by Scott Blade
Next to the framed letter was an award with the state seal smack dab at the bottom right corner of the page. The award was some kind of certificate of appreciation that was given to Vaughn by the Office of the Governor of Colorado, a name that I did not recognize, but the date on the certificate was from eight years earlier, which probably meant that the governor of Colorado is not the same guy who signed and awarded the certificate.
Vaughn said, “I’m going to call the FBI first.”
I craned my head and looked back at her and nodded.
I moved onto the rest of the photographs, which took up the bulk of the wall. The first several photographs were happy times with, I assumed, coworkers. There were photos of barbeques, softball games, snowboarding in the mountains, and one large group of people surrounded by tents at night and a roaring campfire. In every picture, I noticed something else about Vaughn. All of the coworkers and friends seemed to be paired next to someone, like each person was standing next to the same person in the next photograph, but not Vaughn.
In every fun, group situation that she had framed in a picture on her wall, nowhere was she with anyone. Even though she was surrounded by people, she was alone. I moved farther down the line.
Behind me I heard Vaughn sigh like she was on hold or going through the local FBI office’s phone menu, both made sense considering the time. I didn’t wear a watch. I had a gift with time, probably a genetic thing that I got from Jack. I could often tell the time with some accuracy. I was good at measuring time from when one thing began until it ended, like a human stopwatch.
Vaughn said, “I need an agent.”
I couldn’t hear the voice on the other line and I had no idea if it was human or one of those automated things. Nowadays living, breathing operators were harder and harder to come by. I don’t make a lot of calls to the FBI, but I imagine that it’s the same as the rest of the government, which has moved to using automated menus and tons and tons of useless bureaucracy. That’s why we have the words “red tape.” I recalled that the term originated during the Civil War, when Northern soldiers had to travel all the way to Washington DC to repeal certain orders, to collect unpaid wages, to refute wrongful terminations, or to accomplish any number of things. When the soldiers arrived in DC, often their papers and documents were bound by red tape.
I remember thinking earlier that Vaughn wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but she had a demeanor about her that said she was a married woman. I looked at the rest of the photographs, and in the next several pictures, she appeared younger. It was as if I was examining her life in reverse. When I made it back to the earliest photograph, I realized that she had been married. The rest of the pictures were of her and a man, who was about the same age as her, a little taller, with broad shoulders and a clean-cut look about him. Vaughn and the mystery man were doing couple things in most of the photos—hiking, cycling, scuba diving, and even bungee jumping in one. They looked happy. I saw that each of them was clearly wearing a wedding ring and they were holding hands in several pictures. If she had been married, then this was the guy.
He was good-looking too, which was exactly what I’d expect with her being as attractive as she was. She didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would just marry any guy without him being physically fit. However, his height was a surprise. Maybe it was only because Jack was tall, like me, and I had pictured her with Jack, but the rest of my assumption was merely out of some misplaced sense that women liked tall men. This wasn’t always the case; in fact, it might be the case only some of the time. I would never know because I was a tall guy and I liked women who liked tall guys, just a little bias on my part.
After a brief moment of imagining how happy they looked in their marriage, I came to the last set of photographs, which weren’t all photographs at all, not entirely. The first one was, but not the second. The first was a photo of the same guy that I had seen her with, only in this picture he had a shaved head and wore an Army uniform. He stood, posed in the desert somewhere, holding an Army-issued M6 Carbine, and standing next to three other guys. Behind them was a makeshift operating base that was small. I saw a few trucks and tents off in the distance and right behind them, right in the center of the base was an American flag, flapping hard in the wind. It looked the way I always pictured the American flag looking, flapping and beating hard in the wind like a pounding heart.
The second photograph, which wasn’t a photograph, was the part that told me more than I had asked for. It was another American flag, only this one was real and was folded and framed. The frame was a black, cheap-looking thing that had a silver engraving on the bottom with small cursive letters.
It read: “To the wife of American Army Soldier David Vaughn for his service and dedication to protecting freedom.”
And it was signed in a legible cursive name. It was General John J. Cahburn.
I’d never heard of Cahburn, but I wasn’t in the army and I wondered if Jack had known the name.
Vaughn’s husband had died and she was given a flag. Now I knew why she seemed like a married woman, who wasn’t married at all. In her eyes, maybe she still was.
Chapter 13
I STARED AT a photograph of Vaughn’s husband as he stood on an Army base somewhere in the desert, probably Iraq or Afghanistan, but the location could’ve been any number of places in the Middle East. It all depended on whether he was a part of a combat unit or not. Combat was my guess, just by looking at the guy. He had that combat-seasoned look about him and Vaughn wouldn’t have been married to a sideline type of guy. No man that got her attention would’ve fallen into the bench category. That was for damn sure.
The base was a forward operating base, probably a temporary thing, which in itself was a clue as to the location, just as much as the sand and the uniforms. The flag in the distance, the barbwire that was far off in the background, and the transport trucks all fit as well.
Vaughn must’ve noticed that I was staring at the photo because she put her desk phone aside and said, “That’s my husband.”
But she said it in a kind of tone like she was jaded to it, which I didn’t understand.
I said, “He looks like a good guy.”
She said, “He was.”
Then the other end of the phone line must’ve became occupied because she put the receiver back to her mouth and started to communicate with the guy on the other end.
I stayed quiet, but I thought about the word that she used to describe her husband. She said, “was” and she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I thought the guy must’ve been KIA and that’s why she said it so jadedly. It must’ve been a long time ago, enough time to let her wounds heal. And now she was used to it, as if it was not necessarily okay, but it was there. Not something that a wife ever gets completely used to, but she had to learn to live with it.
Vaughn said, “Uh huh. Yes. I need to speak to an agent from Colorado.”
Then there was a pause and silence.
She said, “I’m calling from Hope. We’ve got two dead cops here.”
Vaughn sat up straight in her seat and squeezed the phone and said, “What the hell!”
I stared at her intently and studied her facial expressions. I had never seen someone’s anger show on his or her face so hard before, not that I could remember. She turned a shade of blue as if the guy on the other end of the line had just told her some major surprising news and it must’ve been quite something, like the guy had told her that this part of Colorado had just been annexed and was no longer under the jurisdiction of the FBI and now Vaughn was on her own. But it wasn’t that dramatic.
Vaughn said, “Connect me now!”
And then she ripped the phone away from her ear and stood up out of her seat, knocking it backward.
I said, “What?”
She looked at me and shook her head, but said nothing.
Then she put the phone back to her ear and said, “Why the hell wasn’t I consulted?”
She stopped and listened and then she s
aid, “I’m the police chief!”
The guy on the other end must’ve started talking because she went quiet and listened hard.
After five minutes and twenty-five seconds more of her nodding and saying “right” over and over, she got off the phone. She didn’t slam it down the way I had expected, but she did leave her hand on top of it while it sat in the cradle for another couple of minutes before she moved it.
She stared at the opposite wall.
I waited and finally I asked, “What did they say?”
Vaughn said, “There’s an agent named Oliver.”
I nodded.
She said, “He’s already here! In Hope! He’s been here for twenty-four hours. I guess they didn’t want to include me in knowing that he was here.”
Chapter 14
THE NEXT THING that Vaughn did was stand up and place her hands on the top of the desk.
She said, “What the hell is going on?”
I said, “I like coincidence as much as the next guy, but two dead crooked cops that weren’t supposed to be here in the first place, a missing girl, and now an FBI agent secretly in the town. That too much coincidence for me.”
Vaugh said, “He’s gotta be here because of the two cops. Maybe he was here investigating them?”
I said, “That’s the only thing that makes sense, unless there’s something more going on here.”
Vaughn said, “Come on. Let’s go find him.”
I said, “Don’t forget about this girl. Whatever is going on with the FBI might help us, but we can’t let her get lost in the shuffle. It’s likely that this FBI guy’s goal is different from our own.”
She nodded.
I said, “Let’s leave the camera to charge, but what about the Glock?”
Vaughn said, “We’ll lock my door, but they’re not going anywhere.”
I nodded.
I didn’t ask about her husband, but I took one last look at his picture and stepped out of the office.
Vaughn followed and turned and locked the door.
We walked through the deserted bullpen. I was out front and led us back to the entrance.
We passed back past Franklin, who stood up straight again and acted like he was going to salute Vaughn, but he only nodded and did the same to me.
I followed Vaughn to the parking lot and stopped on the handicapped ramp.
I said, “Want me to take the truck?”
She paused and looked at it and then at me.
She asked, “Why?”
I shrugged and said, “Two vehicles are better than one.”
She said, “Yeah. Actually, maybe you shouldn’t even come. I don’t know this FBI guy. I’ve never met him before. So there’s no personal or professional relationship built up. It’ll look bad having you there. What am I supposed to tell him?”
I said, “Tell him the truth. I’m helping with the investigation.”
She said, “Yeah, but what am I supposed to say, that I used to sleep with your old man?”
I stayed quiet.
She said, “Am I supposed to tell him that I just happened to meet you standing above the two dead state cops and instead of treating you like a suspect, I let you tag along?”
I said, “I see your point.”
She nodded.
She said, “Yeah. It’s not going to look good. But I don’t want to get rid of you. I know that you can help. So just wait for me. I will contact you after I meet this guy. Maybe he’s easygoing and he’ll overlook your involvement.”
I nodded and shrugged. I didn’t like this idea, but I understood it.
She said, “Take the truck and head over to the diner on Heston. It’s good.”
She paused a beat and then she smiled and asked, “Do you like coffee?”
I said, “Yes. It’s the only thing I drink.”
She said, “So did Jack. They have good coffee. Tell Gerry that I sent you.”
I asked, “Is he the owner?”
She said, “Gerry is short for Geraldine and she’s the all-night waitress.”
I nodded and watched her get in her cruiser and listened as the engine roared to life. I waited until she pulled off before I walked over to the Silverado. I pulled Saunt’s keys out of my pocket and clicked the unlock button. I opened the door and climbed in and dumped myself onto the seat.
I glanced over one more time and watched Vaughn’s taillights fade away into the gloom.
I started up the truck and stared at the touch-screen electronics in the dash. I knew that I could probably get directions on a built-in map feature, but I was curious if there was an online browser. Did these things come with that feature?
I swiped my hand across the screen and watched as the main menu lit up. I looked at the different buttons. I knew that Vaughn wanted me to go to the diner and wait. Waiting was something that I was good at. I was a patient guy by nature, but patience wasn’t going to save this girl’s life. If she was even alive.
I had to assume that she was and right now, she needed my help.
I sifted through the buttons and saw that the last button was a down button, which indicated that there were more off-screen buttons. I pressed it and found nothing that reminded me of an internet browser button. No search button. No Google or Bing or any other icon for a search internet feature.
The buttons were the same basic features that can be found in a 1990s Silverado, with the exception of a map function. Everything else was the same standard set of buttons that have been in every other car for forty years—air conditioning controls, heating controls, pop trunk and pop hood, and the radio. Nothing new.
I thought about how some things stay the same, but then I thought that if it ain’t broke then why fix it? The American automobile has had mostly cosmetic changes since the sixties. There are even some models of cars that were so popular from that era, the era of Jack Reacher, that they returned to the market decades later, like the Ford Mustang or the Chevy Camaro. Hollywood wasn’t the only industry that liked to regurgitate its past hits; the automobile industry was just as guilty of delivering remakes.
I couldn’t just go to the diner and sit still and wait around for Vaughn to get through her conversation with this FBI guy. I wasn’t even sure that she would come back and get me after. What if this guy was a boy scout? He wouldn’t let her have a guy tag along who wasn’t only a civilian, but was also barely a man in the minds of most law enforcement people. I wasn’t turning twenty for another six months. I could hear this guy’s objections now. He’d say that I was a teenager and it looked bad for Vaughn, which was only one more reason to assume that she wasn’t coming back until this thing was over.
As I said, I couldn’t blame her. It was her career and her job and her reputation. I wasn’t about to endanger that. The murder mystery surrounding the two dead cops I could leave up to her, but this missing girl might be alive and might be running out of time. I needed to find out what her connection to Saunt was. Since he was in a coma, the only thing that I could think to do was search online. After all, in the age of the internet no one had secrets. I could find out what their connection was pretty easily.
However, I didn’t have internet or access to a device to search on.
I thought about my father, Jack Reacher. He didn’t have a cell phone and I didn’t have a cell phone, but right now was one of those rare times that I sure wished that I had. All I would have to do was click and swipe a couple of times and then boom, I’d have the answers that I needed.
Still, I wasn’t dead in the water. I could still help without being around Vaughn.
I had one lead and one idea about how to find out more information and most important of all, I knew exactly what the first step was—get coffee.
Chapter 15
JACK REACHER drank coffee, a lot of coffee, this I did know about him. I drank a ton of coffee as well, which I was certain wasn’t good for either of us, not in the long run. I was years and years younger than he was, not that this affected the way coffe
e would influence my health in the years to come, but having youth on my side wasn’t a bad thing.
So far, I haven’t experienced any of the negative side effects or health problems that long-term coffee drinkers had, according to obscure, scientific studies and labs that I’d never been to or heard of. I used to hate coffee. I grew up more of a health-conscious person and I stuck to organic herbal teas or just pure water or even organic milk, things that might not sound like a Reacher, but I hadn’t always known that I was a Reacher. Right there in the beginning of my journey to find Jack Reacher, I had already learned a valuable life lesson from him. He had already taught me something without even being in my life in the physical sense of the meaning.
Jack Reacher taught me that taking chances was more than an important thing to do, but that it was also something that I did whether intentionally or not. We all take risks. Every day and every second. A skydiver takes the very obvious risk that his chute won’t open. A man who keeps himself locked up in the safety of his own house takes the risk of never experiencing anything, of letting life pass him by without making a single new memory.
I spend my days walking the streets and highways of America and every single day could be my last—a traffic accident or unexpected weather could fire a lightning bolt down and strike me dead, wherever I stood. If any of those things happened, at least I took chances. At least, I was out there searching for something and taking chances on life.
I sat with the menu face down in front of me in a corner booth near the window. I wanted to see people approaching and passing by in case Vaughn came this way as she had said she would.
The diner that she told me about was a nicely renovated place. The building was old with brown brick and a single large streetlight rooted out at the edge of the parking lot. The light was shared between Heston Street and most of the parking lot for the diner.
The diner had a parking lot all to itself, but on both sides of the diner were other businesses with shared their walls inside of small, Midwestern-looking shopping plazas like strip malls, but not so jam-packed with stores.