Make Me

“Depends how thorough you are. You could spend three weeks poking around, opening every door, looking under every bush. Which is what’s on my mind. It’s a footsore picture. It’s old-fashioned police work. The phone company trace, through a pal in the union, the railroad schedules, the guess about whether he stayed on board or got out, the physical search of a physical location. Time and space. Steel and iron. Shoe leather and late nights. Smart people would call it analog.”

“I suppose sometimes it has to be that way.”

“But we heard Peter was obsessed with the internet. He called a science journalist in LA a total of eighteen times to talk about it. Was that separate? How is that connected to a place that doesn’t even get cell service?”

McCann’s sister said, “It wasn’t separate. It was parallel. He thought it might be a clue to where Michael was. He thought that Michael might talk to similar people on secret sites. Maybe he was heading somewhere for a reason. Maybe there had been discussions. We had high hopes of Mr. Westwood for a time. He might have held the key. But Peter was very persistent. And persistence can be a negative thing in the end. As you say, eighteen calls. I tried to warn him.”

“Did he find the sites anyway?”

McCann’s sister said, “I’ll get more tea.”

She stood up and picked up the jug from the steamer trunk, and the jug caught the phone and sent it spinning in place, frictionless, plastic on leather. Reacher saw the neat pencil handwriting, rotating slowly, like a bicycle spoke coming to rest. Area code 480, and seven more digits.

Phoenix, Arizona. Where we’re going.

We’re on the way.

The time for looking over your shoulder starts now.

Half a slice of cake.

He said, “Evan, may I ask you a personal question?”

Dr. Lair did what most guys do, when facing such an inquiry, which was to pause a quizzical beat, and shrug in mock innocence, and say, “Sure.”

“Do you keep a gun in the house?”

“Is that important?”

“Just a matter of interest.”

“As a matter of fact I do.”

“May I see it?”

“That’s a strange request.”

His daughter Emily was half-turned sideways, sitting cross-legged, watching the exchange, back and forth from one face to the other, like tennis.

So was Chang.

Reacher said, “Is the gun in the bedroom?”

Lair said, “As a matter of fact it is.”

“It would be better in the hallway. Dead-of-night home invasions are rare. Plus you’d be too sleepy to be effective. Are you right-handed?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then within six feet of the front door on the right-hand side would be favorite. In a drawer or a cabinet. Or grips-up in a decorative vase. On a table. I imagine that would work.”

“Are you also a security consultant?”

“We aim to offer a wide range of services.”

Emily said, “He’s right, Dad. The bedroom is pointless.”

Chang said, “Technically our advice would be to conceal a separate firearm in each major zone of the house. The bedroom certainly, but also the kitchen area, the living area, the entrance lobby, upstairs if you have one, the basement if you have one, and the garage.”

Emily said, “Where’s best if you only have one?”

Only have one, Reacher heard.

“Go with the math,” Chang said. “Most problems come in the front door.”

“Seriously?” Lair said. “I should move it?”

“Better ask Mom,” Emily said.

And right then McCann’s sister came back, with a fresh jug of tea and cake on a plate, and she said, “Ask me what?”

“Whether my daddy should move his gun to the hallway.”

“Why on earth would he want to do that?”

“On the advice of one logical daughter and two security consultants.”

“How on earth did the subject come up? Is it important?”

We can’t tell her. Not now.

Reacher said, “No, it was just professional interest, that’s all,” and a minute later the matter evaporated like a bubble of soap, quickly forgotten, except by Chang, who flashed a question, eye to eye: What the hell is going on?

Reacher scratched his nose, absently, with the edge of his forefinger, the rest of his hand cupped below, hiding him mouthing Turn your phone off.

McCann’s sister said, “Are you OK?”

Reacher said, “Tell us about the web sites Michael was using.”

Chapter 40

McCann learned two things fast, his sister said, when he started looking at his son’s computer. The first was that software could be booby-trapped so that opening an internet history was the same thing as erasing an internet history. Unless you opened it right, which he didn’t, obviously. Because he didn’t know how. But like a lot of downloaded programs it wasn’t perfect. It had a tiny glitch. It left the first screen visible for about half a second. Then it was gone. Blank. No more.