Nothing to Lose

really need a ride.
    The truck stopped at the line on the east side of the junction. Neither one of its direction indicators was flashing. A good sign. There was no traffic north or south, so it moved on again immediately, diesel roaring, gears grinding, heading west across the main drag, straight toward Reacher. It accelerated. The driver looked down. The truck kept on moving.
    Then it slowed again.
    The air brakes hissed loud and the springs squealed and the truck came to a stop with the cab forty feet west of the junction and the rear fender a yard out of the north-south traffic lane. Reacher turned and jogged back and climbed up on the step. The window came down and the driver peered out from seven feet south. He was a short, wiry man, incongruously small in the huge cab. He said, “It’s going to rain.”
    Reacher said, “That’s the least of my problems. My car broke down.”
    The guy at the wheel said, “My first stop is Hope.”
    Reacher said, “You’re the supermarket guy. From Topeka.”
    “I left there at four this morning. You want to ride along?”
    “Hope is where I’m headed.”
    “So quit stalling and climb aboard.”

    Dawn chased the truck all the way west, and overtook it inside thirty minutes. The world lit up cloudy and pale gold and the supermarket guy killed his headlights and sat back and relaxed. He drove the same way Thurman had flown his plane, with small efficient movements and his hands held low. Reacher asked him if he often carried passengers and he said that about one morning in five he found someone looking for a ride. Reacher said he had met a couple of women who had ridden with him.
    “Tourists,” the guy said.
    “More than that,” Reacher said.
    “You think?”
    “I know.”
    “How much?”
    “All of it.”
    “How?”
    “I figured it out.”
    The guy nodded at the wheel.
    “Wives and girlfriends,” he said. “Looking to be close by while their husbands and boyfriends pass through the state.”
    “Understandable,” Reacher said. “It’s a tense time for them.”
    “So you know what their husbands and boyfriends are?”
    “Yes,” Reacher said. “I do.”
    “And?”
    “And nothing. Not my business.”
    “You’re not going to tell anyone?”
    “There’s a cop called Vaughan,” Reacher said. “I’m going to have to tell her. She has a right to know. She’s involved, two ways around.”
    “I know her. She’s not going to be happy.”
    Reacher said, “Maybe she will be, maybe she won’t be.”
    “I’m not involved,” the guy said. “I’m just a fellow traveler.”
    “You are involved,” Reacher said. “We’re all involved.”
    Then he checked his borrowed cell phone again. No signal.

    There was nothing on the radio, either. The supermarket guy hit a button that scanned the whole AM spectrum from end to end, and he came up with nothing. Just static. A giant continent, mostly empty. The truck hammered on, bouncing and swaying on the rough surface. Reacher asked, “Where does Despair get its food?”
    “I don’t know,” the guy said. “And I don’t care.”
    “Ever been there?”
    “Once. Just to take a look. And once was enough.”
    “Why do people stay there?”
    “I don’t know. Inertia, maybe.”
    “Are there jobs elsewhere?”
    “Plenty. They could head west to Halfway. Lots of jobs there. Or Denver. That place is expanding, for sure. Hell, they could come east to Topeka. We’re growing like crazy. Nice houses, great schools, good wages, right there for the taking. This is the land of opportunity.”
    Reacher nodded and checked his cell phone again. No signal.

    They made it to Hope just before ten in the morning. The place looked calm and quiet and unchanged. Clouds were massing overhead and it was cold. Reacher got out on First Street and stood for a moment. His cell phone showed good signal. But he didn’t dial. He walked down to Fifth and turned east. From fifty yards away he saw that there was nothing parked on the curb outside Vaughan’s house. No cruiser, no black Crown Vic. Nothing at all. He walked on, to get an angle and check the driveway.
    The old blue Chevy pick-up was in the driveway. It was parked nose-in, tight to the garage door. It had glass in its windows again. The glass was still labeled with paper barcodes and it was crisp and clear except where it was smeared in places with wax and handprints. It looked very new against the faded old paint. The ladder and the wrecking bar and the flashlight