Never Go Back

She got it. She nodded. She said, ‘The outhouse.’

It was in the outhouse ceiling. There was a false panel right above the toilet, which Reacher unlatched and handed to Turner. Then he put his arm in the void and felt around and found a plastic tub. He hauled it out. It was the kind of thing he had seen in houseware stores. In it was about four thousand dollars in bricked twenties, and spare keys for the Dodge and the Corvette, and a deed for the property, and a birth certificate for a male child named William Robert Claughton, born in the state of West Virginia forty-seven years previously.

‘Billy Bob,’ Turner said. ‘Rest in peace.’

Reacher bounced the keys in his hand and said, ‘The truck or the sports car?’

‘We’re going to steal his car as well?’

‘They’re already stolen,’ Reacher said. ‘No titles in the box. Probably some tweaker, boosting cars, paying off a debt. And the alternative is walking.’

Turner was quiet a second more, like it was going to be a bridge too far, but then she shook her head and shrugged and said, ‘The sports car, of course.’

So they kept the money and the Corvette key and put the rest of the stuff back in the outhouse ceiling. They hiked over to the barn, and dumped the money in the Corvette’s load space. On the edge of the clearing the fire was still going strong. Reacher tossed the car key to Turner and climbed in the passenger seat. Turner started the engine, and found the headlight switch, and clipped her belt low and tight.

And a minute later they were back on the road, heading west in the dead of night, fast, warm, comfortable, and rich.

TWENTY-EIGHT

TURNER TOOK A mile to get settled in and then she upped her speed and found a perfect rhythm through the curves. The car felt big and low and hard and brutal. It threw long super-white headlight beams far ahead, and trailed loud V8 burble far behind. She said, ‘We should turn off soon. We can’t stay on this road much longer. One of those cars that came through Berryville was FBI, I think. Did you see it?’

‘The Crown Vic?’ Reacher said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So we need to get away from any logical extension of that bus route. Especially because that old guy in the truck could tell them exactly where he let us out. He won’t forget that stop in a hurry.’

‘He won’t talk to the cops. He hauled coal in West Virginia.’

‘He might talk to the guys in the dented car. They might scare him. Or they might give him money.’

‘OK, go south,’ Reacher said. ‘South is always good in the wintertime.’

She upped the speed a little more, and the tail pipes got louder. It was a fine car, Reacher thought. Maybe the best in the world for American roads. Which was logical, because it was an American car. He smiled suddenly and said, ‘Let’s turn the heater way up and put the top down.’

Turner said, ‘You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘Why wouldn’t I? It’s like a rock-and-roll song on the radio. A fast car, some money in my pocket, and a little company for once.’

So Turner put the heater dial all the way in the red, and she slowed to a stop at the side of the road, and they figured out the latches and the switches, and the top folded itself down into a well behind them. The night air flooded in, cold and fresh. They wriggled lower in their seats, and took off again. All the driving sensations were doubled. The speed, the lights, the noise. Reacher smiled and said, ‘This is the life.’

Turner said, ‘I might get used to it. But I would like a choice.’

‘You might get one.’

‘How? There’s nothing to work with.’

‘Not exactly nothing,’ Reacher said. ‘We have an apparent anomaly, and we have a definite piece of procedural information. Which together might suggest a preliminary conclusion.’

‘Like what?’

‘Weeks and Edwards were murdered in Afghanistan, but you weren’t murdered here, and I wasn’t, and Moorcroft wasn’t. And he could have been. A drive-by shooting in southeast D.C. would have been just as plausible as a beating. And I could have been, because who was ever going to notice? And you could have been. A training accident, or carelessness handling your weapon. But they chose not to go down that road. Therefore there’s a kind of timidity on the D.C. end. Which is suggestive, when you combine it with the other thing.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Would you know how to open a bank account in the Cayman Islands?’

‘I could find out.’

‘Exactly. You’d search on the computer, and you’d make some calls, and you’d get whatever it was you needed, and you’d get it done. But how long would it take?’

‘Maybe a week.’