by Scott Blade
I got out of the car and stretched my legs and my arms.
He rested his hand on the hilt of his holstered Glock, a move that I had gotten used to at this point. Then he said, “From here ya can head in any direction that ya want. Ya can get on the 278 and hitch a ride east er west. Ya can stay on 55 and head north er south. It’s up to you. But don’t come back to Black Rock.”
Lewis got back into his car and sped away. He got on the off-ramp on the cloverleaf like he was headed east and crossed under the overpass. I lost sight of him for a moment. Then he was back on the other side of 55 headed north. Back to Black Rock.
I watched as his light bar switched off and his red taillights faded into the mist. Then I turned and looked at the cloverleaf and scanned all directions.
Five minutes later I headed west on 278.
I walked on for a ways. I didn’t want to stay at the cloverleaf. A hitchhiker standing at the cloverleaf might look confused about the direction he wanted to go.
I wanted to go west. At least west seemed as good a direction as any.
Truth was that I just wanted to return to Black Rock.
I thought to myself.
You’re on a mission. What difference does it make what happened in a small backwater town? Forget about it. Matlind is dead. Where’s my father? That’s the only thing that matters.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone.
I had a signal. So I went into the Internet browser and searched for bus stations.
The search took a while. I stood on the border of the blacktop and the shoulder. My face was lit up in the darkness by the phone’s screen. A car sped past me. I had missed it because at that moment I only wanted to forget about Matlind and his wife—whether she was real or not.
My phone indicated that the nearest bus station was in Clarksdale, about 35 miles away.
The good news was that my phone light had garnered the attention of a van driver.
The guy pulled over to the shoulder about 30 yards in front of me.
I saw the brake lights shimmering in the darkness. I put my phone back into my pocket, didn’t check the battery. I walked to the van.
I neared the rear and saw the vanity plate.
It read:
ISWHTIS
Which I guessed meant it is what it is. I hated that saying because everything in life is what it is. A monkey is what it is. And so on. But I wasn’t going to pretend that its meaning didn’t fit my current predicament. And then it dawned on me. It wasn’t my predicament. It had been Chris Matlind’s. It had been or maybe still was Faye Matlind’s. It was Sheriff Grady’s. And it was Sheldon Eckhart’s predicament. It had nothing to do with me. The town of Black Rock and all of its problems were just that. They were their problems. Not mine, but other people’s.
I got to the passenger door and opened it.
The driver was a young scruffy guy with a soul patch and no other facial hair to speak of.
He had one finger on the front of his lips, the international symbol for shush.
He said in a low voice, “Quiet.”
He motioned to a sleeping girl in the rear of the van.
He whispered, “My wife. Where are you headed?”
I said, “The hell out of Mississippi.”
He nodded and smiled.
Then he said, “That’s where we’re headed. Hop in.”
I smiled. I was glad that someone had stopped for me in the middle of the night. In the dark I was even more terrifying than in the sunlight. I looked like the kind of guy who was only out in the dark. Like a crazed killer. So I was afraid that no one was going to stop for me. I’d figured that I’d probably be out the entire night walking.
Besides my looks, I was also concerned about my smell. I realized that I hadn’t showered in days. I had cleaned my clothes two nights ago. They didn’t smell clean anymore, but they weren’t filthy.
I had spent several hours yesterday sleeping in a jail cell. Jail cells aren’t known for cleanliness.
My fears of stinking up this guy’s van disappeared when I realized that this couple was a pair of hippies or rockabillies in this part of the country. They smelled of marijuana.
That smell killed every other odor inside the van.
I closed the door and the guy sped off. He wasn’t the most cautious driver, but I didn’t complain.
The guy’s wife must’ve been used to it because she slept deeply on a bundle of bedspreads and laundry. Swerving from the slow lane to the fast one hadn’t even shaken her awake. And she was definitely not wearing a seatbelt.
The guy wasn’t either.
I reached for mine and found it and slipped it on. Better safe than sorry.
The guy started to talk and told me about himself and his wife.
I listened. I thought that it would distract me from thoughts of Black Rock.
Occasionally, I acknowledged the guy with a polite nod.
We drove for more than an hour. The guy pushed the van hard—not a vehicle known for speed. It topped out at around 70 miles per hour.
The guy had his window rolled down. Hot air blew in like an industrial fan was blowing it across the van.
A couple of minutes past 1 a.m., we neared Clarksdale.
I said, “You can drop me off at the next exit.”
The guy said, “Nonsense. We can take you into town. Where are you going?”
I said, “The Greyhound station.”
He nodded. We drove past the next mile marker and then turned off at the Clarksdale exit.
His wife snored for a minute and then rolled over and was silent again.
We stopped at a traffic light and turned east. Then the guy pointed at a blue street sign that had the Greyhound symbol on it. The arrow pointed south along a service road that was overly lit by streetlights.
He turned onto it and drove another two hundred yards, past a gas station, an all-night McDonald’s, and a small two-story motel with three blank letters on the sign.
The Greyhound station was across the street from a doughnut shop.
The guy made a U-turn and pulled into the front of the station.
He looked at me and smiled.
He extended his hand and said, “I never told you my name. It’s Hank.”
I smiled and thought about Hank from Black Rock again. Small world.
I extended my hand and took his in mine. Mine swallowed his up like a whale swallowing its food whole.
I said, “Reacher.”
I turned, opened the door, and stepped out into the hot night.
I shut the passenger door and waved Hank goodbye. He drove off.
I went into the bus station and walked up to the counter.
The woman behind it had a steaming hot coffee in front of her in a paper cup.
She leaned her head on her hand like she was falling asleep.
I cleared my throat loud enough to wake her.
She looked up at me and asked, “Can I help you?”
There was a tone in her voice like she didn’t want to bother with me.
I looked up at a huge monitor above her. It displayed available destinations and times that the buses ran.
The next departure was for Little Rock. It was in 34 minutes.
I said, “One ticket. Little Rock.”
I hadn’t said please.
She gave me the ticket and stayed quiet. No thank you. No sit over there, sir. Nothing.
I walked over to a row of chairs that were connected on the bottom by a black metal bar.
Several other people already waited. Most of them were asleep.
One girl was probably a teenager. She slept with her head down and a hoodie pulled over most of her face. I saw her profile. She had no luggage near her except a pink knapsack with a teddy bear sewn onto it.
I took a seat and waited for the bus.
I thought about my mom. About Jack Reacher. Anything to keep my mind off Matlind and Black Rock.
I held my bus ticket and bre
athed in and breathed out. Then I looked back at the sleeping girl again. Hood down. Face down. Now buried in her arms.
She looked uncomfortable. Tired. Frustrated.
Maybe she was running from something. Maybe I was running from something. Not Carter Crossing. I had given that place enough of my life.
My mom was dead. What was I going to do, return home and run for sheriff? Take the reins?
I had spent four years in ROTC. My mom had been a Marine. My dad had been an MP in the United States Army. Why not join the military? Then I’d be following in both my parents’ footsteps.
I shrugged like I was actually having a conversation with someone else.
Get a grip.
I looked around the room. Big clock on the wall. It was now 1:15 a.m. The bus for Little Rock would be arriving soon. No time to nap now. I’d nap on the bus.
I wasn’t tired anyway. Not in the slightest. I was too wound up. Too tense.
I looked at the other people waiting. Young. Old. All had luggage. Brown bags with handles. Black bags with handles and wheels. Some old. Some new.
Then there was that girl. I was back looking at her. She had no bags. No luggage except for the pink knapsack.
I had no luggage. No luggage.
Normally women carried things. On average, female travelers carried more items than men. New clothes. Toiletries. Empty space for store-bought items and souvenirs.
Faye Matlind had been on her honeymoon. She had packed. She was a female traveler.
I had switched rooms with Matlind and I had seen plenty of luggage in his room. There had been female items. Lots of things.
I sat up straight in my chair. I dug into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
I unlocked the screen and examined it. Low battery life.
I clicked the phone icon and dialed Grady’s number from memory.
It rang and he answered.
I could pick out the confusion in his voice like it was highlighted with a different tone. The kind when someone answers an unfamiliar caller.
I said, “I swapped rooms with Matlind. Night before last. I stayed in his room and he stayed in mine.”
“Reacher?”
I said, “In his room, there was extra luggage. Girlie luggage. There were perfumes, an extra toothbrush, razors, some female medications, makeup, and a box of tampons.”
Grady said, “Reacher. It’s over. Matlind killed himself. He was crazy.”
I said, “You think Matlind invented his wife still? That he imagined a woman and he brought luggage for her? No one does that!
“Faye Matlind is real.”
There was dead air for a long moment and then Grady said, “Reacher, this is not your fight. It isn’t your business. I’m the sheriff in this town. Wherever you’re headed, keep on going! It’s not your concern!”
Grady hung up.
I stared at the phone. The screen slashed a warning: battery critical.
I pocketed the phone, leaned back in my seat, and stared at the huge clock on the wall. It was now 1:20 a.m.
Why should I get involved? It’s Grady’s problem. I just want to find Jack Reacher.
You will do the right thing, my mom had said.
Her voice and her frail, dying body stared back at me from my memories for a long minute.
Then a man’s voice in the distance said, “Now boarding for Little Rock.
Chapter 39
The bus was cold and I was too big for the seats even though they were like captain’s chairs. Two to a row. And they reclined to 115 degrees.
I had my own row, which was good because I had leg room, but I was still too tall for the seat. I couldn’t recline because an older couple sat behind me. I didn’t want to be right in their faces. So I just stayed seated upright.
I pulled out my phone and checked the battery. It would die soon.
I started thinking about that missing girl that Jill had told me about again—Ann Gables.
What was the connection between her and Faye Matlind?
The bus had Wi-Fi onboard. So I pulled up the Internet and did a local search on Ann Gables in the news. Images came up of her high school yearbook pictures and her Facebook and then stories about her and the other missing girls.
The FBI had thought that she was one of the victims. If she was one of the missing victims, then so was Faye. No doubt about it.
I searched for a few minutes and then I stopped. I realized that these stories weren’t going to tell me anything. If other people had discovered it, the FBI would have solved it by now.
I started to look through other news, just the headlines. Then something caught my eye. It was about the manhunt for the criminal, Oskar Tega.
I shrugged. Might as well try to read about something else since I was on a bus out of Mississippi and had no plans of returning to Black Rock.
I clicked on the article and skimmed it.
Tega had eluded authorities, escaped by sea, was thought to have come to Texas and burned one of his farms to the ground. Nothing that I didn’t already know.
The end of the article said that it was thought that he hadn’t escape by boat, but by seaplane.
My brow furrowed and I stared at the screen.
Seaplane?
Hank, the old guy, the airplane mechanic from two days ago, had talked about a seaplane. He had explained the difference between a seaplane and a flying boat.
The flying boat was also called a water bomber, those planes that fly over a forest fire and drop tons of water over the flames.
I thought back about what he had said. He had driven from Jackson to Jarvis Lake to refuel “some rich guy’s seaplane.” But actually it had been a flying boat.
He had said the guy was flying his rich friends in for some fishing.
I thought back about my conversation with Maria. What had she said about Texas?
Oskar Tega had visited Texas, taken back his product, and then murdered his employees. The thing that stuck out was that he had used a scorched earth policy.
His men had set fire to the farm and most of the town. They destroyed the evidence, but the police knew that it was them.
Why cover your tracks and hide that you were even there when it was so obvious that it had been Tega? I couldn’t get why anyone would go through all that trouble to destroy evidence when it hadn’t affected the fact that everyone knew it was him.
I read some more about Tega. There was nothing new in this article. I moved on.
What was the name of the town in Texas?
I was sure that Maria had told me, but I couldn’t recall and that was rare for me. I usually remembered everything.
I returned to the home screen on my phone and dialed Maria’s number from memory.
The phone rang and rang and I got her voicemail. I left no message.
I hung up. A few seconds later, I received a text.
“Who is this?”
I replied, “Reacher. Can you talk?”
She texted, “At work. ‘Sup?”
I texted, “Battery dying. What’s the name of the town in Texas with Tega’s farm?”
She replied, “?”
I texted, “Granjas?”
Time passed like she had gone back to work.
Then she replied, “Crosscut.”
I texted back, “Thanks.”
I went back into my Internet browser. A low battery warning popped up again.
I ignored it and searched for Crosscut. The phone searched and offered several results. I scanned them until I found what I was looking for.
Crosscut was a small town, far from any major urban areas in west Texas. It was nothing but desert and tumbleweeds, the perfect secluded place to hide drug manufacturing in the U.S.
Nothing new was reported in the articles. There was no evidence left behind of the product. There was no evidence of any drug manufacturing.
Therefore, I reasoned that it was logical to question how the DEA knew that he trafficked drugs. So I started researching
, sifting through articles and old clippings about him, just as fast as my eyes and mind could process them…and that was fast. I found nothing. No evidence concluded that Oskar Tega was a drug dealer. The only connections that the cops had made between his operations and drugs were from his known associates, which were drug cartels, but no evidence that he himself manufactured anything.
Then I had another idea. I searched for missing girls in and around Crosscut. Sure enough, the county had had numerous reports of missing girls—travelers mostly. Same as around Black Rock.
An alarm went off in my head like a prison siren. That was the connection—Tega.
I dialed Grady again.
The phone rang and rang. I heard a beeping noise and then Grady answered.
“What?”
Grady had known that it was me calling.
“The guy in the news, the drug lord.”
Grady asked, “What guy?”
“Oskar Tega.”
“Tega? What about him?”
I said, “He’s not selling drugs.”
“What?”
“Tega isn’t in the drug business. He’s not dealing drugs.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I said, “Oskar Tega isn’t dealing drugs. The Feds have him all wrong.”
“What the hell does he have to do with anything?”
“I rode into Black Rock with this old airplane mechanic. He said that he was meeting a rich guy on the lake. The rich guy had a seaplane.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
I said, “Oskar Tega escaped from the DEA from his beach house in Mexico. He escaped by seaplane.”
Silence on the other line.
I took the phone away from my ear and checked the screen. A red battery symbol flashed, but the line was still there.
“Grady?”
Grady said, “Are you saying that he’s coming here? But why?”
“Look up Crosscut, Texas.”
He said, “I know about Crosscut. It’s been on the news.”
Another pause.
Then Grady asked, “You think that he’s making drugs here? In my town?”
“I don’t think that he’s in the drug business at all. Think about the missing girls, Grady. Girls from all around your county. And the neighboring counties.”
“Yeah.”
“Enough missing girls to raise suspicion, but spread out over four counties so that no one can pinpoint an exact location that might be connected to them.”