The Hard Way

imagined safety of the darkness, four adults scrambling after her, confusion, panic, a search, unseen watchers rising from the grassland and moving in. Lane, blasting up the driveway in the rented Toyota SUV. Taylor and Jackson and Pauling holding their fire in case they hit each other or Kate or Jade.
    Lane, headlights on now, jamming to a stop.
    Lane, headlights on now, recognizing his own stepdaughter.
    His own wife.
    Reacher shivered once, a violent uncontrollable spasm. He closed his eyes, and then opened them again. He clicked the Maglite on and lowered the beam to light his way and walked on down the driveway. Toward the road. Toward he knew not where.

----

    Perez flipped his night-vision goggles into the up position on his forehead and said, “OK, Reacher’s gone. He’s out of here.”
    Edward Lane nodded. Paused a second and then backhanded Jackson across the face with his flashlight, once, twice, three times, massive blows, until Jackson fell. Gregory hauled him upright again and Addison tore the tape off his mouth.
    Lane said, “Tell me about your diet.”
    Jackson spat blood. “My what?”
    “Your diet. What you eat. What your absent wife feeds you.”
    “Why?”
    “I want to know if you eat potatoes.”
    “Everybody eats potatoes.”
    “So I’ll find a peeler in the kitchen?”

CHAPTER 74
    REACHER KEPT HIS flashlight beam trained down about ten feet in front of him, a narrow bright oval dancing left and right a little and bouncing as he walked. The light showed him the ruts and the dips and the holes in the beaten earth. It made it easier to hurry. He walked through the first curve in the driveway. Then he fixed his eyes on the darkness ahead and started to run toward the road.

----

    Lane turned to Perez and said, “Go find the kitchen. Bring me what I need. And find a telephone. Call the Bishop’s Arms. Tell the others to get here now.”
    “We’ve got the truck,” Perez said.
    “Tell them to walk,” Lane said.
    Jackson said, “Reacher will come back, you know.” He was the only one who could talk. He was the only one without tape on his mouth.
    Lane said, “I know he’ll come back. I’m counting on it. Why do you think we didn’t chase him? Worst case for us he’ll walk six miles east and find nothing and walk back here again. It will take him four hours. You’ll be dead by then. He can take your place. He can watch the child die, and then Ms. Pauling, and then I’ll kill him. Slowly.”
    “You’re insane. You need help.”
    “I don’t think so,” Lane said.
    “He’ll hitch a lift.”
    “In the dead of night? Carrying an assault rifle? I don’t think so.”
    “You’re nuts,” Jackson said. “You’ve lost it completely.”
    “I’m angry,” Lane said. “And I think I have a right to be.”
    Perez left, to find the kitchen.

----

    Reacher ran through the second curve in the driveway. Then he slowed a little.
    Then he stopped dead.
    He killed the flashlight beam and closed his eyes. Stood still in the darkness and breathed hard and concentrated on the after-image of what he had just seen.
    The driveway curved twice for no apparent reason. Not practical, not aesthetic. It went left and then right for some other purpose. To avoid unseen softness in the dirt, he had guessed before. To avoid a couple of badly drained sinkhole patches. And he had seen that he had been correct. All the way through the curves the track was soft and damp. Muddy, even though it hadn’t rained for days.
    And the mud showed tire tracks.
    Three sets.
    First, Tony Jackson’s old Land Rover. The farm truck. Blocky mud-and-snow treads. Chunky, worn, in and out many hundreds of times. The Land Rover’s tracks were all over the place. Old, faded, eroded, new, clear, recent. Everywhere. Like background noise.
    Second, the Mini Cooper’s tires. A very different look. Narrow, crisp, new, aggressive treads built for good adhesion and fast cornering on pavement. Just one set. Reacher had turned in the day before, slow and wide and deliberate, second gear, a small car at a moderate speed, unthreatening. He had driven through the curves and parked the car outside the house. And he had left it there. It was still there. It hadn’t moved. It hadn’t driven out again. It probably never would. It would leave on a flatbed truck.
    Hence, one set of tire tracks only.
    The third set was also a single set. One pass, one way. Wider tires. A large heavy vehicle, open treads, new and crisp. The kind of