One Shot

house, which was badly maintained and one winter away from serious trouble. The barn was no better. But it had new iron clasps on the doors, with a bicycle U-lock through them.
    There was no sound except for a distant rainfall hiss as the irrigation booms turned slowly in the fields. No activity anywhere. No traffic on the road. No dogs barking. The air was still and full of the sharp smell of fertilizer and earth. Reacher walked to the front door and knocked twice with the flat of his hand. No response. He tried again. No response. He walked around to the back of the house and found a woman sitting on a porch glider. She was a lean and leathery person, wearing a faded print dress and holding a pint bottle of something golden in color. She was probably fifty, but she could have passed for seventy, or forty if she took a bath and got a good night’s sleep. She had one foot tucked up underneath her and was using the other to scoot the glider slowly back and forth. She wasn’t wearing shoes.
    “What do you want?” she said.
    “Jeb,” Reacher said.
    “Not here.”
    “He’s not at work, either.”
    “I know that.”
    “So where is he?”
    “How would I know?”
    “Are you his mother?”
    “Yes, I am. You think I’m hiding him here? Go ahead and check.”
    Reacher said nothing. The woman stared at him and rocked the glider, back and forth, back and forth. The bottle rested easy in her lap.
    “I insist,” she said. “I mean it. Search the damn house.”
    “I’ll take your word for it.”
    “Why should you?”
    “Because if you invite me to search the house it means he’s not in it.”
    “Like I said. Jeb’s not here.”
    “What about the barn?”
    “It’s locked from the outside. There’s only one key and he’s got it.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “He went away,” the woman said. “Disappeared.”
    “Disappeared?”
    “Only temporarily, I hope.”
    “Is that his truck?”
    The woman nodded. Took a small, delicate sip from her bottle.
    “So he walked?” Reacher said.
    “He was picked up. By a friend.”
    “When?”
    “Late last night.”
    “To go where?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “Take a guess.”
    The woman shrugged, rocked, sipped.
    “Far away, probably,” she said. “He has friends all over. California, maybe. Or Arizona. Or Texas. Or Mexico.”
    “Was this trip planned?” Reacher asked.
    The woman wiped the neck of the bottle on the hem of her dress and held it out toward him. He shook his head. Sat down on the porch step. The old wood creaked once under his weight. The glider kept on rocking, back and forth. It was almost silent. Almost, but not quite. There was a small sound from the mechanism that came once at the end of each swing, and a little creak from a porch board as it started its return. Reacher could smell mildew from the cushions, and bourbon from the bottle.
    “Cards on the table, whoever the hell you are,” the woman said. “Jeb got home last night limping. With his nose busted. And I’m figuring you for the guy who bust it.”
    “Why?”
    “Who else would come looking for him? I’m guessing he started something he couldn’t finish.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “So he ran,” the woman said. “The pussy.”
    “Did he call someone last night? Or did someone call him?”
    “How would I know? He makes a thousand calls a day, he takes a thousand calls a day. His cell phone is the biggest thing in his life. Next to his truck.”
    “Did you see who picked him up?”
    “Some guy in a car. He waited on the road. Wouldn’t come down the track. I didn’t see much. It was dark. White lights on the front, red lights on the back, but all cars have those.”
    Reacher nodded. He had seen only a single set of tire marks in the mud, from the big pickup. The car that had waited on the road was probably a sedan, too low-slung to make it down the farm track.
    “Did he say how long he would be gone?”
    The woman just shook her head.
    “Was he scared of something?”
    “He was kind of beaten down. Deflated.”
    Deflated.
Like the redhead in the auto parts store.
    “OK,” Reacher said. “Thanks.”
    “You going now?”
    “Yes,” Reacher said. He walked back the way he had come, listening to the glider moving, listening to the hiss of irrigation water. He backed the Toyota all the way to the road and swung the wheel and headed south.

    He put the Toyota next to the Chevy and headed inside the store. Gary was still behind the register. Reacher ignored him and