by Jude Hardin
“You okay?” the driver said.
“Yeah.”
In a way, it was good that Diana Dawkins had gotten the assignment for the L and E. Now Colt didn’t have to worry about any other operatives tracking him down. It was all on Diana. She was one of the best at what she did, and The Director trusted her implicitly. She was on the A list. That was the bad part about it. If Colt couldn’t manage to get what he needed on Reacher in the next few hours, or find some other way to wipe his slate clean, or—least likely—find some way to evade Diana Dawkins, he would be joining Joe Crawford for sure.
“Here we are,” the driver said, steering to the curb in front of the rental car store.
Colt handed him seventy dollars and an eight-by-ten photograph of Jack Reacher.
“Ever seen this guy?” Colt said.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s not a recent picture. Imagine him a decade older than that.”
“I’m sorry. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen this man.”
“All right. Thanks.”
Colt grabbed the briefcase and climbed out of the cab.
27
The sub-compact rental was only eighty-nine plus tax for three days. Free GPS, no charge for mileage. Some kind of special they were running. It was a bargain.
Colt entered the guard’s address into the GPS and headed that way, still exhausted, barely able to keep his eyes open, as mentally and physically fatigued as he’d ever been. He stopped at a convenience store and bought a large cup of coffee, drank a few sips, got back on the highway. The caffeine helped, but not enough. It was no substitute for sleep.
He rolled down the window and switched on the radio and pressed the SCAN button, stopped the tuner on an all news channel, a story about a group of hikers finding a man who’d been shot to death. Anyone who knew anything about the shooting should call the twenty-four hour toll-free tip line. Five thousand dollar reward, the usual stipulations.
The dead man’s name was Clark Kisham.
Maybe it was what psychologists call the principle of association. Or something like that. Colt had read about it in a magazine one time. When you buy a yellow car, you suddenly notice all the other yellow cars on the road. They’re everywhere, it seems.
Same with Clark, or any other name. When you’re thinking about it, you tend to hear it more often. You tend to notice it more often. When Colt stopped for coffee a few minutes ago, he glanced over at the candy rack, and his eyes immediately zeroed in on the Clark bars. He had the name in his head, so they stood out. He almost bought one.
So maybe that was it. The principle of association. A coincidence. It was highly unlikely that Clark Kisham, the murder victim they were talking about on the radio, was the same Clark involved in the Felisa Cayenne abduction.
Highly unlikely, but possible.
And it seemed to Colt that if your lifestyle included violent crimes like armed robbery and kidnapping, and drug dealing or whatever, you were more likely than the average Joe—or Clark—to be a victim of a violent crime yourself. Clark Kisham had been found in a remote location with multiple gunshot wounds. Probably from an automatic weapon, the reporter had said. This was no domestic dispute. This was premeditated murder. Someone had transported him out of the city, out there to the middle of nowhere, with the intention of killing him. Someone had emptied a machinegun magazine into him.
The Clark Kisham story gave Colt something to think about. He kept the radio on the news channel, hoping they would eventually broadcast more details about the case, but they never did. They never said another word about it.
Colt drove past the address he was looking for, turned around and parked on the opposite side of the street. The neighborhood wasn’t what anyone would call affluent, but the yards were tidy and the houses appeared to be well maintained.
Colt sat there and drank some more coffee and listened to the radio and watched Molfer’s house. No garage, and no car in the driveway.
The digital clock on the dash said 8:06.
Molfer worked the night shift. He wasn’t home yet. Colt wanted to catch him on his way in, before he went to bed. Molfer would be tired from working all night and more susceptible to the type of interrogation Colt had in mind.
At 8:17 a car pulled into the driveway. A man got out and walked to the front door. Civilian clothes, but he had the walk. And the haircut. Colt climbed out of the rental car and crossed the street. Before the man could get his key into the slot, Colt shouted, “Excuse me, sir.”
The man turned around.
It wasn’t Molfer.
“I’m not interested,” the man said.
Colt stepped up to the porch. “I’m not selling anything. I need to speak with Sergeant Molfer. I was told he lives here.”
“Not anymore.”
“Would you happen to know where I might be able to find him?”
“Who are you?”
Colt showed him the fake PI license. “I just need to ask him a few questions.”
“I don’t know the guy. His mail still comes here sometimes. That’s the only reason I recognized the name.”
Colt nodded. He felt dizzy and weak, but there was a lot to do before he could even think about finding a place to rest.
“Is there a public library anywhere around here?” he said.
“Yeah. Just take a right at the light and then a left at Walmart. It’s right past Dominoes Pizza on the left.”
“Thanks.”
Colt drove to the library, waited in the parking lot until nine o’clock when they opened the doors. He sat at one of the computers and ran a search on Molfer, but the only hits he got still listed him at the same street address Colt had just been to.
You can try that if you want to. But it’s probably a dead end, and you don’t have any time to waste.
As if she’d known the address on Molfer wasn’t any good.
Colt wondered if the soldiers sent to Annex 1 and other high level security details were housed in special barracks somewhere for the duration of their assignments. It made sense that they would be. The army could keep a better eye on them, and they wouldn’t be as likely to fall into any sort of temptation. Appeals for classified information from espionage outfits with deep pockets, for example. A nice fat envelope full of cash can be a strong enticement when you’re only making enough money to get by.
I would suggest finding the guys who robbed Mac’s Diner and taking it from there. The two gunmen who actually walked into the place.
Just for kicks, Colt clicked on the search bar and typed in Clark Kisham.
Odd last name.
Only a handful of listings for Kisham in the DC area, none of them with the first name Clark or even the first initial C.
Colt jotted down all the numbers anyway, asked the librarian if there was a phone he could use.
She said no.
He left the library and drove to Walmart and bought a couple of new shirts and a cheap watch with a digital display. He also bought a prepaid cell phone, commonly referred to as a burner because of its disposable nature. The first number he called was not in service at this time. The second one was in service, but the woman who answered only spoke enough English to tell him Hello and No Clark Kisham here, sorry mister and Goodbye. The third one connected him to a switchboard at a nursing home, but unfortunately Mr. Harold B. Kisham had passed away just last week.
Colt asked to be transferred to the nurses’ station. After several rings, someone who sounded young and cheerful and from South Carolina answered.
“This is Pam,” she said. “How might I provide you with outstanding service today?”
“I would like to speak to one of the nurses who took care of Harold Kisham.”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“I’m his son,” Colt said. “I was just wondering when would be a good time to come by and get his things.”
“Okay. Well, I took care of him on the day shift sometimes. Let me just grab his chart r
eal quick.”
“Thanks.”
There was a long pause. Colt could hear papers shuffling in the background.
“It says here that his grandson already picked up his belongings,” Pam said. ”Someone named Clark. I hope that was okay. Apparently he had power of attorney.”
“That’s fine. Were you there at the time?”
“No, and I can’t say that I remember ever meeting his grandson. Or anyone else in his family, for that matter. He didn’t get many visitors.”
Colt started feeling sorry for the old guy, sorry that it ever went that way for anyone.
“Do you have any contact information for Clark?” he said.
“I thought you said—”
“He’s my son, but we haven’t talked in a while.”
“That’s a shame. Families should stay in touch, you know?”
“I agree. And I think it’s time Clark and I get together and discuss a few things.”
“Well, I have a street address and a cell phone number right here,” Pam said.
Colt wrote it all down.
28
The DC neighborhood Colt drove into looked like a set from some sort of post-apocalyptic movie, one of those deals where all the ordinary people have relinquished the streets to ghastly creatures of the night. Out-of-business signs, boarded up windows, broken beer bottles. There was a playground with no children and a barbershop with no pole. Graffiti everywhere. It was depressing. Almost as depressing as dying alone in a nursing home.
Some of the house numbers were missing, so it took a while, but Colt finally found the address Pam had given him for Clark Kisham. He parked on the street and walked up to the stoop and knocked on the door. No answer. He cupped his hands and peeked inside, saw some ratty old furniture and an ashtray full of butts on a coffee table.
He tried the knob.
The door wasn’t locked.
Walking into a squatter’s house was a good way to get your face slashed with a razor. But Clark Kisham, grandson of the late Harold B. Kisham, had used this address on the power-of-attorney form at the nursing home, and according to the news report on the radio earlier, Clark Kisham had been murdered yesterday. Therefore, the residence was probably vacant now and up for grabs. Colt hoped that was the case. He hoped someone else hadn’t moved in already, someone with a sharp blade or a baseball bat.
He patted his right hip. The revolver was still there. He eased the door open and stepped over the threshold and said, “Anybody home?”
No answer.
The living room smelled like cigarette smoke and dust. There was a green sofa and a brown vinyl recliner and a lamp and an end table. Someone had left the lamp turned on. Colt didn’t disturb it. The house might eventually become part of the murder investigation, so he didn’t want to leave any fingerprints anywhere.
He still didn’t know if Clark Kisham had anything to do with Felisa Cayenne’s abduction, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a look around. He walked into the kitchen. Someone had done some remodeling back when avocado green was a fashionable color for a refrigerator to be. Colt opened it and saw a few cans of beer and an egg carton and a wilted stalk of celery. The matching stove was spotted with a variety of dried spills, the countertops cluttered with dirty pots and pans and dishes. A lone cockroach crawled out of an open sardine can and disappeared into a crack in the backsplash.
Colt parted the curtain over the back door’s rectangular window, saw a set of wooden steps and a small fenced yard and a cheap metal storage shed. A black and white cat slinked out from behind the shed, looked up and saw Colt and darted through a hole in the fence.
There was another door on the adjacent wall, this one windowless but just as grimy, its crackled green paint chipping here and there and revealing several coats of previous colors beneath it. Colt grabbed a dishtowel, turned the white ceramic knob and opened the door. As he suspected, it led to a set of stairs that led to a basement. He took a few steps down, pulled the string on the naked light bulb overhead, proceeded into the dim and spider-webbed dankness.
There was a workbench with a vice and a drill press, some hand tools and fishing rods hanging on nails, some folded lawn chairs leaning against the wall—aluminum with nylon webbing, the kind people had when Colt was a kid. Cigarette butts on the floor by a padded desk chair and a table with a radio on it.
This wasn’t just a musty old basement, Colt thought. It was a special place. A place where you could disappear for a few hours and tinker with your things. Smoke a few cigarettes and try to forget about your troubles for a while. The earliest version of a man-cave. Maybe Harold B. Kisham’s man-cave. Maybe Clark wasn’t a squatter after all. Maybe he’d inherited the place.
Colt found a flashlight on the workbench. He switched it on and walked over to the far right corner, to an open padlock dangling on the outside of a steel door. The room was small. Six by ten, maybe. There was an army cot with a pillow on it and a little folding table and a button on the wall. Floor joists and plumbing and electrical conduit overhead. Colt thought about pushing the button, but he didn’t. It was one of the few worthwhile things his stepfather had taught him. Never flip a switch or push a button unless you know what’s going to happen when you do.
Colt didn’t know what would happen if he pushed the button, but he knew one thing for sure: someone had turned an old cinderblock coal room into some kind of dungeon.
It all added up. When Harold Kisham had gotten too frail to care for himself, his grandson Clark had arranged for placement in a nursing home. Once that happened, Clark was free to move in and make the place his own. A few years went by and the recession hit and the neighborhood went downhill, but Clark didn’t care about any of that. He knew he would own the place free and clear when the old man finally checked out, and he knew he would make some money off it, even though it was probably slated for demolition.
The steel door was probably a new addition, put there to keep Felisa Cayenne under lock and key while Clark figured out what to do with her. That was Colt’s guess. All speculation at this point, but it made sense.
He put the flashlight back in its place, switched off the overhead on his way back upstairs. As he walked through the living room thinking about what to do next, something caught his eye.
Something very sparkly.
29
The phone vibrated in JR’s pocket, startling him out of a deep sleep. He rubbed his eyes, thumbed in the password, and listened to the message:
Send Benny to get some beer.
It was an odd command, but Mr. S was notorious for that kind of thing. He liked to test people with absurd orders sometimes, just to see how far he could push them.
Anyway, some beer sounded good, and JR was almost out.
30
When Felisa opened her eyes, the digital clock on the DVD player said 10:07. She knew it was morning, because it was light outside. She’d slept on the couch, and Benny and JR had taken turns guarding her all night. Right now it was Benny, and he was sitting in the wingback chair next to the couch eating a bowl of cereal and watching an old kung fu movie.
“You hungry?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Want some Fruit Loops?”
“Yes. That sounds good. Thank you.”
Benny started to get up, but then JR walked into the room and said, “She doesn’t need anything to eat.”
“But she’s hungry.”
JR stood there in his boxer shorts and stared at the television as one Chinese guy gouged another Chinese guy’s eyes out. He yawned and scratched himself and said, “How can you watch this stuff?”
“It’s good. Wait till you see what happens next.”
JR grabbed the remote and switched off the television. “I need you to run to the store and get some beer,” he said.
“Hey, I was watching that.”
“Not anymore.”
Apparently Benny didn’t find it unusual that JR wanted beer at ten o’clock in the morning, but Fel
isa did. She couldn’t imagine drinking an alcoholic beverage that early.
She sat up and raked her hair back with her fingers.
“My earring,” she said.
The one on the right side was missing.
“Don’t worry,” JR said. “You don’t need that any more than you need breakfast.”
“Do you know how much these are worth? Like fifty grand apiece. Maybe I’m not going to need them, but—”
“Whoa!” Benny said. “Did you hear that? Fifty grand apiece. Those must be some really special earrings.”
He set his cereal bowl down on the coffee table, rose from the chair and walked to where Felisa was sitting. He leaned over and unclasped the left one and gently pulled it out of her lobe.
“What are you doing?” JR said.
“Look at this. It’s beautiful. We should try to find the other one.”
He started looking around on the floor, and then he told Felisa to get up so he could search under the cushions on the couch.
“Forget about it,” JR said. “We’re going to be millionaires in a few hours. We don’t need those stupid diamonds. Now put your shoes on and go get some beer like I told you to do.”
“But—”
“Do it!”
Benny stood there with his arms crossed for a few seconds, and then he pushed the earring into one of his pockets and grabbed the car keys and walked outside.
He never did put his shoes on.
31
At any other time of day, Colt never would have seen it.
But at 10:07 a.m., the sun was shining through the front curtains at precisely the right angle to throw a harsh sliver of brightness on the old brown recliner.
The sparkly thing was wedged between the seat cushion and one of the armrests.
Colt walked over and picked it up.
My earrings are real diamonds, the actress playing Felisa Cayenne in the reenactment had said.
It looked real, and it was big. Probably two carats or more.
This sealed the deal, as far as Colt was concerned. Felisa Cayenne had been here, inside this house, and Clark Kisham was one of the men who had walked into Mac’s Diner with a gun and a ski mask, one of the men who had walked out with a bag of cash and a wealthy young pop star.