car you see won't stop. Because almost certainly the first car you see will be a local resident, and that person will get straight on the phone and tell the Duncans exactly where you are. We've had our instructions. The word is out. So the second car you see will be full of the Duncans' people. And the third, and the fourth. You're in trouble, sir. The land is flat here and it's wintertime. There's nowhere to hide.'
FOURTEEN
THE HOUSEKEEPER MOVED THROUGH THE ROOM IN AN ORDERLY, preprogrammed way, following a set routine, ignoring the anomaly represented by an illicit guest seated on the bed. She checked the bathroom, as if assessing the size of the task ahead of her, and then she butted the tub armchair with her thigh, moving it back an inch to the position decreed for it by the dents in the carpet.
Reacher asked, 'You got a cell phone?'
The woman said, 'Sure. Some minutes on it, too.'
'You going to rat me out?'
'Rat who out? This is an empty room.'
Reacher asked, 'What's to the east of here?'
'Nothing worth a lick to you,' the woman said. 'The road goes to gravel after a mile, and doesn't really take you anywhere.'
'West?'
'Same thing.'
'Why have a crossroads that doesn't lead anywhere, east or west?'
'Some crazy plan,' the woman said. 'About fifty years ago. There was supposed to be a strip right here, all commercial, a mile long, with houses east and west. A couple of farms were sold for the land, but that's about all that happened. Even the gas station went out of business, which is pretty much the kiss of death, wouldn't you say?'
'This motel is still here.'
'By the skin of its teeth. Most of what Mr Vincent earns comes from feeding whiskey to the doctor.'
'Big cash flow right there, from what I saw last night.'
'A bar needs more than one customer.'
'He's paying you.'
The woman nodded. 'Mr Vincent is a good man. He helps where he can. I'm a farmer, really. I work the winters here, because I need the money. To pay the Duncans, basically.'
'Haulage fees?'
'Mine are higher than most.'
'Why?'
'Ancient history. I wouldn't give up.'
'On what?'
'I can't talk about it,' the woman said. 'It's a forbidden subject. It was the start of everything bad. And I was wrong, anyway. It was a false allegation.'
Reacher got up off the bed. He headed for the bathroom and rinsed his face with cold water and brushed his teeth. Behind him the woman stripped the bed with fast practised movements of her wrists, sheets going one way, blankets the other. She said, 'You're heading for Virginia.'
Reacher said, 'You know my Social Security number too?'
'The doctor told his wife you were a military cop.'
'Were, as in used to be. Not any more.'
'So what are you now?'
'Hungry.'
'No breakfast here.'
'So where?'
'There's a diner an hour or so south. In town. Where the county cops get their morning coffee and doughnuts.'
'Terrific.'
The housekeeper stepped out to the path and took fresh linens from a cart. Bottom sheet, top sheet, pillowcases. Reacher asked her, 'What does Vincent pay you?'
'Minimum wage,' she said. 'That's all he can afford.'
'I could pay you more than that to cook me breakfast.'
'Where?'
'Your place.'
'Risky.'
'Why? You a terrible cook?'
She smiled, briefly. 'Do you tip well?'
'If the coffee's good.'
'I use my mother's percolator.'
'Was her coffee good?'
'The best.'
'So we're in business.'
'I don't know,' the woman said.
'They're not going to be conducting house-to-house searches. They expect to find me out in the open.'
'And when they don't?'
'Nothing for you to worry about. I'll be long gone. I like breakfast as much as the next guy, but I don't take hours to eat it.'
The woman stood there for a minute, unsure, a crisp white pillowcase held flat across her chest like a sign, or a flag, or a defence. Then she said, 'OK.'
Four hundred and fifty miles due north, because of the latitude, dawn came a little later. The grey panel truck sat astride the sandy path, hidden, inert, dewed over with cold. Its driver woke up in the dark and climbed down and took a leak against a tree, and then he drank some water and ate a candy bar and got back in his sleeping bag and watched the pale morning light filter down through the needles. He knew at best he would be there most of the day, or most of two days, and at worst most of three or four days. But then would come his share, of money and fun, and both things were worth waiting