CHAPTER FIVE
Thursday, January 13
4:27 a.m.
Detroit
Otto crept through her open bedroom door silently on bare feet, prepared to shoot. She waited at the threshold and listened with her whole body. She heard nothing but silence.
She flattened herself against the wall and crept into her main living quarters. In the ambient light from the windows, she identified her furniture. Unoccupied. No one here.
The microwave oven clock glowed blue. 4:27 a.m.
She’d slept less than an hour.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. She scanned the open room. No one here. Her apartment was empty of threats. No oversized army veteran wearing work boots clomping along her highly polished floors. No ghosts, either.
She did a close sweep of the entire apartment just to be sure. Closets, bathrooms, nooks, and crannies.
The only breathing creature inside her four walls was her.
She readied her weapon and padded silently to the front door. Her breath caught. She stared at the deadbolt.
Unlocked.
Had she left the door unbolted when she returned from the gym?
She shook her head. She never left her doors unlocked. Never.
But she’d been so exhausted. Had she forgotten?
Maybe.
Not likely.
She shrugged. She had no security cameras inside her home. She lived in a building as secure as Fort Knox. Or so she’d believed.
She’d never know for sure.
She glanced at the alarm panel beside the door.
The alarm was off. Had she failed to set the alarm, too? Was that how he got inside? Or had he breached her security systems to enter and then escaped too quickly to reset them?
She considered the question briefly before she shrugged again and moved on.
Carefully, she readied her gun and, standing to the side, in one swift movement, opened the door.
She scanned the empty corridor.
Left. Right.
Nothing.
No one there. Definitely.
No audible footsteps, either.
She must be losing her mind. Reacher couldn’t have been in her bedroom. Could he?
She hadn’t actually heard him depart. Did she?
She shook her head. She didn’t know. It was the uncertainty that scared her the most. Reality, she could deal with. That’s what her training was for. But this?
She felt herself shaking with cold. Her thin nightgown was not warm enough for January in Michigan. Even inside the heated building.
She dropped her gun to her side and glanced down. Which was when she noticed the manila envelope. It had been propped against the door and fell into her apartment when she swung the door open fast.
She kicked the envelope inside before she closed and locked the door. Securely.
She leaned back against the heavy steel, heart pounding. “This is ridiculous, Otto.”
Her voice was hoarse. She cleared her throat. “Get a hold on yourself. Gaspar’s right. Reacher’s dead. It’s over. Move on.”
Her harsh words did nothing to slow her pulse rate.
She reset the alarm system before she bent to pick up the envelope and carry it along with her gun into the kitchen.
She knew what was inside the unmarked envelope and she knew who’d sent it. She wondered how it had found its way to her door, and she’d take that up with the building’s security team after sunrise. For now, she placed both the envelope and her gun on the counter while she started the coffee maker.
No point in going back to bed. There would be no sleeping now, for sure.
She left the envelope in the kitchen and picked up the gun on her way to get dressed while the coffee brewed.
When she re-entered her bedroom, the faint, familiar scent reached her nose once more. She whispered as if she might be overheard. “I did not imagine him. He was here.”
Even as she uttered the words, she realized how unlikely they seemed.
She flipped the lights on and examined her bedroom. Nothing was out of place. Other than the lingering aroma, growing fainter by the moment, he might have actually been a ghost. That’s what her mother would have said. Her mother had tremendous respect for ghosts and spirits of all kinds.
She approached the chair and placed her palm on the upholstered seat. It was cold. No warmth from his body remained there. Which meant that she must have heard his footfalls before she’d awakened instead of after. If he’d been sitting there when her eyes first popped open, she would still feel that body warmth now. And she’d have seen him in the corridor, probably.
Maybe her mother was right. He could be a ghost.
She groaned, grabbed sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and dressed quickly. She splashed cold water on her face and slid her icy feet into slippers. She picked up her gun and her cell phone and returned to the kitchen where the coffee had finished. She poured a cup and carried it along with the envelope, her gun, and her misgivings to the table.
She plopped into a chair, ripped the envelope’s seal, and dumped the burner cell phone on to the tabletop. It was the same make and model as all the others. No note. Already fired up. She didn’t touch it.
The envelope had been hand-delivered to her door, which should have been impossible.
She lived on the forty-first floor of an exceptionally secure high-rise building in downtown Detroit. The entry doors were locked at seven. Every night. No exceptions. An armed doorman was on duty twenty-four-seven. The building was equipped with enough security to guard the President. All of which was designed to deter intruders.
And yet, her carefully selected security systems may have been breached twice tonight.
She shuddered. She’d always felt safe here. She’d been a fool.
Absently, she reached for her gun and pulled it closer. She figured she would not have long to wait for the Boss to call on his burner phone.
She passed the time by thinking through the explosion on Rocky Pointe again. She visualized the shadow running from the back of the house as she’d seen him in her uneasy dream. That shadow must’ve been Reacher. Otherwise, he couldn’t have been sitting in her bedroom less than an hour ago.
But was he really here? She was exhausted. Overwrought. She might have imagined the whole thing.
She shook her head vigorously, as if to push the visions aside. “Let’s not go down that road again.”
She grimaced. Brutal honesty? It could go either way. Until she knew for sure, she would share tonight’s events with no one. She’d seen what happened to agents deemed unreliable for much less than having paranoid delusions in the middle of the night.
She shook her head. “Nope. Not for me. Not a chance.”
She might leave the Bureau, sure. But if and when she did, it would be her choice and on her own terms. She wouldn’t allow herself to become an object of ridicule. She wouldn’t be passed over or forced out.
“The hell with that.” Who was she talking to?
She refilled her coffee at 5:02. At 5:03, the burner phone vibrated. Almost as if he could see her return to her chair before he dialed. He probably could.
She let the phone dance around on the table a few times before she cleared her throat again and picked it up.
“Otto,” she said, pleased to hear the firmness in her voice. Not even an uneasy tremor.
“He could be alive.” The Boss spoke quietly and cryptically, as he did whenever he could get away with it. He was paranoid about being recorded. Which was comical, really, since he had zero qualms about recording everyone else.
She wiped her tired eyes with her palm and resisted the urge to say, No kidding. Instead, she replied, “New evidence?”
“I’m afraid not. Or at least, not directly. Are you dressed?”
She glanced down at her sweats. “More or less.”
“I’m on my way up.”
The call disconnected. She gasped.
On his way up? He had never been in her apartment before. They had not met face-to-face in a very, very long time. Why was he here?