hum from the engine, no more rocking from the springs. She struggled upright and gazed out, eyes wide.
"What's that?" she said.
"It's the sheriff," Carmen said.
"Why's he here?" Ellie asked.
"I don't know."
"Why are the lights flashing?"
"I don't know."
"Did somebody call 911? Maybe there's been a burglar. Maybe he wore a mask and stole something."
She crawled through and knelt on the padded armrest between the front seats. Reacher caught the school smell again and saw delighted curiosity in her face. Then he saw it change to extreme panic.
"Maybe he stole a horse," she said. "Maybe my pony, Mommy."
She scrambled across Carmen's lap and scrabbled at the door handle. Jumped out of the car and ran across the yard, as fast as her legs would carry her, her arms held stiff by her sides and her ponytail bouncing behind her.
"I don't think anybody stole a horse," Carmen said. "I think Sloop's come home."
"With the lights flashing?" Reacher said.
She undipped her seat belt and swiveled sideways and placed her feet on the dirt of the yard. Stood up and stared toward the house, with her hands on the top of the door frame, like the door was shielding her from something. Reacher did the same, on his side. The fierce heat wrapped around him. He could hear bursts of radio chatter coming from the sheriff's car.
"Maybe they're looking for you," he said. "You've been away overnight. Maybe they reported you missing."
Across the Cadillac's roof, she shook her head. "Ellie was here, and as long as they know where she is, they don't care where I am."
She stood still for a moment longer, and then she took a sideways step and eased the door shut behind her. Reacher did the same. Twenty feet away, the house door opened and a uniformed man stepped out onto the porch. The sheriff, obviously. He was about sixty and overweight, with dark tanned skin and thin gray hair plastered to his head. He was walking half-backward, taking his leave of the gloom inside. He had black pants and a white uniform shirt with epaulettes and embroidered patches on the shoulders. A wide gun belt with a wooden-handled revolver secured into a holster with a leather strap. The door closed behind him and he turned toward his cruiser and stopped short when he saw Carmen. Touched his forefinger to his brow in a lazy imitation of a salute. "Mrs. Greer," he said, like he was suggesting something was her fault.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Folks inside will tell you," the sheriff said. "Too damn hot for me to be repeating everything twice." Then his gaze skipped the roof of the Cadillac and settled on Reacher. "And who are you?" he asked. Reacher said nothing. "Who are you?" the guy said again.
"I'll tell the folks inside," Reacher replied. "Too damn hot for me to be repeating everything twice."
The guy gave him a long calm look, and finished with a slow nod of his head, like he'd seen it all before. He dumped himself inside his secondhand cruiser and fired it up and backed out to the road. Reacher let its dust settle on his shoes and watched Carmen drive the Cadillac down the track to the motor barn. It was a long low farm shed with no front wall, and it was painted red, like everything else. There were two pick-ups and a Jeep Cherokee in it. One of the pick-ups was recent and the other was sitting on flat tires and looked like it hadn't been moved in a decade. Beyond the building a narrow dirt track looped off into the infinite desert distance. Carmen eased the Cadillac in next to the Jeep and walked back out into the sun. She looked small and out of place in the yard, like an orchid in a trash pile.
"So where's the bunkhouse?" he asked.
"Stay with me," she said. "You need to meet them anyway. You need to get hired. You can't just show up in the bunkhouse."
"O.K.," he said.
She led him slowly to the bottom of the porch steps. She took them cautiously, one at a time. She arrived in front of the door and knocked.
"You have to knock?" Reacher asked.
She nodded.
"They never gave me a key," she said.
They waited, with Reacher a step behind her, appropriate for the hired help. He could hear footsteps inside. Then the door swung open. A guy was standing there, holding the inside handle. He looked to be in his middle twenties. He had a big square face,