Nothing to Lose

13

The closer he got to the Hope town line, the more he let himself drift left toward the road. Hope wasn’t a big place, and he didn’t want to miss it in the dark. Didn’t want to walk on forever, all the way back to Kansas. The clock in his head said that it was midnight. He had made good progress, close to three miles an hour, despite falling four more times and detouring every thirty minutes to confirm he wasn’t drastically off course.

Despair’s cheap road crunched loudly under his feet but the hard level surface allowed him to speed up. He hit a good rhythm and covered what was left of the last mile in less than fifteen minutes. It was still very cold. Still pitch dark. But he sensed the new blacktop ahead. He felt it coming. Then he felt the surface change under his feet. His left foot pushed off rough stones and his right foot landed on velvet-smooth asphalt.

He was back over the line.

He stood still for a second. Held his arms wide and looked up at the black sky. Then bright headlights hit him head-on and he was trapped in their beams. A spotlight clicked on and played over him, head to foot and back again.

A cop car.

Then the beams died as suddenly as they had appeared and a dome light came on inside the car and showed a small figure at the wheel. Tan shirt, fair hair. Half a smile.

Vaughan.

She was parked head-on, with her push bars twenty yards inside her own jurisdiction, just waiting in the dark. Reacher walked toward her, moving left, skirting her hood and her fender. He stepped to the passenger door and put his hand on the handle. Opened it up and crammed himself into the space inside. The interior was full of soft radio chatter and the smell of perfume.

He asked, “So are you free for a late dinner?”

She said, “I don’t eat with jerks.”

“I’m back, like I said I would be.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Not really.”

“I’m working the graveyard shift. I don’t get off until seven.”

“Breakfast, then. Drinking coffee with jerks is not the same as eating with them.”

“I don’t drink coffee for breakfast. I need to sleep in the daytime.”

“Tea, then.”

“Tea has caffeine, too.”

“Milk shake?”

“Maybe.” She was resting easy in the seat, one elbow on the door and the other hand in her lap.

“How did you see me coming?” Reacher asked. “I didn’t see you.”

“I eat a lot of carrots,” Vaughan said. “And our video has night-vision enhancement.” She leaned forward and tapped a black box mounted high on the dash. “Traffic camera and a hard disc recorder.” She moved her hand again and hit a key on the computer. The screen changed to a ghostly green wide-angle image of the scene ahead. The road was lighter than the scrub. It had retained more of the daytime heat than its surroundings. Or less. Reacher wasn’t sure.

“I saw you half a mile away,” Vaughan said. “A little green speck.” She tapped another key and spooled back through the time code and Reacher saw himself, a luminous sliver in the dark, getting bigger, coming closer.

“Very fancy,” he said.

“Homeland Security money. Got to spend it on something.”

“How long have you been out here?”

“An hour.”

“Thanks for waiting.”

Vaughan started the motor and backed up a little and then turned across the width of the road, in a wide arc that took the front wheels off the blacktop and through the sand on the shoulder. She got straightened up and accelerated.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Not really,” Reacher said.

“You should eat anyway.”

“Where?”

“The diner will still be open. It stays open all night.”

“In Hope? Why?”

“This is America. It’s a service economy.”

“Whatever, I might go take a nap instead. I walked a long way.”

“Go eat in the diner first.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you should. Nutrition is important.”

“What are you, my mother?”

“Someone was asking about you.”

“Who?”

“Some girl.”

“I don’t know any girls.”

“She wasn’t asking about you personally,” Vaughan said. “She was asking if anyone had been thrown out of Despair more recently than her.”

“She was thrown out?”

“Four days ago.”

“They throw women out, too?”

“Vagrancy isn’t a gender-specific offense.”

“Who is she?”

“Just some kid. I told her about you. No names, but I said you might be eating in the diner tonight. I was assuming you would get out OK. I try to live on the sunny side of the street. So I think she might come looking for you.”

“What does she want?”

“She wouldn’t tell me,” Vaughan said. “But my impression was her boyfriend is missing.”