Black Jack

by Diane Capri

  The phone number she called was her partner, Gaspar. Reed listened to the conversation, which was nothing but inane chatter. When Brice and Grassley came out of Jacob’s office tower, Otto joined them at the SUV. The three split up.

  Grassley stomped off toward her car. Brice and Otto entered the SUV. Briefly, Reed considered following Grassley. But Otto was more important to Reacher, so Reed stuck to his original plan.

  Eventually, Brice dropped Otto off at a restaurant, and she went inside. Brice parked down the street and walked back. The restaurant was crowded and too noisy. Reed couldn’t hear any of the conversation.

  He figured they’d be inside for at least an hour. Which would give him time to change vehicles and come back before they moved on. If they left early for any reason, he could track both phones and Brice’s SUV without difficulty.

  He needed a sedan. One he was reasonably sure wouldn’t be reported stolen for a few days, at least. And he knew precisely where to get it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Saturday, January 29

  12:30 p.m.

  New York City, New York

  They reached the restaurant ten minutes late. Brice dropped her off at the curb. While he parked the SUV, Kim went inside to find Harper. Locating her only took a nanosecond because she was waiting just inside the door, hand extended to shake.

  “Agent Otto? I recognized you from your FBI profile photo. I’m FBI Special Agent Lisa Harper. NSB. Please call me Lisa.”

  They shook hands and Kim tried not to stare, but it wasn’t easy.

  Harper wasn’t simply attractive or merely stunning. She was spectacular. And so far out of Houston Brice’s league that he couldn’t even hope to find the ballpark with a GPS.

  She had long, straight, blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail. Her face was tanned and her teeth so brightly white a toothpaste company should have snapped her up as an international ambassador. Wide blue eyes were rimmed with lush black lashes. No makeup other than a touch of lip gloss that reinforced her youthful appearance. She had to be mid-thirties, but she looked a decade younger.

  She was also more than six feet tall, in ballet flats. Long-limbed. Very slender. Wearing an extensively tailored man’s suit that showed off her body. White shirt, loosely knotted tie. If she’d meant to convey how seriously androgynous she was, she’d failed totally.

  “I’ve requested a table. I’m sorry that my time is so short because I know you’ve probably got a ton of stuff to cover. Is Agent Brice on his way?” Harper’s look was frank, guileless. Kim figured that look was an asset to her National Security Branch job every day.

  “Let’s get settled. He’s just parking the car, which seems to be a never-ending battle in this city,” Kim replied. Two seconds later, they were trailing the hostess to a corner table.

  “I’m starving,” Harper said. “Would you mind if we ordered right away?”

  Harper could be that rarest of females. Astonishingly stunning, and also genuine, inside and out. If so, she’d be the first such bird Kim had ever met.

  They took a quick look at the menu and placed their orders. Brice arrived and did the same.

  “Okay,” Harper said, folding her hands and resting her forearms on the table. “How can I help?”

  Brice seemed to have lost his capacity for speech in Lisa Harper’s presence, so Kim took the lead. “You worked on a serial killer case a few years back. Female victims, all found in a bathtub filled with green paint.”

  Some of Harper’s brightness dimmed. She lowered her eyes. “Hard to forget a case like that.”

  “Brice’s team believes the killer is active again,” Kim said.

  Harper looked up, and her eyes widened with bald astonishment. The best question she could ask immediately was, “Really?”

  “They found a new body. A bathtub filled with olive green paint in Garrison, New York. That’s a tiny place across the river from West Point. You know it?” Kim asked.

  Harper shook her head. “I’ve never been anywhere in New York except the city.”

  “You had to be a new agent back then,” Kim said.

  Even seated, Harper still had to lower her chin to look Kim in the eye. “I’d been at Quantico two years at the time. Assigned to operations, not the serial crimes unit. So, yeah. Low agent on the totem pole, for sure.”

  “What was your role during the original investigation?”

  “I was assigned to a guy classified as SU, status unknown, maybe hostile, maybe friendly. Usually, that meant some lower-level organized crime dude willing to testify against his bosses in exchange for a better sentence. Sometimes witness protection was the carrot.” She shrugged and offered a weak smile. “Sometimes, it was me. You might be surprised how many tough guys lose their heads around a woman, even if she’s obviously a cop. And even more obviously not interested.”

  Kim dipped her head toward Brice, still star-struck by Harper’s sex appeal, and replied dryly, “No. I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

  The waitress brought the food and Harper fell on her pasta like a starving wolf. Brice seemed to have misplaced his appetite. Kim had ordered soup, which was too steaming hot to eat.

  “So who was the guy?” Kim asked although she suspected she knew the answer already.

  Harper’s eyebrows rose, and she raised a finger. Kim waited while she swallowed ravioli. “What guy?”

  “The SU you were assigned to during the bathtub murders.”

  “Former Army MP who fit the profile. His name was Jack Reacher.”

  “What profile?”

  “The one the Behavioral Science Unit team had worked up.”

  “How so?” Kim cocked her head and paid close attention because she didn’t see Reacher remotely close to what she figured the profile of the serial killer must have been.

  “There were several elements to it.” Harper paused. “But as I recall, it was a smart guy, a loner, Army, knew the victims…movements unaccounted for… Seems like there was one more.”

  Kim tried a bit of the soup while she waited for Harper to stop pretending she didn’t remember the last thing. The soup was excellent.

  When she figured she’d waited long enough, she said, “What was the last thing? The first elements are facts. The last one is usually some kind of psychobabble bullshit conclusion the profilers tack on to justify their existence.”

  “That’s why I couldn’t remember. It wasn’t an official diagnosis.” Harper flashed another megawatter, like she’d had an epiphany. “A brutal, vigilante personality. That’s how they put it.”

  Kim nodded. Actually, all those elements seemed to fit Reacher like a bespoke suit. Which was probably the precise reason they were chosen.

  She asked, “Which status was he? Your SU. Hostile or friendly?”

  “Both, I guess you’d say. He cooperated with us under pressure.”

  “What kind of pressure?”

  “Threats, mostly. Conviction, prison time, and so on. The usual.” Harper lowered her eyes and paid attention to her food.

  Harper seemed guileless, but she wasn’t. Not at all. No straightforward cop, FBI agent or otherwise, could survive as long as she had without a capacity for deception. She didn’t say what she meant. But what coercive methods did they use to flip Reacher?

  For starters, he would never respond favorably to personal threats. Kim didn’t. Gaspar certainly didn’t. Threats had the exact opposite effect on Gaspar, and he was a lot more civilized than Reacher. Gaspar would dig his heels in to the extreme simply to resist the pressure. She’d seen him do it.

  Reacher had to be a hundred times worse.

  Because of his size and skills, guys who threatened Reacher during his Army years were few and far between. They generally didn’t live to brag about it, either.

  So would threats of conviction and prison time have persuaded Reacher to move from hostile to friendly? Not a chance.

  FBI agents, including the behavioral profilers, were attuned to human motivations and reacti
ons. The serial crimes unit wouldn’t have wasted their resources on techniques destined to fail. They’d have deployed threats expected to succeed.

  Which, in Reacher’s case, was what?

  The answer flooded her senses instantly, like a fire hose floods a bucket. Deerfield wasn’t playing the odds here. He wasn’t a betting man. Not at all. He was a con artist. Kim spent a few moments on her soup while she walked through the logic.

  Deerfield knew the new bathtub murder would lure Reacher out of the shadows.

  He was absolutely certain.

  Because he’d used the same strategy on Reacher before.

  He’d threatened. Reacher had reacted.

  The tactic was easy. Elegant. Effective.

  Threats of conviction and prison time against Reacher failed. Deerfield must have moved on to threatening someone Reacher cared about enough to get Reacher on Deerfield’s side.

  Deerfield had discovered Reacher’s Achilles heel back then, and he applied the same leverage again now.

  The person Reacher had cared about most in the world was not himself, but Jodie Jacob.

  If Jacob was the woman in the tub, Reacher was coming for her killer.

  No force on earth would be sufficient to stop him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Saturday, January 29

  2:05 p.m.

  New York City, New York

  Kim’s hot soup was barely touched when Lisa Harper finished the last of her lunch and sat back in her chair. Kim picked up her spoon.

  Harper looked at Brice, who had contributed nothing useful to the interview yet. “So you’ve got a copycat killer?”

  He shrugged. “Like Otto said, we think it’s the original killer. We think he’s been dormant for a while and now he’s back.”

  Harper nodded slowly, but she didn’t agree. Which wasn’t surprising, if she agreed with Kim’s guess about the copycat. “Tell me about your crime scene. Naked woman in a bathtub in her own home, right?”

  “Same as the earlier cases, according to the files,” Brice replied.

  “Yeah, all that was covered by the media at the time. If your copycat’s a local guy, he might not have heard any of the details because we didn’t have any victims in New York. Media here might not have covered it. But it’s pretty easy for a copycat to find those facts with a quick online search.” Harper paused. “You found her yesterday?”

  “Local cops on the scene late in the afternoon. Autopsy’s pending.”

  “You don’t know who she is?” Harper’s eyes widened. From her reaction, Kim figured this was a new bit the copycat had added, too.

  Brice replied, “Not yet.”

  “How was her body posed?” Harper asked.

  “Leaning against the back of the tub. Paint up to her neck. Hands folded across her abdomen,” Brice replied.

  Harper cocked her head. “How much paint?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. The tech took it out of the tub in a fifty-five-gallon shop vac. So something less than that.”

  “What color?” Harper asked, still not confirming that any of Brice’s answers matched the original cases.

  If Brice noticed, he didn’t follow up. “Army camo green. Same as always.”

  Harper nodded. “What kind of paint? That’s another detail we didn’t release to the press at the time.”

  “We think it’s oil-based because there were no visible signs of freezing and it’s been damned cold here. We’re waiting on lab results for that, too,” Brice replied.

  Harper glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry, but I’ve only got about ten more minutes.”

  “Where’s your meeting?” Kim asked.

  “Here. Private room in the back.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a couple of business cards. She put one near Kim and the other near Brice. They reciprocated. “You can call me, of course. But let’s make the most of our time. What did you want to know?”

  “You were the agent responsible for watching Reacher on the original case. Did he talk to you about Jodie Jacob?” Brice asked.

  Harper’s eyebrows arched. “His lawyer? Sure. He’d known her since she was a kid. I think I remember they were having an affair at the time.”

  “Are lawyers supposed to sleep with their clients?” Brice said.

  Harper smiled. “I’m not a lawyer. But you’ve got your timing mixed up. The way I understood it, they were lovers first. She only became his lawyer after he was arrested.”

  Brice said, “Originally, the team believed Reacher was the killer. He was ruled out because he had an alibi for one of the murders. We believe now that his alibi was false.”

  All the color drained from Harper’s face. Her blue eyes grew larger than quarters. She lifted her water glass with a slightly unsteady hand and sipped.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure what I can say about that. If you have new evidence against Reacher, you could solve a very cold case.”

  “We have to find him first. Which is proving difficult to do. Have you heard from him?” Brice asked.

  She shook her head. “Never. Not since the case fizzled when we were out west. He had a travel voucher, and he went back to New York. Something about Jodie Jacob’s partnership party, maybe?”

  Brice leaned in and lowered his voice. “You spent a lot of time with the guy. More than anyone else we’ve located so far. If you wanted to find him now, how would you do it?”

  The blank look on her face said it all, but she replied, “I have no earthly idea. The usual missing persons protocols, I guess? Maybe starting with Jodie Jacob. She knew him a lot better and a lot longer than I did.”

  “Tell me something about Reacher that I can’t find in his files. Something I can follow up, maybe locate him, bring him back in for questioning.” Brice was probably mindful of the rapidly ticking clock and simply throwing a Hail Mary with a blanket request like that.

  Kim thought Harper might volunteer that Reacher was a good kisser, just to mess with him. But she didn’t.

  “That was years ago.” Harper shrugged and to her credit, seemed to think about it. She glanced at her watch. “I’ve really got to run. But quickly, let’s see if anything I can remember might help. He knew a lot about the victims, which is always good in any kind of investigation, but that was the thing that made him especially helpful to us. Not sure that’s useful unless your victim was in the Army, too. The only other thing—and I’m not a behavioral scientist so I can’t put a label on it—but something about Reacher rubbed people the wrong way. Nobody on the team liked him at all.”

  Except for you. Imagine that. Kim hid her smile behind a spoonful of soup as she wondered once again why women had such a fondness for Reacher.

  “Was that unusual down at Quantico for suspects classified as Status Unknown? Because it’s pretty common here in our New York office. We don’t make friends with the suspects,” Brice said, lip curled as if the very concept was repulsive.

  “Honestly, everything about the case was unusual, including Reacher. He was both terrifying and intriguing, all at once. I’ve never met another guy quite like him, inside or outside a prison cell. But I’ll say this. I don’t for a second believe he killed those women back then. I’d say you’re barking up the wrong tree on that score. You might want to focus on a better suspect.” She grabbed her briefcase and the check and was three steps toward the door when she looked back briefly at Kim and said, “Call me if you need anything else. My cell phone number is on the back of those cards.”

  Brice watched her go like a defeated boxer mixed with a lovesick teenager.

  Kim smiled and finished the last spoonful of soup. “So? What’s your opinion of Lisa Harper?”

  “She’s a star at the NSB, I’m told. She pretended to be helpful. But her opinion of Reacher doesn’t match what we know about him. Not even close. So I guess it doesn’t mean much. She didn’t actually tell us anything anyway, did she?” Brice frowned like he’d just now figured that out.

  “No,
she didn’t,” Kim said. “If there’s nothing you need me to do right now, I’m heading back to my hotel for a few hours to get some work done. And a nap.”

  Still focused on Harper, Brice nodded absently. “I’ll drop you off. You’ll never get a cab in this neighborhood today.”

  Twenty minutes later, Kim climbed down from the SUV’s cabin outside her hotel and watched Brice drive away. Once again, he turned north at the first opportunity and continued out of sight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Saturday, January 29

  3:55 p.m.

  New York City, New York

  The doorman stood close to the entrance, out of the biting wind. Kim figured he was entitled to the break. She looked around for a cab, usually as thick as weeds on 42nd Street at this hour. After a couple of minutes, her nose was as red as Santa, and her toes were practically frozen inside her boots.

  The doorman took pity on her. “Can I get you a ride?”

  “Would you? You’re a lifesaver.” She stuffed her hands into her coat pockets.

  “Cabs are scarce, but is a car service okay?”

  She nodded.

  He raised his hand, and a white Audi sedan appeared like magic. He palmed the folded twenty-dollar bill she handed him expertly and held the door open while she slipped quickly into the warm back seat. He closed the door and tapped the Audi’s roof.

  “Where to, Miss?” The back seat was separated from the front by a thick opaque partition. The driver used a handset in the front seat, and his voice came from a speaker in the rear deck.

  She gave him the address of the restaurant where she’d met Lisa Harper earlier. Harper’s meetings were being held there, she’d said. Kim planned to track her down for a more private conversation. Harper knew a lot more about the old bathtub murders than she’d let on. Kim suspected Harper also believed the Garrison murder was a copycat. She wanted to know precisely why.