The Midnight Line

Chapter 21

The old homestead was both old and a homestead. It was a classic piece of western real estate, with wide tawny pastures, and dark green conifer trees, and outcrops of rock, and bubbling blue water in streams through the bottoms. Way in the distance were the Rocky Mountains, just hints in the mist. The main house was a spreading log construction with all kinds of extra wings built out. There were log barns and log garages. A lot of logs, Reacher thought, and all of them old-school, huge and heavy, hard as a rock, smoothed by axes and joined by pegs.

Like an old-time travel poster on an airport wall.

Except for a new-model rental sedan parked at an angle, and a woman standing next to it.

The sedan was a handsome item with a Chevrolet grille, basic red, with barcodes in all the back windows. The woman was small and slender. Maybe five-two and a hundred pounds. She was wearing boots, and boot-cut blue jeans, and a gauzy white shirt under an open leather jacket. She had a purse on her shoulder. She had long thick hair, heaped and wild and tangled, most of it pale red, some of it bleached by the sun. Her face was like a picture in a book. Pale flawless skin, perfect bones, delicate features. Green eyes, frank and open. A red mouth, confident, in control, almost smiling. Radiant. Composed. She had to be thirty-something. But she looked brand new.

Like a movie star.

“Shit,” Bramall said. “That’s Mrs. Mackenzie.”

The twin sister. An exact replica. Army minimum for women was four-ten and ninety-one pounds. Sanderson would have gotten in comfortably. But everything else would have been twice as hard. From that point onward. Especially with the face. It was drop-dead spectacular.

Bramall got out of the car. He took a couple of steps, and stopped. So did she. Then Reacher got out. He heard Bramall say, “Mrs. Mackenzie, I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

She said, “One of those things. The text didn’t send till we landed. You thought I was leaving Chicago. Actually I was leaving the Hertz office in Laramie.”

“I was close by.”

“Of course you were. For which I apologize most sincerely. Fact and logic brought you to Wyoming, but I wouldn’t let you get all the way here. I told you it was impossible she would come back.”

“What changed?”

“You should introduce me to your friend.”

Reacher stepped up and said his name and shook her hand. It felt like a dove’s wing in a gorilla’s paw.

“What changed?” Bramall said again.

“Now I’m afraid nothing has changed,” Mackenzie said. “This place is empty. I think I made a mistake. I wasted a day. I apologize.”

“Why would she come back here?”

“Suddenly I thought familiarity might be important to her. I try to think like her. We had some good times here. Eighteen years of stability. Since then she’s had none. I thought it might be something she’s craving.”

Reacher looked up at the house.

He asked, “How long has it been empty?”

She said, “I think it’s just someone’s summer house now.”

“It’s still summer.”

“They must have skipped this year.”

“Do you remember who bought it?”

Mackenzie shook her head. “I’m not sure we ever knew. I was away in school, and Rose was at West Point.”

“You call her Rose?”

“We insisted. Jane and Rose.”

“How did you feel when you found out your folks had sold the place?”

“May I know the root of your interest in my family’s affairs?”

So Reacher ran through the story one more time, from the bus out of Milwaukee all the way to the there and then across the Snowy Range. But some kind of instinct made him smooth it out as he went. He stayed strictly on the poignant pawned-ring track, and didn’t mention either Scorpio or Billy, or speculate about anyone’s specific occupation. He ended with the meager trove of evidence from Sy Porterfield’s hall closet, and his living room sofa, and his master bathroom, and his laundry room.

Mackenzie was quiet a beat.

Then she said, “What size were the boots?”

“Six,” Reacher said.

“OK.”

He looked at her hair. Heaped, wild, tangled. Untamed was the word. Must take forever to wash.

An exact replica.

He said, “Show me your comb.”

She paused again.

Then she said, “Yes, I see.”

She dug in her bag and came out with a pink plastic comb. All the teeth were widely spaced. Not half and half, like a regular comb.

Reacher said, “Have you always used that brand?”

“It’s the only kind that works.”

“It’s the same.”

“The boots fit, too.”

He took the ring from his pocket and balanced it on his palm. She picked it up, carefully, between delicate fingers.

West Point 2005.

The gold filigree, the black stone, the tiny size.

She read the engraving.

She selected a finger and pulled off a designer bauble as thick and gold as a false tooth. In its place she slipped her sister’s trophy. Fourth finger, right hand. It sat there like it should. The perfect fit. The perfect size. Prominent, like it should be, and proud, like it should be, but not as big as a carnival prize. Reacher pictured the same hand, but maybe worn down a bit leaner, with a darker tan, and a couple of nicks and cuts healed white.

He pictured the same face, the same way.

Mackenzie said, “You mentioned that you bought the ring.”

“Correct,” Reacher said.

“May I buy it back from you?”

“It’s not for sale. It’s a gift for your sister.”

“I could give it to her.”

“So could the lady at West Point. Eventually.”

“You feel a need to hand it over personally?”

“I need to know she’s OK.”

“You never met her.”

“Makes no difference. Should it? I don’t know. You tell me.”

Mackenzie took the ring off. She handed it back.

Some kind of look on her perfect face.

Reacher said, “I know.”

“You know what?”

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re here because it’s family, and Mr. Bramall is here because he’s getting paid. Why am I here? I’m giving you the impression I’m some kind of a weird obsessive. Maybe a couple soldiers short of a squad. I don’t mean to. But I get it. I’m making you feel uncomfortable.”

“Not at all.”

“You’re very polite.”

“I assume it’s an honor thing. Rose was in a world I didn’t understand.”

“What we need now is solid information. Are you confident this place is empty?”

“There are dust sheets everywhere and the water is off.”

“So where would Rose go, if not here?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“What is?” Reacher said.

“I should be on a psychiatrist’s couch to answer these questions.”

“Why?”

“We participated in a fantasy. OK? We were required to. As if we were lords of the manor and owned the whole valley. As if when the neighbors built, we were practically giving them almshouses out of sheer benevolence. Obviously later on we discovered Father had to sell some acres. But it was like we still owned them. Like slave quarters. We lorded it over the poor people. We were in and out anytime we wanted.”

“Which of the three would she go to now?”

“Any of them.”

“You want a ride? In the front, if you like. You’re paying the bills, after all.”

Reacher got in the back, and got comfortable. Mackenzie took his place in the passenger seat. Bramall drove, but not back to the road. Mackenzie showed him different tracks. The ways they went as kids. Easy enough for a slip of a girl to skip along. Harder for the car. But it made it, bending saplings, all four tires grabbing, like a ponderous cat. The nearest neighbor slid into view. Not a trophy cabin. Built before the word existed. The product of a more innocent age, when a vacation house could be a plain and simple thing. The view was a picture postcard.

Bramall and Mackenzie went to the door.

They knocked.

It opened.

A guy stood there. Same kind of age as the guy in the Mule Crossing post office. Same kind of tired-out stoop. Bramall said something to him, then Mackenzie, and the old guy nodded and made to let them in. Bramall turned and waved to Reacher, and Reacher got out of the car, and walked over to join them. They went inside, and the old guy said yes, all those years ago he had bought the land and built the house. For family vacations. Now he came alone. Which was borne out by the evidence. Reacher looked around and saw one of everything, and felt the quiet patient air of a lonely place.

The guy said he remembered the twins coming by. Way back they were wild-haired little girls in country dresses. They visited all the time, until they were ten or twelve, then not so much, until they were fifteen or so, and then hardly at all after that.

Mackenzie said, “Have you seen Rose recently?”

The old guy said, “Where would I see her?”

“Around here, maybe.”

“I guess it’s a dumb question to ask what she looks like now.”

Mackenzie smiled. “Maybe a bit more tan than me. Maybe a bit more toned. She would claim she’s been working harder. She might have cut her hair. Or dyed it. She might have gotten tattoos.” She looked a question at Bramall. “Anything else we should consider?”

Bramall looked a question at Reacher.

Is this where we tell her she was wounded?

“No,” Reacher said. “I’m sure the gentleman knows what she looks like.”

“I haven’t seen her,” the old guy said.

They used the old guy’s driveway, and crossed the road, and took the driveway opposite. It came out on another idyllic scene, but smaller, a quarter-sized version of the old homestead, with a newer house and no active stream.

The house was closed up and empty. Locked doors, shaded windows, no broken glass. No burglars, no squatters. No feral Rose Sanderson, going to earth in a place she remembered.

They moved off again, on another rough trail Mackenzie seemed half to know and half to imagine. The Toyota squeezed between trees, and rode up and down dips and hollows, and bucked and nodded. Bramall stayed calm behind the wheel. He drove most of the way one-handed.

The last house came into view.

It was the same kind of thing as before, an unpretentious A-framed cabin, with a lot of glass on a spectacular view. Bramall looped around to the driveway, as if he had been on it all along, and he parked a respectful distance from the house.

The front door opened.

A woman stood in the shadow.

She must have heard their tires.

She took a hopeful step forward, into the sun.

She looked like Porterfield’s neighbor, but wound up way tighter. Upset about something. She was staring all around, and then staring at the car.

Bramall got out.

She watched him.

Mackenzie got out.

She watched her.

Reacher got out.

She watched him.

No one else got out.

She staggered back, like she had been hit in the head. She leaned on the frame of the door.

She said, “Have you guys seen Billy?”

Bramall didn’t answer.

The woman said, “I thought maybe you were him. Maybe he got a new car. He’s supposed to be coming.”

“For what?” Reacher said.

“Have you seen him?”

Mackenzie said, “Who is Billy?”

Reacher said, “We’ll get to that.”

To the woman in the doorway he said, “I got a question for you first, and then I’ll tell you about Billy.”

“What’s the question?”

“Tell me about the other woman, who looks just like my friend here. Like her twin sister.”

“What other woman?”

“I just told you. Pay attention. Like my friend here. In this neighborhood.”

“Never seen her.”

“She might be Billy’s friend, too.”

“Don’t know her.”

“You sure?”

“A woman who looks like her? Never seen one.”

“You ever heard the name Rose?”

“Never ever. Now tell me about Billy.”

“I haven’t met him yet,” Reacher said. “But I hear his privileges were suspended. His cupboard is bare. Until he takes care of a local problem. Which he hasn’t yet. I know that, because I’m the local problem. And here I still am. So if he happens to drop by, tell him I’m looking for him. The Incredible Hulk. Tell him I plan to stop by and pay him a visit. Give him a good description. That might be worth twenty bucks to him. You could get a freebie.”

“Billy never gives freebies,” the woman said.

“Who is Billy?” Mackenzie asked again.

They told her in the car. Not the whole story. Still they kept him separate. As if he was an accidental discovery, off to one side. They told her about the shoebox of cash, but not the shoebox of jewelry.

But Mackenzie was a smart woman.

She said, “Then why were you in his home in the first place?”

Which under her critical gaze led to the whole soup-to-nuts narrative, involving Scorpio, and Porterfield, and Billy, and Bramall’s old phone records, and Nakamura’s overheard voicemails.

Mackenzie said, “In other words for at least two years Rose has been involved with drug dealers and drug users. Meth and heroin. With all that entails. Such as shacking up with one who got eaten by a bear.”

They didn’t answer.

Mackenzie asked, quietly, “Is she an addict?”

They told her about the shoebox of jewelry.

She started to cry.