Jed Starmer didn’t know what he was looking for. Not exactly. He figured he was in the countryside so there might be a farm nearby. With a barn. Or a stable. Or a shed. He didn’t care if there were horses in it. Or cows. Or sacks of gross animal food. Or strange spiky machines. Just as long as it had walls. And a roof. And a door, which he could close. Where he would be safe. Just until he got his strength back.
Each step he took was harder than the one before. The trees were scattered around at random. They were close together so he had to weave his way between them. The undergrowth was thick and tangled. It constantly snagged his feet and ankles and made him stumble and almost fall. The earth was damp. It had a heavy, musty smell. Jed didn’t like it. It seemed dirty to him. Rotten. He imagined himself collapsing and the soil closing around him, engulfing his body, holding him forever as he slowly decomposed. He tried to go faster and some kind of insect scuttled away from under a decaying leaf. It was all legs and pincers and creepy antennae. He began to think he was worrying about the wrong size of animal. Then he heard a noise behind him. It sounded like a growl. He forced himself to keep moving. He had come too far to get eaten by some weird creature in a miserable stinking wood.
Jed squeezed between two more trees and emerged onto a track. It was wide enough for a vehicle to drive on and there were tire marks on the ground. They were broad and deep. The kind that are made by something heavy. Jed paused to get his bearings. He figured he’d been heading on a diagonal since he dumped the bike, and the track ran at a right angle from the road. So he could go left and wind up more or less where he started, which was familiar but exposed. Or he could go right. Deeper into the forest. Where he’d be hidden. But where he might be in other kinds of danger.
It occurred to Jed that the track must go somewhere specific. That was the whole point of tracks. People don’t cut them through the woods with no purpose in mind. Vehicles don’t drive around on them aimlessly. And the place the track led to might have some buildings. Some shelter. Which had to be better than where he was. Or the side of the road.
Jed went right.
He walked for what felt like ten miles, but he knew must only be a couple of hundred yards. There was no sign of any buildings. Nothing man-made. Not even a tree house. At least the track was easy to walk along. Jed stayed to the left and counted his steps. He tried to build up a rhythm. Then he picked up a sound. Something different from earlier. Not an animal. Jed was relieved. He thought it might be wind in the leaves, but discarded that theory. The air was too still. He realized it was water. He looked farther ahead and saw that the track came to an end at the side of a pond. A large one. Almost a small lake. Some unseen stream must feed it in a last act of independence before falling away and getting consumed by the raging Mississippi.
It was all Jed could do to not fling himself to the ground. The track must just be to support a bunch of recreational bullshit. People wanting to swim or kayak. Or fish. That thought gave rise to another. It made Jed wonder if he could catch something to eat. His stomach was a constant knot of pain. Even a tiny minnow would be welcome. Then he pushed the idea away. He had no rods or lines or hooks or whatever it was people use to snag fish. But maybe he could take a drink. If the water was fresh. If there was nothing rotting in it. Nothing that would poison him. He had seen TV shows where survivalists got all kinds of gross diseases from sipping bad water. He was scared to try. But he was also thirsty. Desperate for fluids in a way he hadn’t known was possible. He took a step toward the bank. He figured it couldn’t hurt to investigate a little. He took another step and through a gap in the leaves he caught sight of something unnatural. Artificial. Something with a right angle.
The right angle was the corner of a metal box, three feet by three feet by six feet. It was painted dull olive green. A color Jed associated with the army. There were military-style letters stenciled on the side, as well, in white. They read WINSON COUNTY VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT. And below, in a smaller size: AUTHORIZED USERS ONLY. The lid was held in place by a hasp and eye. There was no padlock. Jed unhooked it and lifted the lid. It folded all the way back, so he didn’t have to hold it up. Inside, to the left, there was some kind of machine mounted inside a scuffed red tubular frame. It had a handle like Jed had seen on lawn mowers, presumably to make it start. Coiled up in the space next to it there was a long flexible hose, three inches in diameter, with a mesh cage and a Styrofoam float at one end. There were two cans of gas. Two plastic containers full of pink liquid with labels attached with tables specifying how much to add to tanks of water to create fire-inhibiting foam. There was a box of flashlight batteries, but no flashlights. And two shrink packs of bottled water. Thirty-six bottles per pack.
Jed was not an authorized user. And he wasn’t a thief. But he was thirsty. He was close to full-on dehydration. Which was dangerous. And the point of fire departments is to save people. To help people in distress. So Jed grabbed the bottle at the nearest corner of the top pack. He pulled and twisted until it came free. Poured the water down his throat in one unbroken stream. Then he took another bottle. He drank that one more slowly, but finished it, too. He dropped the empties in the corner of the box. Removed the pack of batteries. The containers of foam mixture. The gas cans. And the hose. He tried to move the machine but it was too heavy so he left it where it was. Then he climbed inside. Pulled the lid down, with the empty bottles sandwiched against the lip of the box’s long side. That way he had some fresh air, but could quickly pull them out if any animals came by.
If any firefighters came and saw their supplies scattered around, that would take more explaining. Jed figured he’d find a way to deal with that, somehow. He’d come too far to worry about what-ifs.
Up in St. Louis, at their second-choice hotel, it was almost time for Lev Emerson and Graeber to swap places again.
It was close to six hours since Emerson had checked in. Half their rest time was gone. Emerson had spent the first shift in the room, lying on the bed, fully dressed, with the drapes closed. Then he had switched to the back of the van. It was still parked at the far side of the parking lot.
Emerson preferred the van. But not for comfort or facilities. That was for sure. It had no bathroom. No TV. No coffee machine. No air-conditioning, back in the load space. Just three cushions lined up on the floor. They were from the first couch that Emerson and his wife had bought together. It was delivered the month after they got married. He had salvaged them when his house got redecorated more than two decades ago. They fitted the space like they were designed for it but their battered leather covers were worn almost all the way through. Their stuffing was wearing thin. Emerson could feel the van’s metal floor if he shifted position too quickly. But the van was familiar. He liked the smell of the chemicals. The outline of the tools that were silhouetted in the light from the one-way glass in the rear doors. The way that the space calmed him. Allowed him to control his thoughts.
In the hotel room, Emerson was besieged by memories of Kyle. He could hear his son’s voice. See his face. How he’d been as an adult. As a kid. He relived snippets of birthday parties. Trips they’d taken. Random moments of everyday life that hadn’t seemed significant at the time but now were more valuable than anything in the universe. In the van Emerson could focus on his work. His art. He could remember everything from his first job, burning down a hot tub factory in Gary, Indiana, to the scene in the warehouse that morning.
Emerson mopped his forehead then sent a text to Graeber. He told him he could keep the room. He preferred to stay in the van. Where he could picture the fate of the distributor they were going to meet in Birmingham. The next link in the chain that would lead to the people ultimately responsible for Kyle’s death. He didn’t know how many links there would be. How hard it would be to loosen each tongue in turn. But he did know one thing. However long it took he would never stop. Not until he got justice for his son.
The problem wasn’t so much that the original owners of the Riverside Lodge had built their hotel in the wrong place. It was that they had built it at the wrong time. They had broken ground when Winson’s economy was fueled by more than just the prison. When people still came to the area to explore its natural beauty, not just spend a few minutes talking to a family member or a friend through a sheet of perforated Perspex. Hence its position high on the bank of the Mississippi. It had uninterrupted views to the north and the south. And to Louisiana away to the west, so far across the water that it looked like another country. Those first investors thought their clientele would never dry up as they got funneled past within touching distance by the local roads. Then the interstate came along and siphoned the passing traffic far away to the east.
The Lodge was made up of three distinct sections. A central core, two stories high, housing the reception area, the bar, restaurant, function rooms, and admin facilities. Plus a wing on either side containing the guest rooms. The roofs were flat and the structure was built of brick. There were three colors. A dark band around the base of the building. Pale yellow for the bulk of the walls. And regular vertical strips of white. The architects had insisted on those. They were a nod to the columns that stood out front of all the finest buildings in the region. The other main feature was a porte cochere which jutted out from above the main entrance. It had been designed to protect guests from the sun or the rain when they climbed out of their cars but it no longer looked very welcoming. Or very safe. In its current state it looked more likely to injure anyone who ventured beneath it. Maybe from falling masonry. Maybe from total collapse.
Hannah stopped the truck in the center of the Lodge’s parking lot and wiped her chin with a paper napkin. She had eaten her burger as she drove from the Winson Garden. She had been hoping to get to it before it went completely cold, but that ship had long sailed. It had been nasty and rubbery and congealed. That didn’t stop her from finishing it, though. Or Reacher from plowing through both of his.
Hannah said, “This is not how the place looked on the website when I booked. They’re taking some major liberties with their advertising. Want me to find us somewhere else to stay?”
Reacher said, “No. It’ll do just fine.”
Hannah looked around the lot. There were three cars close together near the hotel entrance. Generic domestic sedans. Neutral colors. Probably rentals. And an ancient VW microbus away to the right near a blue metal storage container like the one they’d seen at the construction zone. It wasn’t clear if the bus was still capable of moving. Hannah said, “There can’t be many guests.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“You sure? It isn’t usually a good sign.”
“Today’s not a usual day.”
“I guess.” Hannah took her foot off the brake, looped around, and slotted the truck into the gap on the far side of the container. “This won’t fool anyone who’s searching for us but there’s no point advertising where we are, right?” She took off her seatbelt, reached for the door handle, then paused. “But here’s what I don’t get. The cop who stopped us wasn’t on the level, was he? He was expecting you to be driving. On your own. That was obvious. He was surprised when he saw me. He stammered, then he was all over my ID, and he didn’t even ask your name. And the idea that the DMV has updated Sam’s records already? Give me a break. So given that the cop was bent, why didn’t he shoot us? Or at least arrest us?”
“Ever heard the expression a fish rots from the head?”
“No. I hate fish. What have they got to do with the cop?”
“The way I see it, there’s bound to be plenty of contact between the police and the prison. Escape drills. Visitors getting caught smuggling. Relatives causing a nuisance in the town. So there’ll be plenty of opportunity for Minerva to get its hooks into someone. Makes sense to go for someone high up. With authority. Influence. The beat cops will just have orders to be on the lookout. For me. For the truck. To report anything they see.”
“You think our guy will report that he saw us go to the Winson Garden?”
“I’m counting on it.”