Never Go Back

kids. His name meant nothing to her. Nothing at all. It hadn’t been mentioned in her presence.
    She said, ‘So will you tell me what’s going on?’
    Reacher said, ‘Your dinner is getting cold. That’s what’s going on. You should eat.’
    ‘Are you eating?’
    ‘I already ate.’
    ‘So why come in?’
    ‘For the decor.’
    ‘Arthur is very proud of it. Where are you from?’
    ‘I move around.’
    ‘So you are a federal agent.’ And then she started eating some of her food, which Reacher bet himself was billed on the menu as Mom’s Amazing Meatloaf . The smell of ground beef and ketchup was unmistakable. He knew all about diners. He had spent hundreds of hours in them, and he had eaten most of what they had to offer.
    She said, ‘So am I right? Is it the lawyer and a client?’
    ‘Partly,’ Reacher said. ‘But there’s no shady business between them. It’s more about a guy who might visit with one of them. Or both of them.’
    ‘A third party? With a beef?’
    ‘Kind of.’
    ‘So it’s going to be an ambush? You’re waiting for the guy to show? You’re going to bust him on my street? That would be very cool. Unless it happens at the law office. Can you choose? If you can, will you do it on my street? You should think about it anyway. The street would be safer. That little mall is busy. Is the guy dangerous?’
    ‘Have you seen anyone around?’
    ‘Only your own people. They sit in their cars and watch all day. Plus your mobile crews. The guy in the silver Malibu comes by a lot.’
    ‘A lot?’
    ‘Frequently, I should say. Or often. And the two guys in the rental. And you two in the Range Rover. But I haven’t seen a man on his own, looking dangerous.’
    ‘What two guys in a rental?’
    ‘One of them has a funny-shaped head. And cropped ears.’
    ‘Cropped?’
    ‘At first from a distance I thought they were just small. But up close you can see they’ve been cut. Like into tiny hexagons.’
    ‘When did you get up close with that guy?’
    ‘This afternoon. He was on the sidewalk outside my house.’
    ‘Did he say anything?’
    ‘Not a thing. But why would he? I’m not a lawyer or a client and I don’t have a beef with anyone.’
    Reacher said, ‘I’m not authorized to tell you much, but those two guys are not with us. They’re not ours, OK? In fact they might be a part of the problem. So stay away from them. And tell your friends.’
    The girl said, ‘Not so cool.’
    Then Reacher’s phone rang. He was unaccustomed to carrying a phone, and at first he assumed it was someone else’s. So he ignored it. But the girl stared at his pocket, until he pulled it out. Turner’s stored number was on the screen.
    He excused himself, and answered.
    Turner was breathing hard.
    She said, ‘I’m heading back, and I need you out front of the diner, right now.’
    Some kind of tight emotion in her voice.
    So Reacher clicked off the call, and left Sam Dayton alone in the booth, and went outside, and hustled through the lot to the street. A minute later he saw headlights way to his left, spaced high and wide, coming towards him fast. The old Range Rover, out of the south, in a big hurry. Then its lights lit him up and it jammed to a hard stop right next to him and he yanked the door and slid inside.
    He said, ‘What’s up?’
    Turner said, ‘A situation got a little out of hand.’
    ‘How bad?’
    ‘I just shot a guy.’

FIFTY-FOUR
    TURNER TOOK THE Ventura Freeway going west, and she said, ‘I figured the law office would be closed for the night by now, and probably the whole strip with it, and therefore I figured the watchers would be gone by now too, so I went up to take a look around, because there are things we may need to know in the future, including what kind of locks the law office has, and what kind of alarm. Which, by the way, are both fairly basic. You could buy five minutes in there, if you had to. And then I looked at my map and saw how I could get to Mulholland Drive pretty easily, because I’ve always wanted to drive a car on Mulholland Drive, like a G-man in a movie, and I figured if the kid is in there with you for her dinner, then she’s in there for at least thirty minutes more, which gives me time for a personal excursion, so off I went.’
    ‘And?’ Reacher said, simply to keep her going. Shooting people was stressful, and stress was a complex thing. People reacted to it in all kinds of different ways. Some people bottled it up, and some talked it out.