One Shot

time.
    Yanni sighed. Looked down at the floor. Looked up, straight into Emerson’s eyes, furious, embarrassed, magnificent.
    “We spent that night together,” she said.
    “You and Reacher?”
    “Me and Joe Gordon.”
    Emerson pointed. “This man?”
    Yanni nodded. “That man.”
    “All night?”
    “Yes.”
    “From when to when?”
    “From about eleven-forty. When the news was over. Until I got paged the next morning when you guys found the body.”
    “Where were you?”
    Reacher closed his eyes. Recalled the conversation the night before in the parking garage. The car window, open an inch and a half.
Had he told her?
    “The motor court,” Yanni said. “His room.”
    “The clerk didn’t say he saw you.”
    “Of course the clerk didn’t see me. I have to think about things like that.”
    “Which room?”
    Had he told her?
    “Room eight,” Yanni said.
    “He didn’t leave the room during the night?”
    “No, he didn’t.”
    “Not at all?”
    “No.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    Yanni looked away. “Because we didn’t actually sleep a wink.”
    The office went quiet.
    “Can you offer any corroboration?” Emerson asked.
    “Like what?” Yanni asked back.
    “Distinguishing marks? That I can’t see right now but that someone who had been in your position would have seen?”
    “Oh, please.”
    “It’s the last question,” Emerson said.
    Yanni said nothing. Reacher recalled switching on the Mustang’s dome light and lifting his shirt to reveal the tire iron. He moved his cuffed hands and laid them across his waistband.
    “Anything?” Emerson said.
    “It’s important,” Rodin said.
    “He has a scar,” Yanni said. “Low down on his stomach. A horrible big thing.”
    Emerson and Rodin both turned and looked at Reacher. Reacher got to his feet. Grabbed a fold of fabric in both hands and pulled his shirt out of his pants. Lifted it.
    “OK,” Emerson said.
    “What
was
that?” Rodin asked.
    “Part of a Marine sergeant’s jawbone,” Reacher said. “The medics figured it must have weighed about four ounces. It was traveling at five thousand feet per second away from the epicenter of a trinitrotoluene explosion. Just surfing along on the pressure wave, until it hit me.”
    He dropped his shirt back down. Didn’t try to tuck it in. The handcuffs would have made that difficult.
    “Satisfied now?” he asked. “Have you embarrassed the lady enough?”
    Emerson and Rodin looked at each other.
One of you knows for sure I’m innocent,
Reacher thought.
And I don’t care what the other one thinks.
    “Ms. Yanni will have to put it in writing,” Emerson said.
    “You type it, I’ll sign it,” Yanni said.
    Rodin looked straight at Reacher. “Can
you
offer corroboration?”
    “Like what?”
    “Something along the lines of your scar. But relating to Ms. Yanni.”
    Reacher nodded. “Yes, I could. But I won’t. And if you ask again I’ll knock your teeth down your throat.”
    Silence in the office. Emerson dug in his pocket and found a handcuff key. Turned suddenly and tossed it underarm through the air. Reacher’s hands were cuffed but he was careful to lead with his right. He caught the key in his right palm, and smiled.
    “Bellantonio been talking to you?” he said.
    “Why did you give Ms. Yanni a false name?” Emerson asked.
    “Maybe I didn’t,” Reacher said. “Maybe Gordon is my real name.”
    He tossed the key back and stepped over and held his wrists out and waited for Emerson to unlock the cuffs.

    The Zec took the phone call two minutes later. A familiar voice, low and hurried.
    “It didn’t work,” it said. “He had an alibi.”
    “For real?”
    “Probably not. But we’re not going to go there.”
    “So what next?”
    “Just sit tight. He can’t be more than one step away now. In which case he’ll be coming for you soon. So be locked and loaded and ready for him.”

    “They didn’t fight very hard,” Ann Yanni said. “Did they?” She started the Mustang’s engine before Reacher even got his door closed.
    “I didn’t expect them to,” he said. “The innocent one knows the case was weak. And the guilty one knows putting me back on the street takes me off the board about as fast as putting me in a cell right now.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they’ve got Rosemary Barr and they know I’ll go find her. So they’ll be waiting for me, ready to rock and roll. I’ll be dead before morning. That’s the new plan. Cheaper than jail.”

    They drove