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Tuesday, May 31
Pecos, Texas
“Hard to say how much time we have. Not long enough, probably,” Alice replied, tilting her head toward the back of the house. “My client, Elana’s, pregnant. Due any day now. And she’s developed a medical problem with the pregnancy, which is how I got her out of jail last night. A friend called me and asked me to help her. So I did.”
“Why didn’t she go directly to the hospital?” Flint asked. “Too afraid?”
“And they didn’t have a bed, anyway. Hospitals here are seriously overcrowded with migrants, many of whom have serious health problems,” Alice nodded. “I’ve made some calls. We’re expecting to get a bed for her at the hospital any minute now. We’ll need to leave right away so they don’t give her bed away.”
Kim cocked her head. “She’s more than eight months pregnant? Why is a woman in her condition crossing a dangerous border alone in the first place?”
Alice’s shoulders slumped. “That’s really the problem. But in her defense, she wasn’t quite eight months pregnant when she got here. Unexpectedly, she got the chance to cross, so she wanted to do it. And she wasn’t alone. Her boyfriend was with her.”
“Where is he now?” Flint asked.
She shook her head. “He had to leave for work four days ago and now she can’t reach him.”
Kim and Flint exchanged glances.
Flint asked, “Since he’s undocumented, what kind of work did he get?”
“Probably some sort of manual labor. I don’t know. Never met the man,” Alice said tiredly. “Elana says he plans to return before the baby’s born. Tomorrow or the next day at the latest, she said. But he might not make it in time if they have to do a C-section today.”
“If she has any idea where her boyfriend is, we might be able to find him for her,” Kim said, with a nod toward Flint.
“Thanks. I appreciate the sentiment. But you practically exude law enforcement from every pore of your body,” Alice grinned. “No way will any of these people trust you.”
Kim nodded. “So what will you do?”
“I’ve been in this game awhile now, so I’ve got contacts. If Elana knew where her boyfriend was, I could probably find him,” Alice sighed. “But she doesn’t know. I’ve already asked.”
“Let me know if you change your mind or if there’s any way we can help. Meanwhile, let’s move on for now. That okay with you?” Kim asked.
“Sure,” Alice nodded. “This will be my last chance to talk with you for a while, so we need to make the most of it.”
Kim paused a moment to choose her words. This was always a pivotal moment in every interview. Reactions from witnesses to questions about Reacher were always a crap shoot. They ran the gamut from hostile to tearful, and everything in between. Kim needed to be ready for whatever came her way.
“Alice,” Kim took a breath before plunging straight into the fire. “We weren’t properly introduced before. I’m an FBI special agent. I’m looking for Jack Reacher.”
“Yeah, he told me you’d be coming,” Alice replied, nodding. “He said I should answer your questions.”
Well. That’s a first. After seven months of dodging her, Reacher had decided to cooperate. Why? Kim was already considering the angles.
“Have you seen Reacher recently?” Kim asked.
Alice shook her head. “Haven’t seen him in years. He was in Pecos when I was out of town, apparently.”
“What makes you say that?” Flint asked.
Alice gave Flint a long solid look. “Carmen Greer told me he was here.”
“When did you talk with Carmen Greer?” Kim asked.
“While I was in New York. She called me. Said Reacher was here and wanted to ask a favor. I said she could give him my number.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Alice replied with a shrug. “Call me curious. We worked together on a tough situation ten years ago and I haven’t seen or heard from Reacher since. I was surprised, frankly.”
“What kind of case did you work on together?” Kim asked. Cooper’s files had been vague on this point.
“Carmen Greer’s wrongful arrest for the murder of her husband.”
“You were a pro bono lawyer back then,” Kim said. “The Greers have money and lots of it. Why did Carmen need to hire you?”
“That’s a complicated question. Basically, Carmen was accused of killing her husband. Understandably, the Greers weren’t too happy to pay for her defense,” Alice explained, draining the water bottle, one ear cocked toward Elana’s room. “And Carmen didn’t have any money of her own back then.”
“I guess that makes some sort of sense. Except Carmen didn’t kill her husband. I guess by the time you figured that out, she didn’t need money from the Greers,” Kim nodded slowly. “How wealthy are the Greers, anyway?”
“By Texas standards, back then, not very. A few million or so,” Alice said. “But a few years after that, new drilling techniques came on board and the Greers’ oil properties have pushed their net worth into the stratosphere.”
“Yeah, I see the Greer name regularly in the Texas business press,” Flint added. “Nobody’s collecting food stamps if their last name is Greer these days.”
Alice cocked her head. “Look, we’ve already established that I don’t have a lot of time here. Why don’t you ask me the things you don’t already know?”
Flint nodded. “Sounds reasonable. Where did Reacher go? Where is he now? Is he coming back? When?”
Alice smiled. “You really don’t know much, do you?”
“No. And I’m the kind of guy who likes to know things.”
“Right,” she replied with amusement. “I don’t know where he went. I don’t know where he is now. And I don’t know when, or if, he’s coming back.”
“Look, Alice,” Kim cleared her throat. “Reacher called a mutual friend because he couldn’t get in touch with me. He had something he wanted me to know. He told me to come here and ask you.”
“Ask me what?”
“That’s the question,” Kim nodded. “What’s the answer?”
“I would tell you if I knew. I swear,” Alice replied. “He called me. He said Maria Greer was murdered. He said he knew who killed her. But he didn’t tell me who the killer was.”
Kim let the intel sink in for a moment. She had so many questions it was hard to know where to start. “Why did Reacher think you’d be interested in Maria Greer’s murder?”
Alice paused a long beat. “Because she was my client. And I liked her. And so did he. And she didn’t deserve to be murdered.”
“How did Reacher know that Maria Greer was your client?” Kim asked.
Alice shrugged. “Maybe he’s got a source. Maybe he’s dating a fortune teller. How should I know?”
“No one deserves to be murdered,” Flint said. “Reacher said he knew who the killer was. Did you have the impression he was planning to go after the killer?”
“Interesting question, since what Reacher said makes no sense. Maria’s killer also died in the fire,” Alice replied. “What we don’t know is who he was or why he killed Maria.”
Or whether Reacher knew him and how Reacher could go after him now since he was already dead.
“Are you worried that the killer might have been one of your clients, too?” Flint asked.
Alice’s mouth opened into an “O” and her eyes widened. She coughed uncontrollably and reached for her water bottle to soothe her throat.
When she’d calmed herself, she said, “Sorry. Honestly, the idea had never occurred to me. And I was about to say absolutely not. I told you, I don’t work with killers, gangbangers, or drug dealers.”
“But then—” Kim prompted.
“But then I realized that there’s no way I can say for sure that Maria’s killer was or wasn’t a client. I represent a lot of undocumented migrants and the killer hasn’t been identified. He’s a John Doe. So I guess he could have been a client and I wouldn’t have known about it. Which would well and truly suck,” Alice finished weakly, her voice trailing off into uncomfortable silence.
Before Kim could ask anything else, a woman emerged from the hallway that led from the bedrooms. She was young, Hispanic, pretty. Very very pregnant. And pale as milk.
She was also crying uncontrollably.
“Elana?” Kim asked, to alert Alice.
Alice jumped out of the chair and rushed toward Elana. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“No, no, no. Javier.” Elana’s ragged voice was barely audible over her sobs.
“What about him?” Alice said, wrapping her arms around the sobbing woman.
She pointed a shaky finger toward the television.
Flint found the remote and turned it on.
The story came up as breaking news. Coverage of the riot at Senator Redstone’s funeral yesterday in Dallas.
Images of the chaos filled the screen as police tried to quell the rioters.
The reporter showed a photo on the screen. She said authorities were asking for help identifying this man who was killed inside the church.
Elana’s keening grew louder and more heartbreaking. “Javier, Javier,” she sobbed, pointing at the photo.
“This is Javier, Elana? What’s his last name?” Amanda asked, while comforting the woman as best she could.
“Garcia. Javier Garcia,” Elana sobbed.
“Is he your baby’s father?” Kim asked kindly.
“Sí, sí,” Elana’s sobs became wails and screams as she crumpled to the floor.
Flint bent down and picked Elana up. “Where can I put her?”
“This way,” Alice said, leading him down the hallway to the bedroom.
Flint left Elana in bed and returned to the kitchen a few moments later without Alice. “Elana’s vomiting now, she’s so upset. Alice needs to get her to the hospital as soon as possible. She’s calling about the availability of the bed now.”
He handed Kim a cell phone. “This belongs to her. Look at the photo on the lock screen.”
Kim took the phone and pushed the button to turn on the screen. When the screen came up it displayed a photo of a young couple, smiling, obviously in love.
The woman was Elana. And the man was unquestionably the dead shooter from the photo on the news.
“Javier Garcia is a fairly common name. Not likely we’ll be able to find anything else about him until Elana is capable of coherent speech,” Kim said, pulling out her phone and snapping a few shots of the picture.
She sent the photo to Gaspar along with the name. He texted back. I’m on it.
“What about Miller and Johnson. Cooper, too, for that matter,” Flint said. “They’ll want the intel as quickly as possible.”
“Yeah. I’ll have to use Cooper’s phone to get a message into the safe house. I left it in my bag,” Kim replied, dropping her own cell phone into her pocket.
She examined Elana’s phone. Javier Garcia was not listed in Elana’s contacts.
The call log showed no outgoing calls in the past two weeks. The last incoming call was four days ago. The number had a Dallas area code.
Kim sent the number to Gaspar. He’d know what to do.