A Wanted Man

FORTY-FIVE

SORENSON HIT THE brakes and hauled on the wheel and U-turned immediately and headed back towards the highway, fast, past the FBI building again, past its front, past its side, past its rear lot, and onward, the same way they had come minutes before. The voice on the phone told the whole long story. County Sheriff Victor Goodman, Reacher gathered, about eighty miles away. The local guy. The first responder, the night before. He sounded like a competent man, but tired and stressed and way out of his depth. He said, ‘I told the kid her mom was missing first thing this morning. I figured it was best to break it gently. You know, the first step, and then the second step. I told the neighbour she should keep both kids home from school today. I asked her to stay home with them. But she didn’t. She was worried about her job. She left them there alone. Which she thought would be OK. But it wasn’t OK. I dropped by again to touch base and only the neighbour’s kid was there. All by herself. She said some men came and took Delfuenso’s kid away.’

Sorenson asked, ‘When?’

Goodman said, ‘This is a ten-year-old girl we’re talking about here. She’s pretty vague. Best guess is about an hour ago.’

‘How many men?’

‘She doesn’t really know.’

‘One? Two? A dozen?’

‘More than one. She said men, not a man.’

‘Descriptions?’

‘Just men.’

‘Black? White? Young? Old?’

‘White, I’m sure, or she’d have said. This is Nebraska, after all. No idea about age. All adults look old to a ten-year-old.’

‘Clothing?’

‘She doesn’t remember.’

‘Vehicle?’

‘She can’t describe it. I’m not certain she even saw a vehicle. She claims she did, and she’s calling it a car, but it could have been anything. A pick-up, or an SUV.’

‘Colour?’

‘She can’t recall. If she saw it at all, that is. She might have just assumed it. She’s probably never seen a pedestrian in her life. Not out there.’

‘Does she remember what was said?’

‘She wasn’t really paying attention. The doorbell rang, and Lucy Delfuenso went to answer it. The neighbour’s kid says she saw men at the door, and she heard some talking, but basically she stayed in the back room. She was busy playing with something. She was really into it. About five minutes later she realized Lucy hadn’t come back from the door.’

‘Why would Delfuenso’s kid answer the door in someone else’s house?’

‘It doesn’t feel like that to them. It’s like both of them treat both places like home. They’re in and out all the time.’

‘Have you searched the area? Including Delfuenso’s own house?’

‘I’ve got everyone on it. No sign of Lucy anywhere.’

‘Did you canvass the other neighbour? That grey-haired guy?’

‘He wasn’t there. He leaves for work at six in the morning. The fourth house didn’t see anything either.’

‘Did you call the state troopers?’

‘Sure, but I have nothing to give them.’

‘Missing kids get an instant response, right?’

‘But what can they do? It’s a small department. And it’s a big state. They can’t stop everyone everywhere.’

‘OK, we’ll figure it out,’ Sorenson said. ‘I’m on my way. But in the meantime you should keep on looking.’

‘Of course I will. But they could be sixty miles away by now.’

Sorenson didn’t answer that. She just clicked off the call and howled around the on-ramp and headed west close to a hundred miles an hour.

Ten high-speed minutes later Reacher gave Sorenson her Glock back and asked, ‘Is your boss going to ignore a missing kid too?’

Sorenson put the gun back on her hip and said, ‘My boss is an ambitious guy. He dreams of bigger things. He wants to be an Assistant Director one day. Therefore he’ll do whatever the Hoover Building tells him to do, right or wrong. Some SACs are like that. And the Hoover Building will do whatever the CIA tells it to do. Or the State Department, or Homeland Security, or the West Wing, or whoever the hell is calling the shots here.’

‘That’s crazy.’

‘That’s modern law enforcement. Get used to it.’

‘How much freedom of action are you going to get?’

‘None at all, as soon as they figure out where I am.’

‘So don’t answer your phone.’

‘I’m not going to. Not the first couple of times, anyway.’

‘And after that?’

‘They’ll leave voice messages. They’ll send texts and e-mails. I can’t go rogue. I can’t disobey direct orders.’

Reacher said nothing.

Sorenson said, ‘Well, would you? Did you?’

‘Sometimes,’ Reacher said.

‘And now you’re a homeless unemployed veteran with no stable relationships.’

‘Exactly. These things are never easy. But you can make a start. You can get something done before they shut you down.’

‘How?’

‘Motive,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s what you need to think about. Who the hell snatches a dead woman’s kid? And why? Especially a kid who knows nothing at all about what happened to her mom?’

‘But this can’t be unrelated, surely. This can’t be a coincidence. This is not the father showing up after some custody battle. This is not some random paedophile on the prowl.’

‘Maybe it was the neighbour’s kid they were looking for. Maybe they got them confused. It was the neighbour’s house, after all. Is the neighbour divorced too?’

‘This is not a coincidence, Reacher.’

‘So what is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Neither do I,’ Reacher said. ‘It makes no sense at all.’

Sheriff Goodman was into his thirtieth hour without sleep. He was dazed and groggy and barely upright. But he kept on going. No reason to believe the abductors had stayed in the vicinity, but he had his guys out checking any and all vacant buildings, barns, huts, shelters, and empty houses. He himself was supplementing their efforts by covering the places they weren’t getting to. He had found nothing. They had found nothing. Radio traffic was full of tired and resigned negativity.

He ended up back in front of Delfuenso’s neighbour’s house. He parked and sat there and fought to stay awake. Fought to make himself think. He recalled how the kid had acted on the stoop, first thing that morning. Mute with incomprehension, nodding politely, fidgeting. She was a country girl. Ten years old. Not a prodigy. She would have believed any kind of halfway-legitimate adult. She would have been convinced by any kind of show of knowledge or authority. She would have bought into any kind of promise. Come with us, little girl. We found your mommy. We’ll take you to her.

But who?

Who even knew Delfuenso was missing in the first place? His whole department, obviously, plus the neighbours and presumably some of the other locals. And the bad guys. But why would they kill the mother and then come back for the child?

Why?

He got out of his car to clear his head in the cold air. He stumped around for a minute, and then he rested on the passenger-side front fender. The heat from the engine bay kept him warm. There was rain in the east. He could see the clouds. They were scooting towards him. Then he stared straight ahead at the two houses in front of him, Delfuenso’s and her neighbour’s, looking for inspiration. He found none at all. He looked down at the muddy gutter. The mud was criss-crossed with his tyre tracks. Like a record of futility, written there in rubber and dirt and water. He had parked on that street four separate times in the space of a few hours. First, after the sprint over from Missy Smith’s place in the middle of the night. With Sorenson. Then again early in the morning, on his own, to break some of the news. Then again later, to touch base, like a good chief should, which was when he had found Lucy missing. And finally now, after the failed and fruitless local search. There were a lot of tracks. More than he would have thought, for four visits. In and out, back and forth, some straight, some curved. In a couple of places the road surface was bad enough that the mud bulged out into puddles six feet wide. Like tar pits. Apparently he had driven through both of them.

But no one else had.

He checked again, just to be sure, this time on the move, walking up and down with delicate mincing steps, staying clear of the evidence. Or the lack of it. As far as he could tell there were no tracks other than his own. There were no different marks in front of Delfuenso’s house. Or in front of the neighbour’s. Just his Crown Vic’s familiar and undramatic Michelins. The automotive equivalent of generic aspirin. He knew them well. He was responsible for the department’s budget. He ordered the tyres on-line from a police supply warehouse in Michigan. Low price, no tax, full warranty. They came in on the mail truck and he had them fitted at Phil Abelson’s tyre shop in the next county. Phil had done a deal, a low charge in exchange for a long-term commitment. Phil was a smart guy.

Goodman got back in his car and moved it off the kerb and parked it again on the hump in the middle of the road, where the blacktop was dry and pristine. He got back out and checked again, unobstructed.

He was sure.

No tracks other than his own trusty low-rent Michelins, P225/60R16s, ninety-nine bucks per, plus five for fitting and balancing.

The neighbour’s kid hadn’t really seen a car because there had been no car.

Lucy Delfuenso had been abducted on foot.

But what kind of sense did that make, in the wilds of Nebraska?