by Dan Ames
“Hold on,” Pauling said.
A second man entered.
He, too, was slightly favoring one side and Pauling knew he was carrying.
Unlike the first guy, he had on a jacket and tie.
“He’s a Feebie, I’d bet my life on it,” Pauling said. Tallon was now tracking both men in the mirror. “They’re here for me, not you.”
“Why? If they have more questions, why don’t they just call you? Jesus Christ, this is getting obnoxious.”
“We’re about to find out, I assume.”
Tallon cracked a grin. “Did you set up a meeting? Or is this one unscheduled?”
“Unscheduled, certainly,” Pauling answered. “And it doesn’t look like they came to take notes.”
When a third man entered, Pauling said, “Let’s put our hands on the table.”
They both did so, and waited.
A fourth man, coming from the service door to the left of the bar/restaurant area, emerged. He was the oldest of the lot, and looked like he’d spent some years on the street. He had the air of authority and was probably the leader of the grab team, as they used to call them back in the day. His shirt was slightly stretched and she knew he had a vest on underneath.
Did they actually think I would start shooting? she wondered.
Together, he and the first man in drew their weapons and approached the table, now making no attempt to disguise their assault.
“Lauren Pauling.” His voice was firm, yet relaxed. Like he was talking down a jumper on the ledge of a building
She responded in an equally calm, even voice. “Yes. Did you find one of the women? Is that why you’re here? Is she dead?”
“Slide out of the booth, and put your hands behind your back,” he said, ignoring her. “Don’t make any sudden moves.”
Pauling complied, and felt the handcuffs placed around her wrists.
They did the same thing with Tallon.
When they were both secured, Pauling was able to face the man she believed to be in charge.
“Can you at least tell me if she’s alive? Are any of them alive?”
The man in the jacket and tie answered.
“Shut the hell up, Pauling.”
35
You ditch the vehicle and the trailer, leaving it about an hour from the city behind a landfill with the keys still in it, and get into your second vehicle you’d left stashed, along with its special cargo.
Getting rid of the truck and trailer makes you feel even better, as if a second weight was now lifted.
You see them as a metaphor, slowly freeing the parts of your soul that have been drowning in anger, desperation and madness. You are letting go, in more ways than one.
You haven’t felt this good since before she died.
Pleasure is a strange thing, you contemplate. You believe it was Sigmund Freud who stated that the longer it’s delayed, the greater the effect.
You’ve delayed it for a long time.
You glance at the photo of your wife on the dashboard. You smile at her. Miss her with all of your heart. She was beautiful and a true survivor. What had happened to her in the Army had been a hell to live through, and only to meet a second hell. It was something he could barely get his mind around and had long ago stopped trying to.
She was an angel now, always had been. Everything you do, you do for her. It’s always been that way.
You remember the honeymoon in Jamaica, how she had cried, believing no one would marry her after what she’d been through. He had told, honestly, that it was the other way around. He couldn’t believe she was marrying him.
You can practically smell the sand and the ocean from that day. You can smell your wife, her distinctive scent that you drank in like a man dying from a thirst called loneliness, unhappiness and fear.
“Almost there, babe,” you tell her.
Oh, there was a small amount of pleasure stabbing Agent Harper. Not going to deny that. But her role was relatively small.
No, the only true pleasure will come with the coup de grace, which won’t be long now. You replace the images in your mind of your dead wife with the face of the woman you’re soon going to send to hell.
Your fingers tighten on the steering wheel in anticipation.
You’re back on the road, headed for the mountains.
In your mind, you run through the timing once more. They ought to be arresting Pauling right about now.
Again, no pleasure there. Just a pawn on the chessboard. In this case, a sacrifice. Pauling will play a key role in this whole thing, and she isn’t done yet. Oh, there might be a few questions on time of death, but that can be arranged and manipulated.
You’ve done your homework.
And then some.
As you drive, you glance in the back and see the silvery objects arranged in neat rows. You smile. They bring you so much joy and comfort you can barely stand it.
You can’t wait to employ them for their use.
See what they’ll do.
You’re almost giddy thinking about it.
In fact, you become so enraptured with the visual that the time flies and soon, you’re pulling up to the big house at the base of the mountains. You park in the driveway, exit the vehicle and go to the door.
Your heart is beating. You haven’t seen her since you visited her in the prison, in disguise of course, and began the whole process. That had been such a crucial moment. All of the fake identification to appear as a family member. The paperwork. The IDs.
And the physical changes you’d had to go through in order not to be recognized.
Not to mention the training you’d undertaken to bend her to your will. To get her to do what you needed her to in order to escape from prison. That way, you could finally give her the death she deserved.
Now, it was all worth it.
You knew she would check the security cameras and be happy to see you.
It’s what you trained her to do.
Finally, the door opened and she smiled at him.
You don’t smile back.
“Bring in the paint,” you tell her.
36
“This is ridiculous,” Pauling said. “You guys already detained me in New York, and then cleared me. Now you’re doing it again? Why don’t you make up your mind?”
She was in a holding room that definitely wasn’t a conference room. It was a place for interrogation before booking. There was a cheap table with three plastic chairs. No windows. Not even a mirror.
The floor was cheap tile and the lone light fixture had a bunch of dead flies on the inside of the glass shade.
Across from her sat the agent in the suit and tie. He had been called Hastings by one of the others.
Should’ve called him hasty, Pauling thought. She wasn’t worried because she’d been through this all before. The only thing she could hope for is that this group wasn’t going to try to pull the same intimidation game Deerfield and his crew had attempted back in New York.
“Tell me where you were this morning.” Hastings observed her without malice. He had a bony face, with a high forehead and a scalpel of a nose. His dark hair was combed straight back. His hands were bony, too and he had a sterling silver wedding ring with an inscription on it. Pauling couldn’t make out what it said, but she was sure it was something sappy.
“Talking to the Chief of Police of Hope, Colorado,” Pauling answered. She was relieved and glad that Hastings wasn’t going to bullshit her. She was also equally pleased that her alibi was a cop. “Give him a call, he can vouch for me. Frankly, I think that’s a damn fine alibi, if that’s what you’re asking me for. Hanging out with a chief of police, at the police station among several other cops, all of whom can say I was there.”
Mr. Cheesy Wedding Ring nodded to another agent to his right who promptly fished out his cell phone and left the room.
“All morning?” Hastings asked.
“Quite awhile. And then we drove directly from Hope to the airport,” she said
. “You can track my cell phone, along with Tallon’s, maybe even the GPS on my car.” That was fairly obvious and she didn’t mean to insult Hastings, but she wanted to be clear about her willingness to prove where she was.
“We’ll see about that,” Hastings said. “What do you know about Michelle Chang, Lisa Harper and Ellen Vaughan?”
Pauling sighed. “Look. If you’re FBI and I’m pretty sure you are, just give Assistant Secretary Deerfield in New York a call. He’ll fill you in and vouch for me. If one of those women was hurt, you’re wasting your time talking to me.”
“I did talk to Deerfield, but I still want your answer.”
“What I know about the women is that the last time I checked, they were still missing and you guys were doing a horrible job trying to find them.”
“Were you looking for them, too?” Hastings asked. “You said Hope, Colorado. That’s where Vaughan worked.”
“I’m not looking for them. I’m looking for Jack Reacher. He’s the key to their disappearances.”
The other agent re-entered the room. He nodded to Hastings who leaned back away from Pauling, symbolically easing up on the pressure.
“So it sounds like you’ve got this all figured out,” he said. “You’re pretty smug, aren’t you?”
“Not smug. Innocent. And trying to help.”
“Well, if you’re innocent, you mind telling me why your fingerprints were all over these?” Hastings said as he dropped two photographs of a knife and a gun in front of Pauling. On the concrete beyond them, she could see pools of blood.
Pauling ignored his question. “Did you find them? The women?”
He nodded.
“Alive?”
He let out a long sigh.
“Barely.”
37
They let Tallon cool his heels. He was going a little stir crazy. The espresso he’d gotten for himself and Pauling had been strong and he’d tossed his down just before the arrest. He could feel the caffeine still pumping through his veins, which was a cruel irony as he was stuck in a tiny room not more than ten feet by ten feet, with one chair.
He thought about doing some pushups, maybe some sit-ups, too.
Just as he had decided to do some kind of prison yard exercise program, the door finally opened.
It was a different Fed, not one of the group who’d made their dramatic arrest at the hotel. Tallon wasn’t even sure if this guy was an agent, he looked more like a local cop, maybe working as an adjunct to the Bureau on whatever had just happened.
“Let’s go,” the guy said to Tallon.
“What about the woman I was brought in with. Lauren Pauling? Has she been released, too?”
“Like I said, you’re free to go,” the guy repeated. A classic Bureau move. Never a direct answer. Nothing attributable later. Tallon decided this guy was definitely a Feebie.
Tallon was escorted from the building, given his cell phone and wallet, and found himself out on the sidewalk. The Denver FBI office was slightly northeast of downtown, but still in a high-traffic area. His Uber arrived within minutes and Tallon had his driver take him back to the airport where he grabbed a rental car, an SUV, and then swung by the hotel and picked up his gear, along with the stuff of Pauling’s that the Feds hadn’t grabbed.
The hotel staff had collected it and put it in the hotel office until further instructions. He wasn’t sure if they thought he was one of the cops arriving and asking for the suspect’s belongings, but they handed it over without questioning his right to have it.
He threw the gear he had into the SUV and checked his phone. Still no word for Pauling. That meant she hadn’t been released, and was probably still being questioned by the jackasses who’d arrested them. They’re chasing their tails because they can’t see anything else to pursue, he thought.
Now, Tallon was faced with leading the investigation himself. He couldn’t get Pauling out of the FBI’s grasp, and he wasn’t about to wait around. Something big had happened, something that had caused the Bureau to pounce on them.
He didn’t know what it was.
Which was fine.
He had a feeling Pauling was right about the person’s motive behind the abductions.
It was all a distraction, but from what?
He’d been with Pauling all day, and knew that she was nowhere near a crime scene, which the arresting Fed had mentioned. Tallon figured it had something to do with the missing women. A setup. Pauling was being framed, by the same person who was targeting Reacher’s women.
Pauling also fit into that category. The difference was, Pauling had seen the big picture. And smack dab in the middle of that scene was a woman.
Julia Lamarr.
In prison.
Maybe she was the answer. Pauling had mentioned to him that Lamarr’s prison was right here in Colorado. Tallon figured what better way to spend his time waiting for Pauling’s release than to go have a chat with Julia Lamarr? Maybe she would talk to him. Probably not, but he would give it a try.
It didn’t take long for him to find out which prison she’d been sent to. Not the supermax prison, reserved for the worst male prisoners in the country, but a quieter, federal facility near Colorado Springs.
He drove there in less than three hours.
Once there, he presented himself at the gate and was told that since he wasn’t family, on a pre-approved list, or the prisoner’s attorney, he had to submit a written request and the prisoner would have to decide if she wanted to see him. He completed all of the paperwork on the spot and settled down to wait, after clearly expressing the need for urgency.
Lives are at stake, he’d told them.
It took another three hours before a prison guard approached him and said his request was approved. After depositing his belongings in a locker, being searched, and then escorted through a series of armed entrances, Tallon was allowed into the visiting room.
It was separated into two areas. To the right, there were a few open tables and chairs where inmates were talking directly to their visitors. To the left was a row of cubicles separated by a glass partition. There, prisoners were talking via a connected phone and only able to see their visitors through the glass.
Tallon was escorted to one of the cubicles and sat down.
He waited, heard the sound of steel doors being slammed open and shut. The shuffle of feet. Shouts.
Finally, a woman was brought into the room and she took the seat opposite Tallon.
The woman was dressed in orange, with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her skin was pale and waxy, her eyes lifeless.
She looked like a woman who definitely could orchestrate multiple murders, Tallon thought as he studied her closely. He thought back to the research Pauling had gathered and organized. Pauling had taken Tallon through the multiple documents, many of them showing the official FBI photograph and booking photos of Julia Lamarr.
Now, Tallon studied the woman before him.
She had the look of a person who held little value in human life.
There was just one problem, Tallon understood immediately.
She wasn’t Julia Lamarr.
38
You don’t think about the doctor’s death. He was very old, and although innocent, was a necessary casualty. You look down at him, his eyes closed and his face a strange tinge of blue. You estimate how long he’s been dead and finally, pull the sheets up over his face.
The doctor’s bedroom was the first place you had gone, after Lamarr had let you into the doctor’s home and the door locked safely behind you.
You did it for two reasons. One, you wanted to make sure he was dead, or incapacitated so you wouldn’t have any interruptions.
Two, now that you were finally in the physical presence of Julia Lamarr without any barrier between you, your rage was burning and you weren’t sure how well you could control it.
So, you’d gone to check on the doctor. And now, you realize you aren’t upset by his death.
You don’t have m
ercy.
Certainly, Julia Lamarr had shown her victims no mercy.
That’s what you are.
A man with no mercy.
Especially when it comes to Julia Lamarr.
You watch as she obediently carries the cans of military-grade green paint from your vehicle, up to the master bathroom. When she’s brought all of them, over two dozen worth, you join her in the master bathroom and have her carefully open each can and pour them into the tub, careful not to drip.
You want her to be meticulous, the same way she’d been with her victims.
As she works, you talk to her.
“You’re doing well, Julia, for a cold-blooded bitch.”
You actually don’t think she’s doing well. You can tell her body is all screwed up, a devastating spinal injury. Her face is gaunt and she looks like the shell of what had once been a very disturbed human being.
You are trying to control your voice.
You don’t want to get any more angry than you already are. To lose control now would be a disappointment. You want to be calm and cool, like Lamarr was back when she’d killed the only person you ever loved. But the rage that has been bubbling quietly beneath the surface all these years is becoming more agitated. Stronger. More virulent.
For a brief moment, you consider leaping to your feet, crossing the room and choking the life out of Julia Lamarr.
But you stop yourself just in time.
No.
You’re not going to abandon the master plan, the one you put in place way back when the woman you loved was murdered. It took a lot of time and planning, not just to execute the elaborate strategy you put in place, but also to figure out how to get away with it.
You don’t just want to murder Julia Lamarr.
You want to have a life afterward, one dedicated to your dead wife.
Which is why you also had Lamarr write the note. Once she was dead and the cops showed up, it would be suicide.
Lamarr keeps working with the paint cans, following instructions. It’s as if she didn’t hear what you said.