The Midnight Line

Chapter 25

Bramall looked a question, and Mackenzie and Reacher both nodded, so he started the engine and bumped up on the dirt road. A unanimous decision. The obvious play. It cost them nothing to follow the pick-up at least as far as Billy’s place. Their eyes would be on the neck of the funnel throughout. Any random driving dead would pass right by, close enough to touch. Certainly close enough to eyeball in great detail. Then in the end if the pick-up kept on going, they could coast to a stop and turn around, and call the snowplow pistons a weird coincidence.

“What if it turns in?” Mackenzie said.

“Maybe it’s a competitor just heard the news,” Reacher said. “Maybe he wants Billy’s Rolodex. Maybe snowplowing is a very competitive business.”

“Suppose it’s Billy himself.”

“I’m sure the Boy Detective changed the locks. Or glued them up, or whatever they do now. Either one of which will make our boy good and mad. He’ll get all cross and frustrated. He’ll go get his deer rifle from his truck, to shoot the locks. He’ll be standing right there on the porch with it when we show up. Finger on the trigger.”

“Only if we turn in, too.”

“He hasn’t heard the phone message. He’ll think we’re Mormons. Or whichever it is let women join in now.”

By that point they had caught up to about a hundred yards behind the pick-up. Which would be considered a very close pursuit, in such a vast landscape, but they were invisible, because of the dust cloud. The pick-up’s mirrors couldn’t see them.

They rolled on, in secret convoy. The pronghorn herd was grazing a new patch of pasture. Two miles gone. Less than a minute remaining, at their current speed.

The pick-up slowed. They saw it loom large and ghostlike in the cloud ahead. Bramall backed off. The pick-up braked, lights flaring, all the way down to walking speed, and then it turned a wide slow left into the mouth of Billy’s driveway.

“Go for it,” Reacher said. “Go after him.”

Bramall looked at Mackenzie.

She hesitated.

Reacher said, “He hasn’t heard the phone message. He doesn’t know who we are. We’re just three random people.”

Mackenzie said, “He knows where Rose is.”

Bramall turned in. No dust on the driveway. It was a forest track, all rock and grit and gravel. Now the Toyota was plainly visible. They hung back. They saw the pick-up through the trees. Two hundred yards ahead of them, flashing through the sun and the shadows.

“Stupid to run and come right back,” Reacher said.

“Maybe he wants his money,” Mackenzie said.

They rolled on, keeping pace. The pick-up drove through the final curve and out of sight. Another fifty yards it would be out of the woods. Then the last hundred, over the beaten red dirt, to the house.

“Let me out here,” Reacher said. “I’ll walk the rest of the way, in the trees. I can cut the corner. I can get there faster.”

“Is that smart?” Bramall said.

“It’s smarter than sticking together. A good squad never bunches up. Too big of a target.”

Bramall stopped the car and Reacher slid out. Bramall drove on. Reacher watched him go, and then he threaded his way into the woods, and set out on what he hoped was a straight line to the last tree before the house. He got close just in time to see the pick-up drive across the last of the dirt, and park near the house.

He waited.

A hundred yards away in the mouth of the driveway he saw Bramall roll to a stop. His Toyota was well hidden. No glint of paint, no gleam of chrome. All completely covered with thick red dust. Better than desert camouflage.

He waited.

The pick-up’s engine turned off.

The driver’s door opened.

A guy got out. He was young. Early twenties, maybe. Six feet tall. Couple hundred pounds. Maybe more. Most of it fat. He was a big shapeless guy. He looked slow and clumsy.

Not Billy.

Billy wore a thirty-two waist, and a thirty leg, and an eight and a half shoe.

The big guy took a ring of keys from his pocket, and stared at it like he had never seen one before. He carried it up on the porch, and walked to the door. He chose a key and bent down to the hole.

He looked puzzled.

He touched the keyhole with his fingertip.

Then he straightened up and spun around, as if he was suddenly certain someone was behind him. With a camera, maybe. For kids to watch on their phones. And laugh.

Reacher stepped out of the trees.

He walked across the dirt, and waved a come-on to Bramall. The guy by the door watched him all the way. Not reacting. Still looking puzzled. Reacher stepped up on the porch. Up close the guy looked harmless. His shape made his clothes tight and smooth. There were no unexplained lumps or bumps in his pockets. He was unarmed. He was very young. He was no kind of a physical threat.

Maybe not the smartest kid, either.

Not a whole lot going on behind his eyes.

Reacher said, “Who are you?”

The kid said, “I came by to get something.”

Which was technically non-responsive, but Reacher let it go. Bramall and Mackenzie stepped up on the porch. The kid looked at them. Still puzzled. Reacher looked at the keyhole. There was a bead of glue in it. The Boy Detective had changed one lock, maybe at the back, and glued all the others. Efficiency. Saving taxpayer money.

The kid said, “Who are you?”

Reacher said, “I asked first.”

“I’m doing nothing wrong.”

“Just tell me your first name.”

“It’s Mason.”

“OK, Mason, it’s good to meet you. Why are you here?”

“I came by to get something.”

“For who?”

“For me. Billy said I could have it.”

“Who is Billy?”

The kid said, “He’s my brother.”

“Is he?”

“Well, half.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He ran off again.”

“Has he done that before?”

“Two times that I can remember. This time he called me and told me where he left his truck. He said I could have it. And something in his house, too.”

“Where was the truck?”

“Up near Casper.”

Reacher nodded. Nearer Mule Crossing than Billings, Montana. The other guy had driven more miles than Billy. Why? Must have been their agreed-upon vector. They were planning to head southeast. Through Nebraska, and away.

He said, “What kind of something did he leave in the house?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you.”

“Was it money in a box?”

The kid looked surprised.

“Yes,” he said. “In a shoebox.”

“Did he want you to bring it to him?”

“No, sir, it’s for me. He said he’s already with a guy who has plenty.”

“Where?”

“He didn’t tell me. He wouldn’t. No way. He used to say to me, Mason, if you ever have to run, you tell no one where you’re going, not even me.”

“You completely sure he didn’t tell you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What does Billy do for a living?”

“He works the snowplow.”

“What about the summer?”

“I think he buys and sells things.”

“What kind of things does he sell?”

“Just things. Like flea-market things.”

“Where does he sell them?”

“I think all around. Wherever people are who want to buy them.”

“Do you know any of his customers?”

“No.”

“Have you ever seen a woman who looks like my friend here?”

“No.”

“Do you know what an accessory is?”

“Something you put on your truck.”

“Also a legal word,” Reacher said. “It means if you know a secret, and you don’t tell, then you go to jail, too. Billy has strayed far from the narrow path of righteousness, I’m afraid. He has made some poor choices in his life. The government seized this house yesterday. A federal agent put glue in the lock. That’s what they do now. So this is our last chance to help you, Mason. If you know where Billy is, you better tell us, right now.”

“I don’t know where Billy is,” the brother said, kind of happily. “But don’t worry. He’ll be back in a year or two. That’s what happened the last two times.”

Reacher looked at Bramall, who shrugged. Then at Mackenzie, who nodded. She believed the kid.

Who said, “How do I get in the house?”

“You don’t,” Reacher said. “No point. The money is long gone. It was in a federal evidence locker before you woke up this morning. But you can keep the truck. Get a blade for the plow, and you could set up in business.”

They watched the kid drive away. Mackenzie stayed on the porch and looked at the view. The wide empty plains on the right. The old post office, and the firework store. The pronghorns, about a mile away. The red road, still neatly scraped, still nicely cambered. On the left, the low jagged peaks, like miniature mountain ranges.

She said, “Logically we should keep on going. She’s not here. She’s not at Porterfield’s place, which is next. She’s not at the pie lady’s place, which comes after that. So logically we could just keep on going, and then stop before the fourth place. We’d be closer. Nothing could happen behind us. It would still all be ahead of us.”

“If Reacher is right,” Bramall said. “Which he might not be.”

“Then why has no one seen her?”

Bramall didn’t answer.

Reacher said, “I guess the gift of the truck was a cowboy kind of thing. Billy was making sure someone looked after his best horse, so to speak, come what may. All that kind of good stuff. But ten grand in a box is different. That’s a lot of money to give away. I don’t think he wanted to. I think he was out on the road when he got the call from Montana. Too far from home to come back and get it. The pact meant he had no time. He had to go to Casper immediately. And given the direction the other guy was driving from Billings, we have to assume they carried on east through Nebraska. And if we time it from Scorpio’s first voicemail, this all was at least forty-eight hours ago. They’re in Chicago by now. Except I don’t think they went to Chicago. I don’t think they would have felt at home there. My guess is they turned south for Oklahoma. They could make some kind of living there. Or the same kind of living.”

“Possible,” Bramall said.

Mackenzie said, “But Special Agent Noble will never be able to figure that out, because he’ll never know where the truck was found, because of our decision to give it to the brother.”

Bramall said, “Our?”

“Nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sure it was done with the best of intentions. Job creation is a wonderful thing. But I want Special Agent Noble to have a shot at finding Billy. Because I think he would tell us if he does. Why wouldn’t he? I think we should call him. I think we should tell him about Oklahoma.”

“It was only a guess,” Bramall said.

“Based on a fact,” she said. “Which Noble hasn’t got.”

“He might guess different.”

“At least he’ll get a chance to.”

“You really want me to call him?”

“I think we should.”

Bramall looked at Reacher.

Reacher said, “He cooked, after all. Normally we would send a note of some kind.”

Bramall took out his tortoiseshell reading glasses, and a small notebook. He opened it with his thumb.

Reacher said, “You have Noble’s number in there?”

Bramall said, “Just the western division’s switchboard.”

He dialed and played phone tag for a long minute, saying the name over and over again, with variations, Special Agent Kirk Noble, Special Agent Noble, Kirk Noble. Eventually the guy himself must have come on the line, because Bramall reminded him who he was, in terms of the bacon-and-egg dinner, and then he said now there was very strong reason to believe the fugitives had gone to Oklahoma.

Evidently Noble asked to speak to Reacher.

Bramall passed the phone.

Noble said, “There’s a problem with Porterfield.”