17 A Wanted Man

gun off her hip.
    Reacher stared left into the darkness. He saw no following vehicles. A one-two punch would have been reasonable tactics. Obvious, even. Bait, and then back-up. But it wasn’t happening.
    Yet.
    The woman walked up the flagstone path. Fast, but not running. She pulled the lobby door. She went inside.
    Sorenson saw a standard-issue rural motel lobby, with sheet vinyl on the floor and four awful wicker armchairs, and a breakfast buffet table with coffee flasks and paper cups. There was a waist-high reception counter with walk-around space on the left and none on the right. There was an office door behind the counter, with a fresh bullet hole in the wall high above it.
    There was TV sound behind the office door, and a rim of light all around it. Sorenson stood in the middle of the floor and called, ‘Hello?’
    Loud and clear and confident.
    The office door opened and a short fat man came out. He had strands of thin hair plastered to his skull with product. He was wearing a red sweater vest. His eyes bounced between Sorenson’s ID and her gun, back and forth, back and forth.
    She said, ‘Where’s the man with the broken nose?’
    He said, ‘I need to know who’s going to pay for the damage to my wall.’
    She said, ‘I don’t know who. Not me, anyway.’
    ‘Isn’t there a federal scheme? Like victim compensation or something?’
    ‘We’ll discuss that later,’ she said. ‘Where’s the man with the broken nose?’
    ‘Mr Skowron? He’s in room five. He’s very rude. He called me a socialist.’
    ‘I need to borrow your master key.’
    ‘I could have been killed.’
    ‘Did you see what happened?’
    The guy shook his head. ‘I was in the back room, resting. I heard a gunshot and I called it in. It was all over by the time I opened the door.’
    ‘I need to borrow your master key,’ Sorenson said again.
    The guy dug in a bulging pocket and came out with a brass item on an unmarked ring. Sorenson put her ID away and took it from him. She asked, ‘Who are your other guests?’
    ‘They’re here to fish. There are lakes nearby. But mostly they drink. They didn’t even wake up when the gun was fired.’
    ‘Go back in the office,’ Sorenson said. ‘I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.’
    Still no activity to the left. No lights, no cars. No back-up. Reacher watched carefully, the lobby, then the road, the lobby, then the road, like a tennis umpire. He saw the woman come back out, through the door, on to the flagstone path. She still had her gun in her hand. She hadn’t shot the fat man. She was clearly a person of considerable patience. She walked between the lobby and her car, past the Coke machine, and she headed down the row of rooms, on the sidewalk lit up by the bulkhead lights. She glanced at the doors as she walked. One, two, three, four.
    She stopped just before room five.
    She looked in through the crack between the curtains, just briefly, a duck of her head out and back. Then again, much longer, a careful survey of the sliver of the room she could see. No feet on the end of the bed.
He’s in the bathroom
, she was thinking. Reacher checked left again. No lights in the north. No noise, no movement. He checked to his right too, just to be sure. The back-up could have looped around a square on the chequerboard. Which would have been smart tactics. But there were no lights in the south, either. No noise, no movement. The woman wasn’t using her phone. No communication. No coordination. They wouldn’t have left her exposed for so long.
    She was alone.
    No back-up, no SWAT team.
    Reacher saw her knock on room five’s door. He saw her wait, and knock again, harder. He saw her put her ear against the crack.
    He stood up and started walking towards her, across the frozen dirt. He saw her put a key in the lock and turn it. He saw her enter the room, her gun up and ready. Twenty seconds later she came back out again.
    She stood on the sidewalk next to the lawn chairs, glancing left, glancing right, staring straight ahead. Her gun was still in her hand, but down by her side. Reacher crunched onward over the frozen stubble. He stepped out of the field and on to the road.
    She heard him. Her face turned towards him, blindly locating the sound.
    ‘Hello,’ he said.
    Her gun came up. A two-handed stance, feet braced. He saw her eyes lock on. He was looming up at her out of the dark. He said, ‘We spoke on the phone. I’m unarmed.’
    The gun stayed where it was.
    He