Hit the Road Jack

by Diane Capri

  This could work, she thought, right up until the cab dropped her at the hospital’s front entrance, when her internal response became, again, In what universe?

  Nothing ever worked according to plan where her family was concerned. Dad had said he and his five siblings were posting a constant bedside vigil for Grandma Louisa, who had been a widow for decades. Kim shouldn’t have been surprised to see the line of Ottos, all blonde and oversized, that snaked down the block from the hospital’s entrance.

  Mid-November was bleakly cold in Frankenmuth, Wisconsin. Men, women, and kids alike wore jeans, boots, and sweatshirts under coats, hats, and gloves. Practical, comfortable clothes. The kind Kim favored when she wasn’t dressed for work. After all, she was German and oversized herself on the inside.

  Only Kim’s father had strayed from the family farm in Wisconsin, and he had traveled to neighboring Michigan at figurative gunpoint because his parents had refused to welcome his pregnant Vietnamese wife.

  These Ottos served their community as farmers, shopkeepers, teachers, nurses, military, and a few, like Kim, were cops of one kind or another. Otto cousins lined up today because they worked during the week and Sunday was reserved for church.

  Kim paid the cab driver and nodded to her cousins as she walked back to take her place at the end of the line. Shivering began immediately. Her suit was too thin a barrier for the Wisconsin wind. She turned up the jacket collar, stuffed her hands into the pockets, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, attempting to gin up some body heat. The strategy didn’t work well. Soon, the snowy concrete had transferred its glacial cold upward through the soles of her shoes.

  Eventually, Kim reached the interior waiting room that had been overtaken by the Otto clan. She was in no hurry to approach Louisa’s sickbed. She left the line and stood in a corner near the heat vent.

  She absorbed the warmth through her pores while the noxious citrus-scented air purifier attacked her sinuses, causing a sharp pain between her eyebrows at the bridge of her slender nose.

  She was too cold to make conversation, but no one spoke much at all, and certainly not to her. Which was just fine. She felt as much an overwhelmed fish out of water as she always had among her fair-haired, blue-eyed, giant-sized cousins. None of the right-sized Ottos were older than eight and their conversational abilities would probably be all about age-appropriate video games anyway. The Ottos rarely spoke to her under normal circumstances; no reason to change things now. Kim shrugged.

  As a child she’d wondered what it would feel like to be welcomed into this big, warm family. A long time ago, she’d realized she would never know that feeling. Every family needed its flock of black sheep. She was a Michigan Otto, born on the wrong side of the blanket as far as the Wisconsin Ottos were concerned. Period. End of story. She shrugged again. It was what it was.

  A low murmur from the group interrupted Kim’s thoughts and drew her glance toward the doorway. Attired in a full dress blue Class A Army uniform complete with ribbons, hat in hand, another Otto had entered the waiting area. Only one Otto was currently serving in the Army at that level, and only one Otto would compel the immediate respect that settled palpably over the room.

  Kim had seen him maybe three times in her life before today and never in uniform, but she recognized Captain Lothar Otto instantly.

  Literally the fair-haired boy of the moment, he sported the unmistakable Otto family countenance, complete with caterpillar eyebrows and what Kim’s father called a high, intelligent forehead, also known as a rapidly receding hairline. He’d grown up in Frankenmuth like all the normal Ottos, attended West Point, and then served the Army and fought in its wars. She’d heard he’d been wounded two years ago, but he looked fit enough today.

  Ottos were not a demonstrative bunch by nature and Kim observed Lothar make the obligatory rounds seeming no more comfortable than she would have been. Men shook his hand or saluted respectfully; women nodded and smiled or saluted; children kept their distance and saluted.

  Lothar’s identification was positively confirmed when he passed close enough for Kim to read his nametag, but he merely nodded toward her without stopping or noticing whether she nodded in reply. She didn’t mind; she was no better at small talk than the rest of her family. She did not salute.

  When Kim had absorbed enough real warmth to feel her toes again, she became aware of the lateness of the hour. She needed to do what she’d come for and get back to Madison for her flight back to DC.

  Yet the neverending line of Ottos continued unabated toward Grandma Louisa’s room. When she could stall no longer, Kim joined the cousin trail, feeling as if the guillotine waited at the end of the line. The piercing pain between her eyes made the prospect of losing her head almost welcome.

  Kim shuffled along with the line advancing at warp speed of two feet a minute, closing the distance in an orderly fashion as each cousin slipped into the sick room alone and stayed precisely sixty seconds before emerging without flowing tears or evidence of sobbing via fists-full of damp, crumpled tissues. Lack of hysteria salved Kim’s anxiety; the inexorable forward movement did not.

  Grandma Louisa had never inspired open affection from anyone and Kim wondered how she coped when her stoic progeny remained composed. Did Grandma think no one cared? Or was she, herself uncaring? This mystery had plagued Kim most of her life. Was it she who felt nothing for Grandma first? Or, as a small child, had she absorbed the message that Grandma Louisa felt nothing for her and defended against apathy thereafter?

  Kim sighed and raised her hand to knead tension from the back of her neck. Again, she was glad Sen Li was absent. Mom would have created a spectacle of some kind about the Otto family’s cold nature, the way she always did, and Kim had no desire to cope with such scenes on top of everything else. At the moment, Kim couldn’t recall the precise nature of their last battle. None of it mattered any more. The old lady was on her way out. Whatever the source of their problems, now was the time to set them aside and move on.

  Hushed words hummed quietly among the cousins at volumes too low to comprehend, Kim realized. She was sure the conversations were about crops and kids and church and plans for Thanksgiving. Nothing she would feel comfortable discussing with these near strangers, even if they tried to include her, which they did not. Not that it mattered. She’d be gone soon, and so would Grandma Louisa.

  Too quickly, the Otto in front of her entered Grandma’s room. The door closed quietly behind him. Kim was next and she had no idea what she’d say. She had not seen Grandma Louisa for ten years and the last time they’d met ended badly, as had most of their encounters. Grandma Louisa could not forgive Sen Li for taking Albert away from the family. That grudge engulfed Albert’s daughters because they resembled their mother. Kim had accepted years ago that she would never be tall and blonde and German on the outside; it wasn’t enough for Grandma Louisa that Kim was as fierce as any Otto on the inside.

  Swiftly, the door opened, the cousin came out, looked Kim in the eye and said, “You’re up. Good luck.”

  Kim considered whether it was too late to run, but she stood as tall as a four-foot-eleven-and-a-half-inch, ninety-nine pound Asian-American woman could stand, squared her shoulders and marched past the threshold, checking for a quick escape route, but finding none. Someone pushed the door and it sucked solidly shut behind her.

  Grandma Louisa’s bed filled most of the room. An oxygen cannula rested in her nose but otherwise she’d changed not one iota since the last time Kim had seen her. She wore a pink brocade bed jacket, her gray hair was teased and lacquered as usual, and her hands were folded on her lap, the better to display her rings and manicured nails. She wore pearl and sapphire earrings and a double strand of pearls around her sizeable neck. Mauve lipstick emphasized her still-full lips. Blush rosied her cheeks. Stylish eyeglasses rested on her nose visually enlarging her blue eyes to bowl size.

  Louisa Otto, matriarch of the Frankenmuth Ottos, held court as she always had, as if she were no
t just the head of one sizeable but important farming community, but Empress Augusta herself.

  Whoever had closed the door gave Kim a little shove in the small of her back, prodding her closer to the bed.

  “Kimmy,” Louisa said, a moment before she reached out with a strong claw, restraining Kim by engulfing her hand inside a big fist, holding tight. Rough callouses on Louisa’s palm scraped Kim’s skin.

  Perhaps Grandma Louisa was near death, but she seemed a lot more alive than Kim had been led to believe.

  “You look great,” Kim said, clearing her throat and covering surprise as she leaned over to kiss a papery cheek dotted with lipstick from previous kissers.

  Grandma Louisa replied, “I really do, don’t I?”

  Kim had to laugh. What could she possibly say in reply?

  Not that Grandma Louisa gave her a chance. Maybe Kim’s mind had misplaced the facts of their last argument, but Louisa’s had not. She launched again as if the dispute had concluded ten minutes ago, not ten years ago. “Kimmy, I want to see you married to a good German Lutheran before I die. A baby on the way. Maybe two.”

  “You’ll need to live a good long while then, Grandma,” Kim said, struggling to eliminate annoyance from her tone as the old feelings flooded back. They’d fought bitterly ten years ago because Grandma had arranged such a union for Kim and Kim had secretly married already, not to a German Lutheran but to a Vietnamese immigrant. Kim was divorced now, but she simply refused to have any part of the old tyrant’s nosey meddling.

  “I will if you will,” Grandma Louisa said flatly, steely-eyed and uncompromising. She squeezed Kim’s hand tighter before releasing her completely. “Now would be a good time to find good husband material before you leave Wisconsin. I’ve lined up a few prospects for you to see this afternoon back at my house.”

  Kim felt anger bubbling up from her now toasty feet, rising to levels that would have the family comparing her to Sen Li, and not favorably. Kim clamped her jaws closed and replied, “Thanks. I’m on my way.”

  She didn’t say on her way where.

  Grandma Louisa beamed as if she’d settled the fortunes of the crown princess. “You’ll be glad when you’re settled, Kimmy. Like your cousins.”

  Damn that woman!

  Kim said nothing. She glanced at the uncles standing on either side of their mother, but neither could muster the guts to meet her gaze. She nodded, pulled her hand away, turned and left the room, saving thirty seconds for the next cousin in line, who was also single and probably wouldn’t thank her for the extra time.

  No one seemed to notice when Kim continued walking, out of the waiting room, down the hallway, and left the hospital through the front exit where Otto cousins continued to throng the entrance.

  She stood at the cabstand and fumed, muttering suitable rejoinders to the old bat under her breath and louder epithets in her head. She barely noticed the frigid outside air for the first five minutes while the heat of her rage kept adrenaline pumping.

  Where are the damned taxis?

  Too quickly, the cold bulldozed into her bones. She hunched inside her suit jacket, stomped her feet to knock the snow away from her soles and keep her circulation going. It was freezing out here. Even colder than Grandma Louisa, if that was possible.

  Why in the name of God didn’t you bring a coat and boots? Better yet, why didn’t you just say no, Dad, I’m not going. Not now. Not ever. Forget it.

  Ranting didn’t heat the atmosphere even one degree.

  Global warming, my ass.

  Kim felt her corneas might frost. She squeezed her eyes shut and shivered a bit more attempting to raise her body temperature. She wasn’t going back inside to wait, even if her feet froze to the sidewalk and her eyelids ice-glued themselves together.

  She heard the growl of an engine and opened her eyes expecting to see a yellow cab. Instead, a black SUV had pulled up alongside, Captain Lothar Otto at the wheel. He lowered the passenger window and said, “I’m headed toward the airport. Can I drop you somewhere?”

  Kim wasted no body heat demurring. She hopped up into the passenger seat and immediately put her frozen fingers near the blasting heat vent.

  “Frontier?” she said.

  “Nonstop, huh? You can’t be afraid of flying.” When she failed to reply, he said, “Jumping out of moving planes, now that’s a lot harder.” Still no response. He took a deep breath. “Okay then. Dane County, Frontier Airlines it is.” Lothar attended to driving the heavy vehicle expertly down snow-covered streets through towns unprepared for the early winter storm.

  After she’d warmed up enough to sit a normal distance from the fan’s blasting heat, Lothar glanced toward her and asked, “Did she give you the business about getting married and having babies before she dies?”

  Kim nodded. She didn’t know this man. She had no intention of discussing her personal life with him, no matter how angry she was.

  He grinned. “She does that to me every time I see her.”

  “Really? I thought it was only me she subjected to never-ending ridicule.”

  Lothar laughed, the kind of deep belly laugh that only emerged from genuine mirth, the contagious kind. “When did you get so special?”

  Kim smiled, felt better, almost as if she’d found an Otto family ally for the first time in her life, knowing the feeling was supremely foolish. Relief lasted about twenty seconds before the SUV swerved on a black ice patch and she grabbed the armrest to avoid being slung across the seat. She snugged up her seatbelt several notches.

  Traffic slogged along, slowing their progress. Several vehicles less suited to the conditions slipped on patches of invisible black ice. They’d dodged two fender-benders already. Snow plows and salt trucks clogged the roadway, but drivers willingly waited as they passed.

  Lothar concentrated intently on driving, but he must have sensed her anxiety because he said, “Planes take off in these conditions all the time around here. They’ll de-ice. Two or three times if they need to. You’ll be fine.”

  Kim’s stomach started doing backflips and the two antacids she held on her tongue weren’t helping in the least. De-icing two or three times? Seriously? Didn’t these people know how dangerous ice on airplanes was? Didn’t they understand that de-icing two or three times made crashing more likely, not less? Was she completely surrounded by hostiles here?

  When they reached the curbside drop off for Frontier Airlines, Lothar turned toward her and placed a hand on her arm. “Hang on a minute. I have something for you.”

  Kim knew she looked puzzled because that was how she felt. Lothar reached inside his jacket and pulled a photograph from his breast pocket. He handed it to her.

  She bit her lip to suppress a gasp. Major Jack Reacher’s official Army headshot. She flipped the photo over and on the back was a sticker sporting typewritten information: Tonight. 10:00 p.m. National Gallery of Art, East Building, front entrance.

  “What is this?”

  “Following orders.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was ordered to deliver that to you.”

  “By whom?”

  “The point is someone wants to see you. They knew I could deliver the message. You understand?”

  “Spell it out for me,” she said, but she knew. She wanted him to voice her concern aloud so she would know she wasn’t crazy. Because it was crazy to think that someone would manipulate her father to manipulate her to come to Wisconsin to meet a reliable cousin to give her a meeting back in Washington D.C. which is where she started from this morning and where she was returning in thirty-three minutes if she survived her flight.

  Lothar asked a question instead. “You recognized the photo, didn’t you? How are you involved with that guy? Is he the reason you were so incensed at Grandma Louisa’s meddling in your personal life? You’re not dating that guy?”

  He seemed genuinely concerned about her, which worried her more than the message. No one in the extended Otto family had shown her the least bit of
concern her entire life. Why start now?

  She said, “Do you know him?”

  “By reputation. Otherwise, before my time. Reacher was discharged in 1997. Something hinky about it, though. His situation was definitely not normal, Kim. Wherever that guy went, bodies piled up. And I’m not talking about normal battlefield casualties. Nobody is that unlucky.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m a Captain in the U.S. Army. Like you, Agent Otto, I follow orders and don’t ask questions, or I pay the consequences. Before today, I never had a problem with that because the Army never ordered me to do anything this odd; something not right is going on here.”

  No shit, she thought. “Like what?”

  He shrugged, giving up. “Friends come and go in life, but enemies pile up. Reacher made a lot of enemies. You be careful, little cuz, or you’ll never reach Grandma Louisa’s age with or without those Vietnamese longevity genes.”

  A vehicle behind the SUV laid on the horn, letting Lothar know it was long past time to move.

  Kim slipped Reacher’s photo into her jacket pocket, popped open the door, and slid out to the ground.

  Before she closed herself outside in the cold, Lothar said, “You need anything, here’s my card. I feel responsible for you now. Don’t let them be calling me to your funeral.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Washington, D.C. was full of shadowy men these days. Some were harmless. Some were crazy. Sometimes it was impossible to tell the difference. Always safer to avoid confrontation, just in case.

  He stood motionless in a shadowed doorway, an intimidating giant, waiting. He carried his broad frame tall and straight. He wore indigo jeans and brown work boots on his feet. Both hands were stuffed into leather jacket pockets for warmth. Fair hair fell shaggy around his ears and collar, his only cap against winter’s cold. Sunglasses covered his eyes and reflected the weak sunset like cat pupils. Without visible effort, he seemed infinitely patient, self-possessed, self-confident, alert and relaxed, harmless and dangerous.