Gone Forever_A Get Jack Reacher Novel

by Scott Blade

  He wasn’t making the connection.

  I said, “Think, Grady. They’re spread out to hide the fact that they’re all going to the same place.”

  Silence.

  Then I said, “Think about why Tega torched his own compounds in Crosscut after he left. What was the point? The DEA figured that they belonged to him anyway. So why torch them for no reason? And what difference would it have made if the cops connected the farm to him? He had already cleared it out and was long gone.”

  Grady stayed quiet.

  I said, “And the Mexican hit man. Why send him? Why try to kill me? Why kill Matlind? What was the point?”

  Silence. I heard Grady breathing on the other line. I could picture the expression on his face as he was trying to figure out what I already knew.

  He said, “I don’t know.”

  I said, “To shut me up. He sent the hit man to silence both of us.”

  “So he didn’t want either of you talking? But why? What did you know?”

  “It wasn’t what I knew. It was what one of us or the cops would figure out later.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tega isn’t a drug dealer. He isn’t destroying evidence and killing witnesses to hide who he is. He’s destroying evidence and killing witnesses to hide what he is. And he’s coming to Black Rock and he’s going to kill everyone involved and burn your town to the ground just to keep his secret.”

  “What secret? What is...”

  Then silence, not dead air, not static, but cold silence fell over the phone. No sound.

  I waited a long moment and then I shouted, “GRADY! GRADY!”

  I looked at the phone. It was dead.

  Shit!

  Oskar Tega was going to Black Rock or he was already there and he was going to leave Black Rock burned to ash.

  Chapter 40

  Darkness hovered to the west. The night sky was all around me, but the darkness to the west was thick and grim and stood out like a lone dark cloud on a sunny day.

  To the east was Jarvis Lake, the small town of Black Rock, and a brewing storm.

  I was on a bus about 40 miles north of Clarksdale on Interstate 61.

  The ride was smooth and most of the passengers slept. They were seasoned bus riders.

  I couldn’t sleep. All I thought about was Black Rock and Faye Matlind and I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt as if I had left the scene of a car crash and had ignored a dying survivor on the scene that I hadn’t wanted to bother with.

  It was 15 minutes since I had spoken to Grady on the phone. This was his problem. It was his jurisdiction and I wasn’t even in law enforcement.

  It was none of my business. Or that was what I kept repeating to myself. So why did I feel the burning urge to return?

  I supposed it was my Reacher blood.

  In the last four days I had felt two types of urges that I couldn’t quench by doing nothing. The first was traveling and the second was correcting the uncorrected. I couldn’t walk away, not then. If I continued on the path of looking the other way, I would never feel right again. It would’ve never sat right with me. So I leaned over the seat, reached up, and pulled the emergency stop. I jumped out of my seat and began trekking up the aisle toward the front of the bus.

  The driver glanced up in the rearview. He must’ve been terrified by the massive giant who came up behind him. I walked toward the front of the bus in huge strides.

  Three-fourths of a second later I had to grab the headrest of the nearest seat in order to brace myself because the bus was hauling to a stop.

  Tires howled, the brakes squealed, and tire smoke filled the air behind the heavy machine.

  The bus came to a full stop sprawled diagonally across two lanes.

  The passengers were all abruptly woken up. Most of them had skipped the disoriented phase and kicked into full alert as if they had awakened seconds before a fatal crash.

  By the time the driver turned to interrogate me about why I had pulled the cord, I was already standing at the door to exit.

  I said, “Open it! Now!”

  I used the cop voice that my mom had taught me and that I had heard her use many times before. Lots of sound and fury. It wasn’t about yelling. It was about meaning and power.

  As always, it worked. The guy jumped into action and flipped a black handle on the center console. The doors opened and I leapt off the bus and started the long trek back to Black Rock.

  Chapter 41

  I walked south on 61. Jarvis Lake was about 35 miles east of me, but I had already combed through the roadmap in my head. There was no straight shot back to Jarvis. I had to take 61 south and then cut east on 278. This route took me about 25 miles out of my way, but it was the quickest way back.

  I walked the long stretch of road with my thumb out. I walked at a fast pace and didn’t run because I didn’t want to scare away any potential rides by running. I hadn’t had a lot of experience with hitchhiking, but I doubted that anyone would stop for a giant who was running.

  A guy with a monstrous stature, waving down cars in the middle of the night, was probably not someone people would stop for anyway, but I figured walking at a brisk pace gave me better odds than flat out running.

  I walked for more than an hour before I took a break. I had seen cars, big trucks, one delivery truck for a soda company, a pair of twin pickups with the same logo on the side, and another Greyhound, but none stopped for me.

  No one stopped.

  I walked on. The highway was dark for a while and then a set of red lights sparkled in the distance. They weren’t brake lights because they moved up behind me.

  As they got closer I heard the whine of a siren. It neared and I saw it. It was an emergency vehicle, an ambulance.

  It sped past me. The woods to the east echoed the screeching siren until it faded off into the distance.

  The ambulance was like a small white ghost sailing along the blacktop, past me, and then it was gone.

  I hoped that it wasn’t headed to an accident up ahead because that would delay any vehicles that were driving south, which was the direction that I wanted to go.

  I walked on for another 20 minutes and saw no one. I rounded a bend of trees and walked underneath an overpass. Then I saw the line of taillights. All bright. All stopped on the interstate. There was an accident. It was fresh. A lone cop was setting up road flares. He had sparked one up and tossed it on the road behind what looked like a two-car crash.

  A black pickup had jackknifed a sedan. I couldn’t tell the make or color of the sedan. It was crushed like crumpled paper.

  The paramedics were pulling the driver of the truck out of the passenger side.

  From the looks of the sedan, they would need the fire department to get the occupants out, but no one paid any attention to the occupants of the sedan. It looked like it was already too late for them.

  Brake lights filled my side of the highway. Seconds after I neared the end of the taillights, a second cop arrived on the scene. And then another one. All state troopers.

  Sirens howled and lights flashed in unison.

  Maybe I could get a ride from one of the stopped cars. They might take pity on me. Sometimes seeing the pain and suffering of others ignites a certain helpfulness in people.

  So I walked on the white line of the east shoulder. I glanced in each car as I passed it.

  The new cops started guiding the closest cars around the accident.

  The cars adjusted their course slightly and drove on the shoulder and around the accident.

  I reached the middle car. The cars in front of me started to pull forward. The car that I had just passed was alongside me again.

  I peered into the window. It was a middle-aged woman. Brown hair cut short and spiked. She had a tough military look to her. But she couldn’t have been more than 100 pounds. She sat in her seat, close to the steering wheel.

  The car that she was in was a little thing. Maybe a Kia? I wasn’t sure about the symbol on the front.<
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  It was blue.

  She looked back at me. No real interest in her face, but she rolled her window down.

  She leaned out and said, “Hey, you.”

  I turned to her and smiled, not too wide, just a good normal smile.

  She asked, “Where ya headed?”

  I said, “Black Rock.”

  “I have no idea where that is?”

  “Jarvis Lake?”

  She nodded. She looked forward. The cars in front of her were moving again. Their brake lights lit up the inside of her cabin. Now the interior of her car was turning black.

  The details of her face—lips, eyes, nose, and cheeks—had all vanished in the darkness.

  She said, “Quick. Get in.”

  The car in the other lane took advantage of her stalling and jumped in line and followed the other cars around the accident.

  I opened the passenger door and dumped myself into the seat. I had to cram my legs into the foot well. Her car wasn’t made for someone my size.

  I wanted to get the door closed and the car moving before I concerned myself with comfort. So I shut the door—my knees pressed against the dash.

  The moment that I shut the door; the car behind us honked. The woman next to me looked in her rearview and shook a fist up in the air.

  She said, “Hold on!”

  Then she paused for a second.

  She said, “Seatbelt! We are safe in my car.”

  I obeyed her instruction and pulled the belt around me. There wasn’t much slack after I had latched it into the buckle.

  She pressed the gas and the little four-cylinder car jumped to life. We passed the cop directing traffic and then she got in the fast lane and hit the gas.

  Just 27 minutes later I was back near Clarksdale.

  My driver was nice enough to drop me off on the eastbound side at a gas station.

  She was actually headed south.

  I hadn’t argued.

  She dropped me off at the gas station. The only problem was that it was closed. Only the pumps were dimly lit. Automatic credit card machines were the source of the dim lights.

  Luckily highway 278 wasn’t far.

  I set out toward it. I cut through a short field that had been freshly mowed. The smell of cut grass lingered in the air.

  I made it to the interstate and began walking along the shoulder. I stuck my thumb out every time a car passed, but all they did was pass. No one stopped.

  The storm clouds were some distance from me, which was good because I didn’t want to walk in the rain. But it was bad because that meant that I was far from Black Rock.

  I ran the math in my head. I was somewhere around 70 miles away from where I needed to be.

  I walked on for another 30 minutes. I saw only 11 cars in that time.

  I checked the time in my head. It was about 2:45 in the morning.

  I needed to get a ride and fast.

  I decided to move to the left-hand shoulder. Not something that was taught in driver’s education, but I figured maybe people driving in the fast lane were slightly turned off because they’d have to slow down, cross two lanes, and then stop on the shoulder just to pick me up. Then I questioned my own logic here because there was just as much chance of someone driving in the slow lane, and then I moved to the center. This time of night and long-distance driving would make anyone lethargic, thus I might have a better chance in the middle of the road.

  Before long, I heard the sound of tires speeding along the pavement behind me, the hollow sound of a car going over the speed limit.

  I turned and glanced over my right shoulder. The car drove and switched on its high beams. Maybe the driver was sizing me up or maybe he was trying to avoid hitting me. I wasn’t sure.

  Within 25 seconds the car had flown by me without slowing.

  I saw Alabama plates on the back of it.

  I walked another 14 minutes and then another sound of distant tires came up behind me. This sound was accompanied with a squealing drive belt. It shrieked over and over, a loud mechanical sound like a struggling engine.

  I stopped and turned. This time I stood completely still and had my thumb stuck way out.

  Stop! I need you to stop! I thought.

  The driver must’ve seen me from far away because he slowed and the whining of the bad drive belt slowed with the vehicle.

  The car was an old Corvette, driven by an old guy.

  The Corvette slowed and came to a stop right behind me. The guy had decided to pick me up before he sized me up. That had been a first.

  I walked up to the hood. It had more than a few dings in the grill.

  The paint had rusted sections and parts chipped away. I imagined that at one time it had been a beautiful cherry red.

  The guy stuck his head out and glared at me.

  He asked, “Ya gonna stand thar ssss…starin’ or ya ggggg…gonna get in?”

  The guy stuttered in a thick redneck accent.

  I jumped to it and scrambled to the passenger door and climbed into the seat.

  Immediately, I noticed the guy’s old, flip-style cell phone resting in the cup holder nearest me.

  I stared at it like it was the object of a long quest. I thought about asking the guy to borrow it, but I dismissed the thought and just looked away.

  I looked around the car like I was admiring it.

  The guy hit the gas and we took off.

  The guy asked, “Where ya headed?”

  I said, “I need to get to Black Rock. It’s urgent.”

  The guy said, “GGGG…good. I’m headed ttttttt...to Memphis. I ccccccc…an drop you offffff afterrrrr…I ggggg…get on 55 nnnnn…orth.”

  He hadn’t asked why it was urgent or any other details. He pushed the accelerator harder and the Corvette sped up. The belt whined so fast that it almost became an ambient noise like a well-oiled jet engine.

  Before I knew it we were nearing 100 miles per hour and I wondered if the drive belt would last under the pressure. The driver didn’t seem to care and it was his car, so I figured that he’d know better than me.

  The guy checked a bulky, black device on the dash that blinked periodically. It was a radar detector. It was suction cupped to the windshield.

  I looked out the windshield and gazed into the storm ahead.

  I knew that Oskar Tega would be there. He didn’t known that I was coming. I hoped that Faye was alive and I hoped that I would make it in time.

  Chapter 42

  The guy had been a nice driver too, like all the others I'd met so far. Too bad my mind had been on the destination.

  The guy had turned north on 55 to let me out on the side of the road. There was an off-ramp up ahead that veered off to the east.

  He had told me to take that ramp. It led to 35. That went straight into Jarvis Lake from the west.

  I reconfigured the route from the west in my head, but I let him tell it anyway. He had been a lifesaver and I didn’t want to disavow that. He stuttered, but it was no big deal.

  He let me out, but not before he had asked me twice if I was sure, because he had leaned over and stared up at the storm clouds on the horizon.

  They were low and obvious, even in the dark. The center and darkest part was in the direction that I was headed.

  I reassured him that I’d be fine, thanked him, and went on my way.

  The clouds were bad, but so far there hadn’t been a drop of rain. No thunder. No lightning. Only the clouds.

  I walked down 35. Checking the calculations in my mind, Black Rock was more than five miles away and I was tired as hell. But I was full of grit and I was going to get there.

  I figured that it would take me less than an hour and a half, maybe quicker if the weather stayed in my favor. I walked along an empty and lonely stretch of highway. The road was old and seemed badly kept. It was bumpy and wide with lots of potholes.

  I walked in the middle of the road because I didn’t figure there was much danger of getting run over. If any headlights we
re hurtling down the road, I would’ve seen them coming from more than a mile away because the highway was as straight as a bullet’s path.

  Any cars coming up behind me, I would’ve heard because there was no noise except the rhythmic sounds of crickets, the flutter of night birds flying from tree to tree, and the smooth rustling of blowing leaves from the night’s wind.

  There was no sign of human life. Not a car. Not even the distant outside lights of a country house.

  I passed a couple of dilapidated buildings that had once been stores. Now they were nothing more than boarded-up windows and termites. They had been abandoned for so long that all of the glass that had once been in the windows was completely gone. Not a shard remained.

  I walked on. Finally, there were signs of life. I saw an airport sign with a turn-off. Then I looked over the distant trees and saw the lights of a small airport. I didn’t seen anything going on.

  It reminded me of Hank Cochran and Link, the collie. I guessed that Tega used Hank probably because his knowledge of Tega’s particular seaplane.

  I kept moving. I looked back only once more before I was one mile from Jarvis Lake.

  As if on cue, a thick fog rolled in from the direction of the lake, like dark smoke rising from an active volcano.

  I put one foot into the blanket of fog and a chilling feeling swarmed through me like I had crossed a physical wall.

  I walked another five minutes in the fog and could barely see 20 feet in front of me. Then I saw a flash of lightning off in the distance and a second later I heard the rumble of thunder and then another lightning bolt cracked through the sky. It lit up the land with a giant white flash. The fog multiplied its power and all that I saw was white.

  I heard another thunderclap. It was high and far away at first; then it rolled across the sky like a sonic boom. A moment later there was a second lightning bolt and then a third. Each charged across the sky and then I heard a low thunderous rumble. It was slower than the other ones. It continued and grew louder and louder like it was nearing me. It came from over my shoulder to the southwest.