-
Monday, May 30
Dallas, Texas
Miller drove the SUV expertly through the narrow alleys until they escaped the mass of traffic headed to the riot site. He turned onto a boulevard, following the directions on the GPS.
Cooper relaxed deeply into the plush leather seats as if the chaotic and deadly riot scene hadn’t alarmed him at all. He reached up to push a button that raised the privacy glass behind the front seat.
“What the hell was going on back there?” Kim demanded.
A lesser man might have pretended to misunderstand, latching on to one of the more obvious topics such as the riot or the protesters or even the shooter.
None of which was what she meant, and he knew it.
He squared his shoulders and absorbed the assault straight on.
“Win some, lose some. Not everything goes according to plan.” Cooper shrugged. “While you’ve consistently been coming up short hunting Reacher, my track record’s been pretty good on that score.”
“What the hell? Your track record? What track record?” Nostrils flaring, Kim’s voice rose and her blunt retort came quickly. “I’ve been putting my ass on the line out there for seven months, dodging bullets while you’ve been resting in DC luxury. If you mean you’ve been one-hundred percent useless, I’ll give you that.”
“Whatever do you mean?” he replied innocently.
“You know damned well what I mean,” was Kim’s sharp retort.
“I sent you to the right places at the right times, didn’t I? Reacher was there. Every time. You simply failed to apprehend him.” Cooper smiled like the reasonable cat who ate the hapless canary. “Whose fault was that? Surely not mine.”
“What?”
“Look in the mirror,” he said gruffly.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Kim’s breath came in quick spurts. She felt the heat rising from her chest to her scalp.
“You think predicting Reacher’s actions is easy? You should try it for yourself and see how easy it is.”
Kim might have punched him squarely in the center of his smug face, but the angle was impossible from her seat next to his in the SUV.
She really hated being captive inside a moving vehicle.
“Okay, okay. Don’t spin out of control.” Cooper grinned and offered a brief nod.
Now that he’d wound her up, he stepped back. Another damned test.
“I confess. I didn’t actually know he’d be there every time. Let’s call it a highly targeted possibility,” Cooper said.
Kim was not mollified. “How?”
Cooper shook his head, as if Kim should already know the answer. “I’ve been monitoring Reacher’s prior contacts. Surely you figured that out.”
Kim said nothing, still pissed off. She had guessed as much. But it was long past time for him to explain himself. She had no intention of helping him.
“When one of Reacher’s friends is on a collision course with disaster, it makes sense that he might show up, doesn’t it?” Cooper asked.
“Only if he knew. Which, according to you and absolutely everyone else, he wouldn’t. He’s totally unpredictable. No fixed address. Moves randomly. No phone. No way to contact him,” Kim replied, still angry. “So how would he know his friends are in trouble? And don’t hand me your line of blather. You’re not clairvoyant and he’s not a mind reader.”
“Let’s come back to that. For now, we can agree that my, er, informed guesses have been uncannily accurate, yes?” Cooper arched his eyebrows.
Kim nodded sharply. “So?”
“So after Senator Redman died, I noticed Carmen Greer’s intention to attend the funeral. She had worked on his last reelection campaign. Maybe she wanted to pay her respects.” He emphasized the word noticed to suggest something else.
He didn’t simply come across the intel, that much was clear. Which meant whatever he’d done to find it was illegal, immoral, or both.
She waited.
Cooper continued, “Carmen was in serious trouble when Reacher helped her before, and she seems to be mixed up in something else now.”
“Reacher rescued her once. And you think, if he knew, he might do it again?”
“Not exactly.” Cooper frowned and spoke sternly. “Carmen Greer was a piece of work. You saw the files. She lured Reacher into a no-win situation. She was cruising the roads, literally looking for a guy she could bribe to commit murder. She found Reacher, picked him up, tried to pay him to kill her husband.”
“Seemed like she had good reasons for wanting the bastard dead. Her husband was no prize.” Kim cocked her head. “But of course Reacher refused to kill him.”
“It’s interesting that you would reach that conclusion,” Cooper’s scowl deepened. “But you’re right. Money has never been a prime motivator for Reacher.”
Kim considered the point and she had to agree that Reacher wasn’t motivated by promises of wealth.
Although he was one of the best snipers the US Army had ever produced. He had the medals to prove it.
If he’d wanted to work as a highly paid hit man for Carmen Greer or anyone else, he certainly could have done so.
Cooper’s point was spot on, though. Why did Kim instinctively assume that Reacher had refused to kill at Carmen Greer’s request?
She tucked that question away. It was something she’d need to think about privately. Not an issue she intended to discuss with Cooper now, or ever.
“You said you’d recently lost track of Reacher. So you just guessed that he might show up at the funeral because Carmen Greer was there?” she responded skeptically.
Cooper shrugged. “Call it instinct or intuition or informed expertise or whatever you like.”
“Not good enough,” Kim said, shaking her head. Cooper wouldn’t leave his cushy DC location on a whim or even a solid guess. Never happen. “What’s the rest of it?”
He paused for a long minute before he finally said, “Reacher knew the Redstones. Edward and Teddy, too. He might have come to the funeral to pay his respects.”
“Seriously? Reacher’s been out of the army for fifteen years now. Law of averages suggests he’s lost several people he knew before. He’s never attended any of the other funerals. Not even when his mentor died. You thought he’d show up to a funeral for an old army buddy now?”
Cooper shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“What then?”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable for the first time. He straightened his tie and squared his shoulders. Stalling.
“Out with it,” she said sharply.
“Like I said, Reacher had history with the Redstones. I didn’t say they were buddies. Let’s just say he wasn’t a fan,” Cooper paused and then delivered the blunt truth. “Reacher would have gone out of his way to see the old man dead in his casket. For the satisfaction of it.”
“That’s pretty cold.” Kim shivered as if his words had frosted the air. “You really think Reacher would hold a grudge all these years? Be glad the man died?”
“I don’t just think it. I know it. Reacher’s like a block of granite. Nothing much gets him going unless he wants to do it.” Cooper smirked and nodded. “The challenge is figuring out how to make him want to.”
Kim nodded. She had heard the same story from everyone she’d met on this assignment. Reacher’s confidence was as oversized as his body. He moved around in the world like he owned the place and expected everyone else would simply get out of his way.
Most of the time, they did.
And if they didn’t, they lived to regret it.
“We agree then,” Cooper said, watching her think things through as if he could see the gears turning in her head. “There’s one thing that fuels Reacher, pushes him forward when he might not otherwise be motivated in that direction.”
“Which is?”
“Revenge.”
She shivered involuntarily this time. Cooper’s analysis rang true. Too true.
“You haven’t talked to him for years,” Kim said. “How can you possibly know what motivates him now?”
“Leopards don’t change their spots, Otto. Unlike you, I actually know the guy. Known him since he was a kid. I’ve had many conversations with him,” Cooper said. “You don’t know him at all.”
Kim nodded, simply to encourage him to keep talking.
“Reacher’s a hard man. A killer. I’ve told you that from the start.” Cooper flashed her a narrow-eyed stare. “Don’t make the fatal mistake of believing otherwise.”
Kim said nothing. Her experience of Reacher had been different.
Cooper warned her again. “If Reacher wants you dead, there’s no power on earth that will stop him. Don’t you ever forget that.”
They rode a few miles in silence. There was way more to this situation than Cooper was revealing to her, but he wouldn’t share it until he was damned good and ready.
Kim picked up the conversation again from a slightly different angle. “We can agree that Reacher wasn’t at the funeral. So where are we going now?”
Miller lowered the glass between the seats before Cooper had a chance to reply.
“Talked to the locals. Redstone is safely tucked in for the night. Trejo and his wife are hospitalized with gunshot wounds. The wife is in critical condition. Still no leads on the gunman’s motive or the intended target. Gun was stolen. Owner reported it a month ago,” Johnson reported with terse efficiency.
“No ID on the shooter, either. No wallet, no driver’s license, nothing,” Miller said. “They checked preliminary biometrics.”
“And?”
“No fingerprints or DNA or matching facial recognition in the system,” Miller replied. “They’ll keep checking.”
Miller paused as if there were more to say, but only if Cooper wanted to hear it.
“What we know so far,” Johnson interjected. “Hispanic. A few hundred bucks in cash in his pockets. He’s nowhere in our databases. Probably undocumented.”
“Why would anyone think they could run into a senator’s funeral and kill people and survive the attempt?” Miller said, shaking his head. “People are crazy.”
Kim silently agreed that the idea was preposterous.
Cooper nodded. “Now that the shooter’s dead, we can close the case and move on.”
Neither Johnson nor Miller agreed nor argued.
“Move on to what?” Kim asked.