61 Hours

back, ready to pull it out, like a request. Knox seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see him. Just preoccupied, and a little sullen.
    Reacher sat down anyway and asked, ‘You making out OK?’
    Knox shrugged. ‘They put me with some people.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘I suppose they’re nice enough.’
    ‘But you came out for a long slow breakfast.’
    ‘I don’t like to impose.’
    ‘Didn’t they offer?’
    ‘I don’t particularly like them, OK?’
    Reacher said nothing.
    Knox asked, ‘Where did they put you?’
    ‘With the cop who came to the bus.’
    ‘So why are you here? Didn’t the cop give you breakfast?’
    Reacher didn’t answer. Just said: ‘Any news?’
    ‘The tow trucks got here this morning. They pulled the bus off the highway. We’re leasing a replacement out of Minneapolis. Should be here soon after the storm passes.’
    ‘Not so bad.’
    ‘Except that it will come with its own driver. Which means I’ll be a passenger all the way back to Seattle. Which means I won’t get paid, effective four o’clock yesterday afternoon.’
    ‘Not so good.’
    ‘They should do something about that damn bridge.’
    ‘Have you seen anything of the passengers?’
    ‘They’re scattered here and there. One of them has her arm in a sling and one of them has a cast on her wrist. But generally they’re not bitching too much. I don’t think any of them has called a lawyer yet. Actually some of them are looking on the bright side, like this whole thing is a magical mystery tour.’
    ‘Not so bad,’ Reacher said again.
    Knox didn’t answer. Just got up suddenly and took stuff off a nearby hook and jammed a hat on his head, and wound a muffler around his neck, and struggled into a heavy coat, all borrowed, judging by the sizes and the colours. He nodded once at Reacher, a slightly bad-tempered farewell, and then he walked to the door and stepped out into the snow.
    A waitress came by and Reacher ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu.
    Plus coffee.
    Five to eleven in the morning. Forty-one hours to go.
    The lawyer left his briefcase in his office but carried his overshoes in their grocery bag. He put them on in his building’s lobby and retraced his steps through the lot to his car. He buckled up, started the engine, heated the seat, turned on the wipers. He knew that the highway was still closed. But there were alternative routes. Long, straight South Dakota roads, stretching all the way to the horizon.
    He fumbled his overshoes off and put a leather sole on the brake pedal and moved the shifter to Drive.
    Reacher was halfway through a heaping plate of breakfast when Peterson came in. He was dressed in his full-on outdoors gear.
    It was clear that Reacher was supposed to be impressed by how easily Peterson had found him. Which Reacher might or might not have been, depending on how many other places Peterson had tried first.
    Peterson put his hand on the chair that Knox had used, and Reacher invited him to sit with a gesture from his loaded fork. Peterson sat down and said, ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get breakfast at the house.’
    Reacher chewed and swallowed and said, ‘No problem. You’re being more than generous as it is.’
    ‘Kim suffers from loneliness, that’s all. It isn’t her favourite time of day, when the boys and I leave the house. She usually hides out in her room.’
    Reacher said nothing.
    Peterson asked, ‘Have you ever been lonely?’
    Reacher said, ‘Sometimes.’
    ‘Kim would say you haven’t. Not unless you had sat on a back porch day after day in South Dakota and looked all around and seen nothing for a hundred miles in any direction.’
    ‘Isn’t she local?’
    ‘She is. But being used to something doesn’t mean you have to like it.’
    ‘I guess not.’
    ‘We checked the bars. We found one with a very clean floor.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘North. Where the prison guards drink.’
    ‘Any cooperative witnesses?’
    ‘No, but the bartender is missing. Lit out in his truck yesterday.’
    ‘OK,’ Reacher said.
    ‘Thank you,’ Peterson said. ‘You’re welcome.’ Reacher speared half a slice of bacon and a half-circle of set egg yolk and ate it.
    ‘Any other thoughts?’ Peterson asked.
    ‘I know how the guy you put in jail is communicating.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘He made a friend on the inside. Or coerced somebody. Yourguy is briefing the second guy, and the second guy is briefing his own lawyer. Like a parallel track. You’re bugging the wrong