Chapter 20

Patty took off her shoes, because she was Canadian, and stepped up on the bed, and stood upright on the bouncy surface. She shuffled sideways and tilted her face up toward the light.

She said, loudly, “Please raise the window blind. As a personal favor to me. I want to see daylight. What possible harm could it do? No one ever comes here.”

Then she climbed down, and sat on the edge of the mattress to put her shoes back on. Shorty watched the window, like he was watching a ball game on a television screen. The same kind of close attention.

The blind stayed down.

He shrugged.

“Good try,” he mouthed, silently.

“They’re discussing it,” she mouthed back.

They waited again.

And then the blind rolled up. The motor whirred and a blue bar of bright afternoon light came spilling in, narrow at first, but widening all the time, until it filled the room with sunshine.

Patty glanced up at the ceiling.

“Thank you,” she said.

She walked to the door, to kill the hot yellow bulb. Three steps. The first felt good, because she liked the daylight. The second felt better, because she had made them do something for her. She had established a line of communication. She had made them understand she was a person. But then the third step felt worse again, because she realized she had given them leverage. She had told them what she feared to lose.

She put her elbows on the sill and her forehead on the glass and stared out at the view. It was unchanged. The Honda, the lot, the grass, the wall of trees. Nothing else.

In the back parlor over at the house Mark finished a phone call and put the receiver down. He checked the screens. Patty was happy. He turned to face the others.

“Listen up,” he said. “That was a neighbor on the phone. Some old apple farmer twenty miles south of here. They had a guy there today, making trouble. They want us to keep an eye out for him. In case he happens to come by, looking for a room. They’ll send folks up to get him. Apparently they need to teach him a lesson.”

“He won’t come by,” Peter said. “We took the signs down.”

“The apple farmer said this was a big rough guy. Which is exactly what our friend at the county office said too. About a big rough guy named Reacher, who was researching his family history. Who looked at four separate censuses. At least two of which must have had a Ryantown address. Which is a place where theoretically I had distant relatives. And which is a place right there in the corner of the apple farm in question. This guy is mapping out Reacher real estate. He’s going from parcel to parcel. He must be some kind of mad hobbyist.”

“You think he’ll come here?”

“My grandfather’s name is still on the deed. But that was after Ryantown. It was after they got rich.”

“We don’t need this now,” Robert said. “We have bigger fish to fry. The first arrival is less than twelve hours away.”

“He won’t come here,” Mark said. “He must be a different branch of the family. I never heard about anyone like that. He’ll stick to his own lineage. Surely. Everyone does. No reason why he would come here.”

“We just rolled their blind up.”

“Leave it up,” Mark said. “He won’t come here.”

“They could signal for help.”

“Watch the track and listen for the bell.”

“Why would we need to, if he won’t come here?”

“Because someone else might. Anyone could. We need maximum vigilance now. Because this is where we earn it, guys. Attention to detail today pays dividends tomorrow.”

Steven switched out the screens either side of center to two alternate views of the mouth of the track, where it came out of the trees, one close up, one wide angle.

Nothing was moving.

Reacher did it Amos’s way. He went back to his room and holed up for the rest of the afternoon. No one saw him. Which was good. Except dinner was going to be a problem. The place he had picked to stay was just a bijou little inn. There was no room service. Probably no catering at all, except brought-in muffins for the breakfast buffet. Free, in the lobby. But not yet. Not for another twelve hours, at the earliest. Probably closer to fourteen. A person could starve to death.

He looked out the window, which was a waste of time, because it showed him nothing but the back of the next street. But he knew the place with the all-day breakfast was only a block away. If he went there, who would see him? Maximum two or three passersby on a single downtown block, in a town like Laconia, at sundown. Plus the customers in the coffee shop. Plus the wait staff. Who had already seen him once, at lunch time. Not long before. Which was not good. Yes, they could say, he’s in here all the time. He’s practically a regular. Which would then focus any subsequent search on the immediate neighborhood. The bijou inn with the faded colors would be target number one. Front and center. The obvious location. Perhaps worthy of an immediate visit. Maybe first thing in the morning, before a civilized person was up and about.

Not good.

Better to go further afield. He turned away from the window and made a mental map in his head, of what he had seen so far. His first hotel, the city office, the county office, the police station, his second hotel, and all the establishments in between, where he had eaten and gotten coffee and window-shopped for shoes and bags and cookware. For dinner he wanted a place he hadn’t been before. He figured two sightings were ten times worse than one. Call it a rule. Always better to be a first-time stranger. He recalled a particular single-wide storefront bistro, with a half curtained window, and old-fashioned light bulbs inside, like glowing tangles of heated wire. Probably a small staff, and a small and discreet clientele. He had passed it by, but not gone in. Six blocks away, he thought. Or seven. Which was more than ideal, but he figured he could zigzag through the side streets, which would be quieter.

Safe enough.

He went downstairs and stepped out to the fading light and set out walking. His mental map worked well enough. One time he hesitated, but in the end he guessed right. The bistro came up dead ahead. Eight blocks out, not seven or six. Further than he thought. He had been exposed a long time. He had counted eighteen passersby. Not all of them had seen him. But some had. No one suspicious. All regular folk.

On the sidewalk outside the bistro he stood up tall on tiptoes, so he could see inside over the half curtain. So he could make an assessment. He had no real taste in food. Anything would do. But he liked a corner table with his back to the wall, and a little hustle but not too much, and a few other customers but not too many. Whatever it took to be served fast and not remembered. The place looked like it would fit the bill. There was an empty two-top in the far rear corner. The waitresses looked brisk and on the ball. The room was about half full. Six people eating. All good. Ideal in every way. Except that two of the six people eating were Elizabeth Castle and Carter Carrington.

A second date. Possibly delicate. He didn’t want to ruin their evening. They would feel obliged to ask him to join them at their table. Saying no wouldn’t help. Then he would be eating two tables away, and they would feel self conscious and scrutinized. The whole atmosphere would feel weird and strained and artificial.

But he owed Amos. She was out on a limb. You don’t leave your room at any point. No one ever sees you . How much more walking around could he afford to do?

In the end the decision made itself. For some reason Elizabeth Castle looked up. She saw him. Her mouth opened in a little O of surprise, which then changed instantly to a smile, which looked totally genuine, and then she waved, at first just an excited greeting, but then an eager come-in-and-join-us gesture.

He went in. At that point it was the path of least resistance. He crossed the room. Carrington stood up to shake hands, courteous, a little old-fashioned. Elizabeth Castle leaned across and scraped out a third chair. Carrington held out his palm toward it, like a maître d’, and said, “Please.”

Reacher sat down, his back to the door, facing a wall.

The path of least resistance.

He said, “I don’t want to wreck your evening.”

Elizabeth Castle said, “Don’t be silly.”

“Then congratulations,” he said. “To both of you.”

“For what?”

“Your second date.”

“Fourth,” she said.

“Really?”

“Dinner last night, coffee break this morning, lunch break, dinner tonight. And it was your predicament that introduced us. So it’s lovely you were passing by. It’s like an omen.”

“That sounds bad.”

“Whatever the good version is.”

“A good omen,” Carrington said.

“I found Ryantown,” Reacher said. “It all matched up with the census. The occupation was listed as tin mill foreman, and the address was right across the street from a tin mill. Which was mothballed for a spell, which explains why later he was laboring for the county. I assume he went back to being foreman when the mill started up again. I didn’t look at the next census. My father had left home by then.”

Carrington nodded, and said nothing, in a manner Reacher thought deliberate and reluctant, as if actually he had plenty to say, but he wasn’t going to, because of some fine point of manners or etiquette.

Reacher said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“OK, something.”

“What kind of something?”

“We were just discussing it.”

“On a date?”

“We’re dating because of you. Obviously we’re going to discuss it. No doubt we’ll discuss your case forever. It will be of sentimental value.”

“What were you discussing?”

“We don’t really know,” Carrington said. “We’re a little embarrassed. We can’t pin it down. We looked at the original documents. They’re both lovely censuses. You develop a feel. You can see patterns. You can recognize the good takers, and the lazy ones. You can spot mistakes. You can spot lies. Mostly about reading and writing for men, and age for women.”

“You found a problem with the documents?”

“No,” Carrington said. “They rang true. They were beautifully done. Among the best I ever saw. The 1940 in particular was a hall of fame census. We believed every word.”

“Then it sounds pinned down pretty good to me.”

“Like I said, you develop a feel. You’re in their world, right there with them. You become them, through the documents. Except you know what happens next, and they don’t. You stand a little apart. You know the end of the movie. So you’re thinking like them, but you’re also noticing which ones will be proved wise or foolish by future events.”

“And?”

“There’s something wrong with the story you told me.”

“But not in the documents.”

“Some other part.”

“But you don’t know what.”

“Can’t pin it down.”

Then the waitress came by and took their orders, and the conversation moved on to other things. Reacher didn’t turn it back. He didn’t want to ruin their evening. He let them talk about whatever they felt like, and he joined in wherever he could.

He ate a main course only, and got up to go. He wanted them to have dessert on their own. It seemed the least he could do. They didn’t object. He made them take a twenty. They said it was too much. He said tell the waitress to keep the change.

He stepped out the door, and turned right, back the way he had come. The dark was noticeably darker. The streets were noticeably quieter. Traffic was light. No one was walking. The stores were all closed. A car came by from behind, and it drove on ahead, maybe a little slower than it wanted to, like nighttime cars in towns everywhere. Nothing to worry about, the back part of his brain told him, after computing a thousand points of instinctive data about speed and direction and intent and consistency, and coming up with a result right in the center of normal.

Then it saw something that wasn’t.

Headlights, coming toward him. A hundred yards away. Big and blinding and spaced high and wide. A large vehicle. Dead level, as if it was driving in the middle of the road. As if it was straddling the line. And it was driving slow. Which is what rang the bell. Neither one speed or another. Wrong for the context. Like a cautious rush hour creep, but one click slower, as if the driver was also preoccupied with something else. A modern person might have guessed his phone, but Reacher thought the guy was searching for something. Visually. Hence the central position. Hence the bright lights. He was sweeping both sidewalks at once.

Searching for what?

Or searching for who?

It was a large vehicle. Maybe a cop car. Cops were allowed to drive slow in the middle of the road. They were allowed to search for whatever or whoever they wanted.

He was pinned by the lights. They washed over him, hard and blue and bright, and then they slid past him, and suddenly he was in a half gray world, half lit by the bright lights’ reflection off the night mist ahead. He turned and saw a pick-up truck, high and shiny and handsome, immensely long, with two rows of seats and a long, long bed, and big chrome wheels turning slow, just rolling along, relaxed as can be.

It was on the inside where the action was happening.

It looked like an explosion of incredulous joy, like a crazy bet was paying out. The impossible had happened. Five faces were swiveling toward him. Five pairs of eyes were locked on his. Five mouths were open. One of them was moving.

It was saying, “That’s him.”

The guy with the moving mouth was the daddy from the apple farm.