No Plan B

Chapter 16

Hannah’s hand was shaking when she tried to get the key into the lock on Roth’s door.

She said, “I’m sorry. This is the first time I’ve been here since…”

Reacher said, “It’s OK. You don’t have to come inside.”

“No.” Hannah closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath. “I’m doing this. For Sam. If his friend was murdered, he wouldn’t want people to think it was suicide. Angela has – had – a kid. And Sam was a prison guard. He wouldn’t want a murderer to go free.”

The main room of Roth’s apartment was laid out the same as Hannah’s. It had the same kind of furniture, maybe a decade older, a little more tired, with fewer colors. There was no TV and the top of one of the bookcases was filled with a line of framed photographs. Reacher could smell incense coming from somewhere, and right away the sense of trespass he always felt when he had to search a dead person’s home started to creep up his spine.

Hannah started toward an archway at the side of the kitchen area but paused when she drew level with the bookcase. She looked down at the photographs. They were all of her. There was a whole series. She was wearing the same gi in each one. In the first picture she had a white belt. By the last, the belt was brown. Hannah stretched out and flipped each photo in turn facedown. She said, “I can’t believe he kept those. He knew I hated them.” She sniffed and wiped a tear from her cheek.

Reacher said, “Do you still train?”

Hannah shook her head. “Not much. I haven’t graded since I moved next door. I only started as a way for Sam and me to go to the gym together. Working out is so boring. He was always nagging me to step it up again.”

Another tear welled up in the corner of Hannah’s eye. She blinked it away and began to move again. Through the archway. It led to a doglegged staircase that opened onto a corridor with three more doors. The first one was open a crack. Hannah pushed it the rest of the way and stepped into Roth’s bedroom. It was a small space. Tidy. Impersonal. The bed was made. There was no clothing strewn around. No shoes on the floor. No pictures on the walls. Just a book on the nightstand and a glass of water. The blinds were drawn. There were mirrors on the closet doors, which were closed. And in the far corner there was a small desk. It was made of metal and wood, and looked like it could fold down when not in use. There was no chair.

“Not much of an office space.” Hannah took a silver laptop computer from the desk and sat down on the bed. “The other room’s full of his weights and workout stuff. That was more important to him.”

Hannah opened the computer and started tapping away on the keyboard and dragging her finger up and down on a little shiny rectangle below it. After a couple of minutes she turned the screen so that Reacher could see.

She said, “This is weird. There are no emails from Angela. Plenty from other people. Even a bunch of spam he never got rid of. But none from her. Not even from years ago. None in his inbox. None in any of his folders. And none in the trash. Which is extra weird because Sam had his mail set to keep deleted messages in the trash for a week. I just checked.”

“Are there any emails from Danny Peel?”

Hannah tapped and swiped and clicked for another minute, then nodded her head. “A few. Mostly from before Danny moved.”

“So what happened to the messages from Angela?”

“Sam must have found a way to permanently delete them. Instantly. I just can’t see why he’d do that.”

“Could an expert recover them?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Can you tell if it was definitely Sam who deleted them?”

“No one else had access to his computer. He never takes it anywhere. It’s a laptop, but he only bought it because it’s small. Not to carry around.”

“Could they be deleted remotely?”

“I don’t know. I’m no expert. They could probably be wiped off the central server remotely, I guess. But after he downloaded them? Maybe some high-level hacker could do it. Probably not a regular person.”

“Have you noticed anyone hanging around the building the last few days? Any cars you didn’t recognize?”

“Why are you asking that again? You think someone broke in here after Sam died and wiped his computer?”

Reacher said nothing.

“Oh.” Hannah slowly closed the computer. “No. You think he was murdered? Like Angela was? No way.”

“Angela was murdered on her way to meet him. In secret. Probably with some critical evidence to show him. Even if Sam believed it was suicide, he had still seen Angela’s emails. He knew something was going on. He knew what kind of material she was bringing. That paints a pretty big target on his back.”

“No. It was totally natural causes. I saw him, remember. I found him.”

“Heart attacks can be faked. There are drugs. Chemicals.”

“Not in this case. Because you know the really sad thing? When I saw him, I wasn’t even surprised.”

“I heard he was in good health. Ripped, Harewood said.”

“He worked out a lot, yes. Too much, actually. It’s how he dealt with stress. But healthy? Not so much.”

“Sam was stressed?”

“He had a stressful job.”

“He had that job for thirty years.”

“The stress had gotten worse.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“New boss? Staff cuts? Some kind of disciplinary situation?”

“None of those things. He was just … having trouble. He didn’t say anything but I know him. Knew him. Knew the signs. He wasn’t eating properly. He wasn’t sleeping. He was working out too much. Pushing himself too hard. I should have done more to help him. He was a heart attack waiting to happen and I knew it.”

“So he was stressed. More than usual. But how did that cause Angela’s emails to disappear?”

“Maybe that was done remotely, like you said.” Hannah was silent for a moment, then she frowned. “Wait. Sam had dinner at my place Monday night. I was trying to get him to eat more. It didn’t work. He just picked at his food then rushed off home. To work out. Again. What else would he be doing these days? I wasn’t happy but I gave him a good-night kiss, like I always do. At the door. And across the way I kind of think I might have seen a car. Yes. I remember thinking it must be an Uber waiting for someone, but that it was weird because its lights were off.”

“What color was it?”

“Something dark. Black, I think.”

“Make? Model?”

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t see too well because of Sam’s truck.”

Reacher thought for a moment. It hadn’t rained that morning. The previous day had been dry, too. But Monday night was an unknown quantity. It had been fine earlier in the day, when he walked into town. But he had spent the evening with Alexandra. At her apartment. The weather was the last thing he was paying attention to. Still, if a vehicle had been parked for any length of time it could have left a trace of some kind. It was worth a look. So Reacher said, “Come on. Show me where the car was waiting.”

The sun was high when Reacher followed Hannah outside. It was warm and bright and the air was sweet from all the plants growing in pots and urns outside the buildings. There were hardly any shadows. And the ground was bone dry. It was dusty. There were no footprints. No tire tracks. There was no possibility of any.

Hannah continued toward the opposite wall. She stopped below a spot where a pipe emerged from the brickwork. It was plastic, maybe three inches in diameter, and it ran vertically down before burrowing into the dirt. A drain, Reacher guessed. From a laundry room, or a kitchen or bathroom.

Hannah said, “The car was right here. By this pipework. On this side. So it was facing away from Sam’s door. If anyone was in it, they couldn’t have been watching his place.”

Reacher caught up with her. He was thinking, Cars have mirrors. And the guy who had pushed Angela was experienced. As was his buddy, the driver. As were the two guys Reacher had encountered at The Pineapple. So they would all understand the value of discretion. Reacher was about to mention that when he noticed something about the ground near Hannah’s feet. There was a patch that was a little darker than the rest. Not much. Just a fraction of a shade. But discernible. It started at the base of the pipe and fanned out in a semicircle, close to three feet in diameter, fading as it went. There must have been a leak from the drain. Just a gradual one. Not enough to turn the dirt to mud. Not foul-smelling or full of chemicals. Nothing to warrant an urgent repair.

Reacher crouched down and took a closer look at the damp section of earth. It was basically flat, though not entirely smooth. The surface had been disturbed. Probably by grit and gravel blown in the wind. But along with the natural scrapes and scratches, Reacher could see a strip made up of more regular shapes. Faint, but definitely there. A tread pattern. From a tire. It was wide, like the kind a high-performance sedan would have.

“Could you get a picture of that?” Reacher pointed at the track.

Hannah pulled out her phone and fired off half a dozen photographs. “You really think someone was watching us?”

“Too early to say.”

Hannah suddenly shivered, despite the sun. “God, I saw them. Their car, anyway. And if they were … then they … poor Sam.”

“You should stay somewhere else for a few nights. Have you got family nearby? Friends?”

“No. It’s just me. I’ll check into a hotel.”

“Make it one in another town.”

“This is all too much.” Hannah sighed. “No. It’s not. I’ll be OK. I guess I better grab some things. What are you going to do?”

“Talk to Harewood. Have him send some technicians down here.”

Hannah took a step toward her apartment then stopped again. “Damn it. Look at that.”

“What?”

“Sam’s mailbox.” Hannah pointed to a mailbox on a post next to Sam’s parking space. It was a simple affair, corrugated steel, pressed into shape, and painted red just like his truck.

“What about it?”

“It’s not shut properly.”

Hannah was right. The mailbox’s flap was open a fraction.

“Sam hated that.” Hannah marched across to the box. “He liked it closed all the way. He was always chewing out the mail carrier if he didn’t do it right.” Hannah gave the front of the mailbox a hefty slap with her palm and its lid clicked into place. Then she grabbed it and pulled it open again. “Better see what’s been delivered, I guess. Could be something urgent.”

Hannah reached inside and pulled out a single piece of paper. It had no envelope and it was folded into thirds. Hannah glanced at Reacher then unfolded the page. She straightened it. Read it. Then her mouth sagged open and the paper slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the ground. Reacher scooped it up. He saw that it wasn’t addressed. It wasn’t signed. There were just two lines of printed words:

Reacher handed the paper back to Hannah and said, “Where’s Wiles Park?”

“Near the center of town.” Hannah’s voice was quiet and hollow. “Fifteen minutes away, maybe. If you hurry.”

The note said 1:00 p.m. The clock in Reacher’s head told him that only left ten minutes’ leeway.

Harewood and his technicians would have to wait.