by Diane Capri
Burke flashed a flirty glance back her way and smiled. “No problem. We can wait.”
The woman blushed. She cast her gaze to the floor as she stood and pushed her chair back. “Follow me this way.”
She led them down a long corridor and into a conference room with a view of Main Street. As she closed the door on her way out, she said, “I’ll call Ms. Olson and let her know you’ve arrived.”
After she closed the door, Kim said, “What was that about?”
“Charm works for me,” he said, flopping down in one of the chairs opposite the door. “You should try it sometime.”
“Why don’t you take the lead with Fern Olson then? Squeeze everything out of her she knows about Reacher. Apply your charm. See how that goes.” She avoided adding the word jackass at the end of her sentence.
Gaspar would have given her a big grin and a snappy comeback. Burke simply replied, “Sounds like a plan.”
Seemed like Burke’s go-to catch phrase, and she was already sick of it. Kim simply nodded. So far, this guy hadn’t displayed much of a sense of humor. Which might be okay, even if it made for long, dreary days.
After thirty minutes, she said, “It’s odd that Olson’s not here, yet. What school did you say her son attends? The one where she drops him off on time every day?”
“They can’t have more than one high school in this town, can they?”
She pulled her phone from her pocket and searched the browser for local high schools. There were three. One public and two private.
Kim knew nothing about Fern Olson except that she was a jailhouse lawyer and her ex-husband was a cop. Which probably meant they couldn’t afford private school for the kid.
She punched the number for the public high school and waited while it rang. The recorded message gave her a list of menu options. She chose the administrator’s office.
After a few rings, a man answered.
“Bolton High School Administration, Assistant Principal Peterson. How can I help you?” he said, distracted as if he was doing four things at once. Which he probably was.
“FBI Special Agent Kim Otto, Mr. Peterson. I’m helping out with yesterday’s prison break. We’re trying to find Fern Olson. I’m told that her son, Noah, is a student there. Is he in class right now?”
A long pause followed before he stammered, “I-I’m not at liberty to discuss students without the permission of the parents.”
“Mrs. Olson didn’t show up for work today. We’re worried. In light of the prison break. We’re trying to find her. Can you just check on Noah? I’ll wait,” Kim pressed.
Peterson said, “Noah’s one of our best students. I’m sure he’s fine.”
“All I’m asking you to do is make sure he’s in class. If he’s not, we’ve got a problem,” she paused meaningfully. “And so do you.”
He exhaled loudly, and she could tell she’d worried him. He said, “Okay. I’ll look. Hold on.”
“Thank you,” Kim replied, meaning it.
Burke gave her a smirk and a thumbs-up to show he approved of her initiative. As if he had a right to judge her performance or something. She clenched her fist at her side and turned to look out the window while she waited.
When Peterson came back to the phone, the guy was out of breath. As if he’d run down to the classroom to check for himself and dashed all the way back. “He’s not here. I asked the other kids and the teacher. They said Noah didn’t show up today.”
“I see. And that’s unusual?”
“Very. I’m calling his mother as soon as we hang up. If I don’t get her, I’ll call his dad,” Peterson said.
“Okay. Call me back if you find him,” Kim said, giving him the number even as her gut said she was wasting her time.
She hung up the phone and pushed Gaspar’s speed dial button. She turned to Burke and said, “Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“To find Fern Olson.”
“Why?”
“You got a better idea? I’m all ears.” She hustled toward the exit and pushed her way through the glass doors to the parking lot, Burke trailing behind.
Gaspar picked up. “Good morning, Sunshine.”
“Any chance you could find Fern Olson’s cell phone for me? She’s missing. I’m hoping she’s got the phone with her,” she said as she hustled toward the SUV. “And find her son’s phone, too. Noah Olson. He lives with his mother. Both are probably on the same cell provider’s plan since they live together.”
“I can do that. Give me a minute,” Gaspar replied. She could hear him clicking keys as she climbed into the SUV and fastened her seatbelt.
Burke had started the engine and backed out of the parking space before Gaspar said, “Got them both. North of where you’re sitting now. And they’re not together. I’ll text you the coordinates.”
“Great. And then try to get a clear satellite image for both locations, okay?” She paused. “Thanks for the help.”
“Anything for you, Suzy Wong,” he replied. “And I’ve sent you a new file. I found a tenuous connection between Reacher and Olson.”
“Yeah?”
“An inmate at Bolton. Ryan Denny.”
“He’s one of Olson’s clients. He escaped yesterday and is still at large. What’s the connection to Reacher?”
“Denny ordered four murders back when Reacher was in Bolton. Two cops, a lawyer, and an old lady Reacher cared about.”
“Seriously?”
“I know, it’s hard to believe Reacher cared about an old lady or a lawyer. But two dead cops are another matter entirely,” he said before he hung up.
Kim shook her head. Whenever she thought she was beginning to understand Reacher, something threw a wrench in her theories.
“What was that about?” Burke asked from the driver’s seat.
“Gaspar says Ryan Denny may be the connection between Olson and Reacher.” She paused to wrap her head around it. “Denny might be the inmate Cooper intended us to interview, after Olson.”
“How is Reacher connected to Denny?” Burke said with a frown.
“I’m not sure he is. Gaspar sent a file. He says Denny was responsible for four murders while Reacher was in town,” Kim replied, still thinking things through.
“What would Cooper expect us to learn from Denny?” Burke shook his head. “Not likely Reacher would come back here just for Denny, is it? And why now? He’s had seven years to deal with Denny if he intended to deal with him at all.”
Kim shrugged. Gaspar’s all-purpose gesture covered everything. “Reacher does what he wants, on his own time. If he was predictable, I’d have found him already.”
A few moments later, her cell phone pinged with the text from Gaspar. She entered the location of Fern Olson’s phone into the SUV’s navigation system as Burke pulled onto Main Street and headed north.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Saturday, May 14
Near Bolton, South Dakota
9:25 a.m.
Olson’s cell phone was thirty-two miles north of the intersection of Main Street and the county road that led toward Bolton Correctional Facility. According to Gaspar, the phone wasn’t moving, which could mean almost anything. But Kim was a realist. A mobile phone found in a static location in the middle of nowhere was rarely a good sign.
Burke drove the big Navigator along the main county road toward the prison. Under normal circumstances, this road led straight into the huge compound. One way in, one way out. Easier to monitor the traffic that way.
Five miles north of town, as they neared the facility, a temporary sign flashed on the shoulder announcing a detour ahead. Burke slowed the SUV, following behind an old Dodge belching smoke from its tailpipe.
Two Bolton PD squad cars, blue light bars pulsing on top, blocked the entrance. On a typical Saturday, busloads of visitors would have traveled from Bolton to and from the three facilities, picking up and dropping off families and friends of inmates.
But not today.
They waited in a short l
ine of traffic as the officers checked each vehicle and its occupants.
This was the first time Kim had been anywhere close to Bolton Correctional Facility. The black smoke from yesterday’s fires had dissipated. Clear skies and morning sunshine illuminated the bleak institutional architecture.
The compound looked exactly like the photos she’d seen online. No visible damage had been inflicted on the south side during yesterday’s events. From here, the place seemed normal.
But the photographs had not prepared her for the vast size of the facility.
“Land must have been incredibly cheap when this compound was built,” she said, turning her head from side to side to take it all in.
“Knowing the government, it was probably public land to start with,” Burke replied. “The only reason to build something like this way out here is because a bean counter somewhere said it would be cheap and easy.”
“True,” Kim said, continuing to scan the massive site before her. “The easy part had to be cheap labor and not much need for security once the place was built.”
Burke nodded, inching the SUV ahead behind the belching Dodge. “Because where would an escaped inmate go? No wonder they’ve rounded up most of the ones who didn’t simply come back on their own.”
Acres of concrete and blacktop, along with several huge block buildings, occupied the common grounds.
The buildings were not contiguous. They were laid out in a squared U-shape with wide-open spaces between them. The federal prison building was the largest and ran along the back to form the base of the U, opposite the main entrance. The county jail formed the east leg, and the state penitentiary completed the west leg.
At the end of the road, a camera captured images of the vehicles and occupants while the detour sign directed traffic east or west. A Bolton PD officer approached each vehicle and requested identification before passing the vehicle from the checkpoint onto the detour.
When it was his turn, Burke eased into the spot next to the officer and lowered the window. They handed over their badge wallets, and he inspected them. He took a quick snapshot of each using a handheld device created for this purpose.
“We’re working with Agent Smithers,” Burke said, which was partially true.
“We’re glad for the help. Where are you two going?” the officer asked, nodding as he returned the badge wallets.
“Fern Olson’s place. We’re told it’s about thirty miles north of here,” Burke replied. “Any trouble out that way?”
The officer shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard about so far. There’s two checkpoints between here and Newton Hills. Nothing’s been called in.”
Burke thanked him, raised the window, and turned west. After a mile or so, Kim could no longer see the buildings behind the trees and hills surrounding the facility.
The first county road they reached, Burke turned north toward the village of Newton Hills, which was barely a dot on the map.
They passed the next Bolton PD checkpoint a mile along the northbound road. They slowed, showed their credentials, were photographed, and passed through without incident. The facility’s crisis plan had laid out the procedure, and Bolton PD seemed to be following it to the letter.
At the checkpoint, Burke asked the officer, “Any news from the roadblocks or checkpoints ahead?”
“No. There’s nothing along this road except unoccupied land until you reach the old Olson place. Vehicles going that way have to pass through here. We’ve got one more checkpoint just south of Newton Hills. After that, we don’t have anything set up. But the feds might. I’m not sure,” the officer replied.
“Thanks,” Burke said, raising the window and picking up speed on the narrow blacktop.
“The coordinates for Fern Olson’s cell phone are about twenty-five miles north. Between here and her home,” Kim said, looking ahead at the long, lonely county road. “The signal is on the west side, off the road.”
“That’s a long way for an escapee to run in the dark. Not to mention the threats posed by wild predators,” Burke replied.
“Predators?”
“Wolves, grizzlies, pit vipers. Maybe others. All hungry after the long winter. I’m not that up on my native American wildlife,” he grinned when an involuntary shiver ran through Kim’s body.
“I’ll bet it’s pitch black out here after sundown. Not much traffic, either,” she said, scanning the sides of the road.
Burke nodded. “Yeah. This could have been a viable escape route to anyone who got past the perimeter of the prison before Bolton PD fanned out.”
“They probably ran the helos out here last night. Heat signatures from a human body wouldn’t be that hard to distinguish from the coyotes and prairie dogs. If they’d found any.” Kim saw nothing on either side of the road except trees and tall grasses. “If I were running from a prison break with nothing but an orange jumpsuit on my back, I’d have gone south. Cars, food, people. Harder to find me in even a small crowd and easier to hide, too.”
Burke frowned and increased his speed as if her logic annoyed him. She turned her head toward the window and grinned.
After a while, he must have tired of the silence. “Have you been wondering why I accepted this assignment?”
“Somebody’s got to do it, right?” Kim shrugged. “You got your orders from the Boss, just like I did. We’re not steering the ship.”
He nodded, tapping the steering wheel with two fingers nervously. “Truth is, I didn’t have a lot of choice. It was either accept the assignment or leave the FBI.”
“Was there something you’d rather do instead?” Kim asked.
“I liked the gig I had. I’m well suited to hostage rescue. I didn’t want to move on,” Burke replied, then inhaled deeply and took more than a minute to empty his lungs.
A habit formed when he was a SEAL, she guessed. SEALs could hold a breath underwater for a long time. “So why didn’t you stay with the hostage rescue team? HRT is a much more exciting department than working in the field like this.”
He shrugged. “Quite honestly, I’m not sure there’s anything else I’m qualified to do other than private mercenary work. So here I am.”
“So what happened that got you reassigned?”
“You mean you didn’t ask Gaspar to find that out already?” Burke gave her a side-eye and grinned.
“Of course, I did. This is a test.” She smiled in return, but the smile did not reach her eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Saturday, May 14
Near Bolton, South Dakota
10:05 a.m.
Kim gave Burke a long, hard look. In profile, he was rugged and all hard edges. Just like his personality. Which didn’t make him a liability on her team. Could be just the opposite. She’d wanted a partner and the Boss had sent one. But something about Burke made her more uneasy than she wanted to be.
She’d long passed the point of “trust but verify” where the Boss was concerned. He’d parked Burke here after some sort of problem in his last assignment that should have bounced him from the FBI.
The Boss, true to form, didn’t even tell her what the problem had been. Not that it mattered. He’d have stuck Burke on her team regardless.
The file Gaspar had sent proved Burke was a hothead. Maybe he simply got sideways with the wrong guys. Or maybe it was something worse.
Whatever it was, she needed to know. No time like the present to find out.
“My security clearance is higher than yours. So I can’t spill the details.” Burke gave her a glance to be sure she was listening as if he didn’t intend to repeat himself.
“How convenient,” she replied.
“Yes. But it’s also true.”
She shrugged. He’d tell her the whole story, or he wouldn’t. No amount of prodding would change things. And she wasn’t about to beg, so she waited silently while he made his choice.
“An operation went bad a few weeks ago. People died. Someone had to take the blame, and I was the low man on the team
. Next thing I hear, I’m out on my ass,” he said, with more concern than she’d expected. “That’s all I’m allowed to say. Just know that I took the weight, but it wasn’t me. I did what I was meant to do.”
She nodded, not persuaded.
“I won’t let you down, Otto,” Burke said. “You can count on me. You have my word.”
He seemed sincere. And maybe he was. But she’d been fooled before, and words were a bankrupt substitute for action.
Before Kim had a chance to reply, she noticed an unoccupied Bolton PD cruiser pulled off the road, up ahead on the shoulder.
“Looks like maybe somebody got here before we did. Let’s see what’s going on,” Kim said.
Burke swiveled his head to scan the desolate area. Nothing but weeds and trees and bushes in every direction. “This is where Olson’s cell phone is pinging?”
“About eighty feet off the road and slightly south of that cruiser. Maybe Bolton PD tried to find Olson the same way we did and came up with the same cell signal,” Kim replied.
“The officer must be out combing the bushes for the phone,” Burke said. “Or looking for Olson’s body.”
Kim blinked. “Why would you say that? We have no reason to believe Olson’s dead.”
“Oh, come on. Think about it,” Burke said. “Her clients are a bunch of convicted felons. Some are serving long sentences for violent crimes. At least two escaped yesterday that we know about. It’s not much of a stretch to assume one of them found her and killed her, is it?”
She said nothing, letting the idea settle in. She hoped he was wrong.
Kim had never met Fern Olson, but she looked okay in her headshots. She had a kid. And she was a lawyer. Whatever she’d done, she didn’t deserve to die for it.
Burke pulled off the road onto the shoulder behind the cruiser. He parked, and they both climbed out.
Kim walked around the SUV toward the cruiser and looked inside. Nothing to see.
On the shoulder, slightly ahead of the cruiser, she spied wide, deep tire tracks where a heavy vehicle had left the road.