Lee Child - Nothing to Lose

Four possibilities. One, it would arrive at the junction and turn right and head north. Two, it would arrive at the junction and turn left and head south. Three, it would pause at the stop sign and then continue west without picking him up. Four, it would pause and cross the main drag and then pause again to let him climb aboard.

Chances of a happy ending, twenty-five percent. Or less, if it was a corporate vehicle with a no-passenger policy because of insurance hassles.

Reacher waited.

When the truck was a quarter-mile away he saw that it was a big rigid panel van, painted white. When it was three hundred yards away he saw that it had a refrigerator unit mounted on top. Fresh food delivery, which would have reduced the odds of a happy outcome if it hadn’t been for the stop signs. Food drivers usually didn’t like to stop. They had schedules to keep, and stopping a big truck and then getting it back up to speed could rob a guy of measurable minutes. But the stop signs meant he had to slow anyway.

Reacher waited.

He heard the guy lift off two hundred yards short of the junction. Heard the hiss of brakes. He raised his hand high, thumb extended. I need a ride. Then he raised both arms and waved. The distress semaphore. I really need a ride.

The truck stopped at the line on the east side of the junction. Neither one of its direction indicators was flashing. A good sign. There was no traffic north or south, so it moved on again immediately, diesel roaring, gears grinding, heading west across the main drag, straight toward Reacher. It accelerated. The driver looked down. The truck kept on moving.

Then it slowed again.

The air brakes hissed loud and the springs squealed and the truck came to a stop with the cab forty feet west of the junction and the rear fender a yard out of the north-south traffic lane. Reacher turned and jogged back and climbed up on the step. The window came down and the driver peered out from seven feet south. He was a short, wiry man, incongruously small in the huge cab. He said, “It’s going to rain.”

Reacher said, “That’s the least of my problems. My car broke down.”

The guy at the wheel said, “My first stop is Hope.”

Reacher said, “You’re the supermarket guy. From Topeka.”

“I left there at four this morning. You want to ride along?”

“Hope is where I’m headed.”

“So quit stalling and climb aboard.”

Dawn chased the truck all the way west, and overtook it inside thirty minutes. The world lit up cloudy and pale gold and the supermarket guy killed his headlights and sat back and relaxed. He drove the same way Thurman had flown his plane, with small efficient movements and his hands held low. Reacher asked him if he often carried passengers and he said that about one morning in five he found someone looking for a ride. Reacher said he had met a couple of women who had ridden with him.

“Tourists,” the guy said.

“More than that,” Reacher said.

“You think?”

“I know.”

“How much?”

“All of it.”

“How?”

“I figured it out.”

The guy nodded at the wheel.

“Wives and girlfriends,” he said. “Looking to be close by while their husbands and boyfriends pass through the state.”

“Understandable,” Reacher said. “It’s a tense time for them.”

“So you know what their husbands and boyfriends are?”

“Yes,” Reacher said. “I do.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Not my business.”

“You’re not going to tell anyone?”

“There’s a cop called Vaughan,” Reacher said. “I’m going to have to tell her. She has a right to know. She’s involved, two ways around.”

“I know her. She’s not going to be happy.”

Reacher said, “Maybe she will be, maybe she won’t be.”

“I’m not involved,” the guy said. “I’m just a fellow traveler.”

“You are involved,” Reacher said. “We’re all involved.”

Then he checked his borrowed cell phone again. No signal.

There was nothing on the radio, either. The supermarket guy hit a button that scanned the whole AM spectrum from end to end, and he came up with nothing. Just static. A giant continent, mostly empty. The truck hammered on, bouncing and swaying on the rough surface. Reacher asked, “Where does Despair get its food?”

“I don’t know,” the guy said. “And I don’t care.”

“Ever been there?”

“Once. Just to take a look. And once was enough.”

“Why do people stay there?”

“I don’t know. Inertia, maybe.”

“Are there jobs elsewhere?”

“Plenty. They could head west to Halfway. Lots of jobs there. Or Denver. That place is expanding, for sure. Hell, they could come east to Topeka. We’re growing like crazy. Nice houses, great schools, good wages, right there for the taking. This is the land of opportunity.”

Reacher nodded and checked his cell phone again. No signal.

They made it to Hope just before ten in the morning. The place looked calm and quiet and unchanged. Clouds were massing overhead and it was cold. Reacher got out on First Street and stood for a moment. His cell phone showed good signal. But he didn’t dial. He walked down to Fifth and turned east. From fifty yards away he saw that there was nothing parked on the curb outside Vaughan’s house. No cruiser, no black Crown Vic. Nothing at all. He walked on, to get an angle and check the driveway.

The old blue Chevy pick-up was in the driveway. It was parked nose-in, tight to the garage door. It had glass in its windows again. The glass was still labeled with paper barcodes and it was crisp and clear except where it was smeared in places with wax and handprints. It looked very new against the faded old paint. The ladder and the wrecking bar and the flashlight were in the load bed. Reacher walked up the stepping-stone path to the door and rang the bell. He heard it sound inside the house. The neighborhood was still and silent. He stood on the step for thirty long seconds and then the door opened.

Vaughan looked out at him and said, “Hello.”

Vaughan was dressed in the same black clothes she had worn the night before. She looked still and calm and composed. And a little distant. A little preoccupied. Reacher said, “I was worried about you.”

Vaughan said, “Were you?”

“I tried to call you twice. Here, and in the car. Where were you?”

“Here and there. You better come in.”

The kitchen looked just the same as before. Neat, clean, decorated, three chairs at the table. There was a glass of water on the counter and coffee in the machine.

Reacher said, “I’m sorry I didn’t get right back.”

“Don’t apologize to me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You want coffee?”

“After you tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Like hell.”

“OK, we shouldn’t have done what we did the night before last.”

“Which part?”

“You know which part. You took advantage. I started to feel bad about it. So when you didn’t come back with the plane I switched off my phone and my radio and drove out to Colorado Springs and told David all about it.”

“In the middle of the night?”

Vaughan shrugged. “They let me in. They were very nice about it, actually. They treated me very well.”

“And what did David say?”

“That’s cruel.”

Reacher shook his head. “It isn’t cruel. It’s a simple question.”

“What’s your point?”

“That David no longer exists. Not as you knew him. Not in any meaningful sense. And that you’ve got a choice to make. And it’s not a new choice. There have been mass casualties from the Civil War onward. There have been tens of thousands of men in David’s position over more than a century. And therefore there have been tens of thousands of women in your position.”