'd need more, and he'd need it pretty damn soon.

He turned around in the stall and tilted his head back and let the water wash his hair flat against his scalp. So maybe he should take the kid with him back to L.A. Sell her there. He knew people. People who facilitated adoptions, or facilitated other stuff he wouldn't want to inquire too closely about. She was what? Six and a half? And white? Worth a lot of money to somebody, especially with all that fair hair. Blue eyes would have added an extra couple of grand, but whatever, she was a cute little package as she was. She might fetch a decent price, from people he knew.

But how to get her there? The Crown Vic was gone, but he could rent another car. Not like he hadn't done that plenty of times before. He could call Pecos or Fort Stockton and get one brought down, first thing in the morning. He had no end of phony paperwork. But that would mean some delivery driver would see his face. And the kid's. No, he could hide her in the woman's empty room and bring the rental guy into his. But it was still a risk.