Worth Dying For

saw some outbuildings dotted around here and there. He stopped in at every house, and every occupant said they’d searched their outbuildings. So Carson went away again, and that old barn and that old shed fell right between the cracks. Because Carson’s question was, did yousearch
your
outbuildings? Everyone said yes, probably quite truthfully. And Carson saw the old barn and the old shed and quite naturally assumed they must belong to someone, and that therefore they had indeed been looked at, as promised. But they didn’t belong to anyone, and they hadn’t been looked at.’
    ‘You think that was the scene of the crime?’
    ‘I think Carson should have asked that question twenty-five years ago.’
    ‘There won’t be anything there. There can’t be. Those buildings are ruins now, and they must have been ruins then. They’ve been sitting there empty for fifty years, in the middle of nowhere, just mouldering away.’
    ‘Have they?’
    ‘Of course. You said it yourself, they don’t belong to anyone.’
    ‘Then why have they got wheel ruts all the way to the door?’
    ‘Have they?’
    Reacher nodded. ‘I hid a truck in the smaller shed my first night. No problem getting there. I’ve seen worse roads in New York City.’
    ‘Old ruts? Or new ruts?’
    ‘Hard to tell. Both, probably. Many years’ worth, I would say. Quite deep, quite well established. No weeds. Not much traffic, probably, but some. Some kind of regularity. Enough to keep the ruts in shape, anyway.’
    ‘I don’t understand. Who would use those places now? And for what?’
    Reacher said nothing. He was looking out the window. The light was getting stronger. The fields were turning from grey to brown. The parked pick-up beyond the fence was all lit up by a low ray.
    The doctor asked, ‘So you think someone scooped the kid up and drove her to that barn?’
    ‘I’m not sure any more,’ Reacher said. ‘They were harvesting alfalfa at the time, and there will have been plenty of trucks on the road. And I’m guessing this whole place felt a bit happier back then. More energetic. People doing this and that, going here and there. The roads were probably a little busier than they are now.Probably a lot busier. Maybe even too busy to risk scooping a kid up against her will in broad daylight.’
    ‘So what do you think happened to her?’
    Reacher didn’t answer. He was still looking out the window. He could see the knots in the fence timbers. He could see clumps of frozen weeds at the base of the posts. The front lawn was dry and brittle with cold.
    Reacher said, ‘You’re not much of a gardener.’
    ‘No talent,’ the doctor said. ‘No time.’
    ‘Does anyone garden?’
    ‘Not really. People are too tired. And working farmers hardly ever garden. They grow stuff to sell, not to look at.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Why do you want to know?’
    ‘I’m asking myself, if I was a little girl with a bicycle, and I loved flowers, where would I go to see some? No point coming to a house like this, for instance. Or any house, probably. Or anywhere at all, really, because every last inch of ground is ploughed for cash crops. I can think of just three possibilities. I saw two big rocks in the fields, with brambles around them. Nice wild flowers in the early summer, probably. There may be more just like them, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because in the early summer they would be completely inaccessible, because you’d have to wade a mile through growing corn just to get to them. But there was one other place I saw the same kind of brambles.’
    ‘Where was that?’
    ‘Around the base of that old barn. Windblown seeds, I guess. People plough close, but they leave some space.’
    ‘You think she rode there on her own?’
    ‘I think it’s possible. Maybe she knew the one place she was sure to see flowers. And maybe someone knew she knew.’

FIFTY-ONE
    T HE D UNCANS HAD MOVED ON TO J ONAS ’ S KITCHEN, BECAUSE the taped window in Jasper’s was leaking cold air, and the burning fabric in the stove was making smoke and smells. They had stopped drinking bourbon and had started drinking coffee. The sun was up and the day was already forty minutes old. Jacob Duncan checked the clock on the wall and said, ‘The sun is up in Canada too. Dawn was about ten minutes ago. I bet the shipment is already rolling. I know that boy. He likes an early start. He’s a good man. He doesn’t waste time. The transfer will be happening soon.’
    The road that