Never Go Back

CO?’
    ‘Four,’ Reacher said. ‘One of them was a woman.’
    ‘Did you feel bad?’
    ‘I wasn’t turning cartwheels. But it’s all part of the game. We all know what we’re signing up for.’
    ‘I wish I’d gone myself.’
    Reacher asked, ‘Have you ever been to the Cayman Islands?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Ever had a foreign bank account?’
    ‘Are you kidding? Why would I? I’m an O4. I make less than some high-school teachers.’
    ‘Why did you take a day to pass on the name of the Hood guy’s contact?’
    ‘What is this, the third degree?’
    ‘I’m thinking,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s all.’
    ‘You know why. I wanted to bust him myself. To make sure it was done properly. I gave myself twenty-four hours. But I couldn’t find him. So I told the FBI. They should think themselves lucky. I could have given myself a week.’
    ‘I might have,’ Reacher said. ‘Or a month.’
    They finished their pizza slices, and drained the shared can of soda. Reacher wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then wiped the back of his hand on his pants. Turner said, ‘What are we going to do now?’
    ‘We’re going to walk through town and hitch a ride west.’
    ‘Tonight?’
    ‘Better than sleeping under a bush.’
    ‘How far west?’
    ‘All the way west,’ Reacher said. ‘We’re going to Los Angeles.’
    ‘Why?’
    Samantha Dayton.
    Sam.
    Fourteen years old .
    ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Reacher said. ‘It’s complicated.’
    They walked through the downtown area, on a street called East Main, which became a street called West Main after a central crossroads. All the store windows were dark. All the doors were shuttered. Berryville was no doubt a fine American town, matter-of-fact and unpretentious, but it was no kind of hub. That was for damn sure. It was all closed up and slumbering, even though it was only the middle of the evening.
    They walked on. Turner looked good in the shirt, even though she could have gotten herself and her sister in it together. But she had rolled the sleeves, and she had shrugged and wriggled like women do, and it had draped and fallen into some kind of a coherent shape. Somehow its hugeness emphasized how slender she was. Her hair was still down. She moved with lithe, elastic energy, a wary, quizzical look never leaving her eyes, but there was no fear there. No tension. Just some kind of an appetite. For what, Reacher wasn’t entirely sure.
    Totally worth the wait, he thought.
    They walked on.
    And then on the west edge of town they came to a motel.
    And in its lot was the car with the dented doors.

TWENTY-FIVE
    THE MOTEL WAS a neat and tidy place, entirely in keeping with what they had seen in the rest of the town. It had some red brick, and some white paint, and a flag, and an eagle above the office door. There was a Coke machine, and an ice machine, and probably twenty rooms in two lines, both of them running back from the road and facing each other across a broad courtyard.
    The car with the dented doors was parked at an angle in front of the office, carelessly and temporarily, as if someone had ducked inside with a brief enquiry.
    ‘Are you sure?’ Turner asked, quietly.
    ‘No question,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s their car.’
    ‘How is that even possible?’
    ‘Whoever is running these guys is deep in the loop, and he’s pretty smart. That’s how it’s possible. There’s no other explanation. He heard we broke out, and he heard we took thirty bucks with us, and he heard about that Metro cop finding us on Constitution Avenue. And then he sat down to think. Where can you go with thirty bucks? There are only four possibilities. Either you hole up in town and sleep in a park, or you head for Union Station, or the big bus depot right behind it, and you go to Baltimore or Philly or Richmond, or else you head the other way, west, on the little municipal bus. And whoever is doing the thinking here figured the little municipal bus was the favourite. Because the fare is cheaper, and because Union Station and the big bus depot are far too easy for the cops to watch, as are the stations and the depots at the other end, in Baltimore and Philly and Richmond, and because sleeping in the park really only gets you busted tomorrow instead of today. And on top of all that they claim to know how I live, and I don’t spend much time on the East Coast. I was always more likely to head west.’
    ‘But you agreed to head for Union Station.’
    ‘I was trying to be