by Diane Capri
She needn’t have worried.
The shop was busy. Saturday mornings when the waves were perfect were always their busiest times. She could see that Shorty had had his hands full with rentals and even a few sales, which was a good thing. The shop had been profitable for a while now, but they weren’t so flush that they could afford to take a weekend off.
Patty stripped, rinsed the salt water off her body in the outdoor shower, and toweled dry. She rubbed the towel over her sun-bleached, pixie short hair and moved it into place with her fingers. Living on the beach had given her skin a bronzed tan so she never bothered with makeup. She slid a sundress over her head and her feet into flipflops and she was as presentable as any situation required these days. The whole process consumed less than seven minutes.
She walked into the shop during a temporary lull. Shorty was straightening the display of sunscreens, adding more stock from a box she’d stowed under the counter in the back.
He was dressed in one of the specialized T-shirts they sold, boardshorts, and flipflops. He looked less like a potato farmer from Canada and more like a California surfer every day, which made her smile. She’d always hoped to marry a surfer and live on the beach. Some days, she’d pinch herself to be sure she wasn’t dreaming in her sleep back in cold, snowy New Brunswick.
Patty glanced around to be sure they were alone. The rest of the store seemed okay to her experienced eye. If anything dangerous was going to happen here, it hadn’t happened yet. She breathed a little easier.
“Hey, Shorty,” she called out over the Beach Boys music they played while the shop was open to set the upbeat, California mood. The Beach Boys were touring again so the music seemed as fresh as ever to Patty, Shorty, and their customers.
Patty turned the old-fashioned sign in the window from “Open” to “Closed” and locked the door.
“It’s our busiest day of the week, Patty. We can’t close up now. What’s going on?” Shorty asked while he kept his attention focused on restocking the sunscreen.
Patty walked closer to Shorty and lowered her voice. “I need to tell you something. It’s important. I don’t want to be interrupted or overheard.”
Shorty frowned. “Can’t it wait until tonight? After sundown, we’ll have nothing but time on our hands.”
“Tonight could be too late.” Patty put the urgency she felt into her voice. She strode to the staircase and started up to the apartment.
Shorty followed behind her, but Patty could tell he wasn’t happy about it.
At the top of the stairs, she opened the door to the flat. After Shorty stepped inside, she closed the door and locked it. Shorty frowned but asked no further questions about her strange behavior.
She led him into the small kitchen and sat down at the table. Shorty leaned against the sink, ankles crossed. “Okay, Patty. We need to get the shop open. You know we make almost half our weekly revenue on Saturdays. Let’s get this done. What’s up?”
Patty took a deep breath to steady her nerves. “You know that guy you told me about? The one who approached you on the beach last night?”
“Yeah. What about him?”
“He came here this morning.”
Shorty nodded. “I told him to come over and sign up for a couple of lessons. I mentioned that to you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, well, I was pretty sure I knew who he was when you told me about him. But when he came in the shop today…” she paused for another breath, “…it was definitely him. No question at all.”
Shorty shrugged. “I don’t get your point. He was definitely who?”
“The guy who helped me get you out of the woods that night. Back in Laconia,” she said quietly.
“I don’t remember a guy.” Shorty’s eyes widened. For the first time, he seemed uneasy. “You didn’t tell me anything about a guy helping you.”
They never talked about what had happened that night. Shorty had passed out on the way to the hospital because of the pain. And after he reached the emergency room, they pumped him full of pain killers and anesthesia for the surgery.
Patty wanted to put the whole experience behind them and Shorty didn’t remember much of it, anyway.
“By the time you were well enough to talk about it, I thought we’d never see him again. We had a lot of other things to talk about,” Patty replied. Which was mostly true. She didn’t say that the big man she’d met that night in the dark woods had scared her. She didn’t want to talk about him, or even think about him, or anything else that happened that night. She never expected she’d need to.
“Okay. How did he find us?” Shorty cocked his head and crossed his arms defensively over his chest.
“I asked him that. He said there aren’t that many windsurfing shops in Siesta Beach.”
“How did he know we were in Siesta Beach? We didn’t tell anyone we were coming here. Hell, we didn’t know ourselves until long after I got out of the hospital. We were planning to go to Florida, remember?” Shorty said, like he’d finally picked up on her tense vibe.
“Yeah, and that’s what I told him when he asked me that night. Today, when I asked him how he knew we were here, he said he’d been to Florida and we weren’t there. Then he said, ‘Finding people is a talent of mine.’” Patty replied. “Then he asked how you were doing. He said you looked good. He said he didn’t see any scars.”
“Since he just met me last night, that seems like a dumb question, doesn’t it? He could see for himself that I’m fine. Hell, I was coming off the waves when he walked up,” Shorty replied.
Patty shook her head. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“What else did he want?”
“He wanted to know about the big duffel bag. He asked if anyone had come around looking for it. Or for the money.”
Shorty’s eyes widened again. “So he knows about the money, then?”
“Yeah, he knows. He helped me get it into the Mercedes that night.”
“What did you tell him?”
“To be honest about it, I was freaked out. We didn’t think anybody would come looking for the money. He didn’t think so either, back then. Something’s changed. I don’t know what and he said he just had a feeling in his lizard brain,” Patty replied, biting her lip, breathing heavier.
Shorty’s eyebrows popped up. “His what? What the hell is his lizard brain?”
Patty shook her head and shrugged. “He meant his instincts, I guess. I asked him if someone was coming.”
Shorty pushed himself away from the counter and plopped into the other dining chair. He lowered his head in both hands. Now his breathing was uneven, too. “What did he say?”
“He said not to worry. He’ll keep an eye on us. He’d be back to check on us from time to time. Told me not to worry about it.”
“That’s it? He just comes in here and drops a load like that on you and then leaves?”
“Not quite.” Patty took another deep breath. “Actually, he kind of disappeared, almost. He walked out of the shop when my back was turned and when I looked for him less than a minute later, he was nowhere.”
“Nowhere?” Shorty lifted his head and met her gaze with a bit of his natural optimism. “Do you think that could be it? Did you maybe, I don’t know, just hallucinate him or something? You were tired. You didn’t sleep well. You said you had nightmares about the guy last night after I saw him on the beach. Maybe your subconscious was playing tricks on you. Maybe he wasn’t really here at all.”
Patty’s eyes teared up. She blinked a few times to clear them. Hard to be a potato farmer in New Brunswick without irrational exuberance, and Shorty possessed a boatload of it. It was one of the things she loved best about him. He wanted to believe she’d made the whole thing up. She’d love to believe that, too.
But she hadn’t conjured the guy out of thin air. Not the first time, back in Laconia. And not this time, either. Reacher was here. Last night on the beach and this morning in the shop. For sure. He looked exactly as she remembered. Big, heavy, hard a
s nails.
And if Reacher could find them, the only question was how long it would be before the others showed up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sunday, February 27
12:15 a.m.
Cincinnati, Ohio
The run-down Last Chance Casino had no clocks anywhere. The longer gamblers stayed active at the slots and the tables, the more money the casino expected to make. The last thing they wanted to do was to remind patrons of the passing time.
But it was Saturday night, the busiest night of the week for the neighborhood. Which meant the working-class crowd could stay as long as they liked because when the night rolled over into Sunday morning, most of them didn’t need to get up for work the next day. They drank and gambled and smoked and every hour the crowd size increased and the noise level rose until hearing anything distinctly became impossible.
A waiter stopped by with a tray of drinks, compliments of the house. Jake accepted two glasses of water and gulped both. He’d been on a strong winning streak and consumed by the game. His eyes burned from the smoke, despite the constant but ancient air filtration, and his neck and shoulders complained about his posture the past few hours at the poker table.
The other chairs had been occupied by rotating locals who normally played against each other. Tonight, there was a new guy at the table and they lost their paychecks, one by one. Jake didn’t win every hand, but he’d won more than most. He’d turned his stake into a cool thousand bucks, which would be plenty to cover the next leg of his journey.
When the last game ended with a busted flush, he folded his hand with the rogue Jack of spades on the bottom and glanced at his phone to check the time.
He saw he’d received two voice messages from his mother, calls he’d ignored earlier. It was too late to call her back now. She’d have gone to bed hours ago. Which was what he needed to do, too. It was almost two o’clock. Time to pack it in and get some sleep.
Jake cashed out and stuffed his winnings into his front pocket before he made his way from the back through the crowded casino. The place was overflowing. People with nowhere else to go. Some were perched on stools, feeding nickels and quarters into slot machines. Others were gathered near a stage where a couple of near-naked women sang karaoke to old rock tunes while the drunken crowd cheered.
Thirty feet past the karaoke stage, he found a clear path toward the exit for the short walk to his hotel. When he broke through the crowd and pushed the glass doors open, he walked into the late night air and took a couple of lungfuls. He was sure his clothes stunk to high heaven. Maybe the hotel had a laundry he could use before he left for Kentucky in a few hours.
Jake took a quick look around. The casino was surrounded by a flat parking lot, which was filled to capacity. The lot was enclosed by chain link fencing, allowing only one way in and one way out. He counted at least four closed circuit cameras posted along the fence and aimed at the parking lot.
The extra showing of security probably made casino customers feel their vehicles and their winnings wouldn’t be stolen or something. Maybe they stayed inside and spent more money because of it. Or maybe the casino’s owners were trying to keep a lid on illegal activities in the parking lot. Jake shrugged, lowered his head, and kept moving toward the exit.
The snow had melted, except for a few dirty piles pushed to the sides by a plow when the snow was fresh. A few guys were gathered here and there, leaning against their pickup trucks and drinking beer from brown long-necked bottles.
Two youngish blondes, tired and worn, wandered from group to group. Probably hookers from the look of their clothes and makeup, Jake figured. He didn’t have much experience with hookers, but he knew one when he saw one and he wasn’t interested. He kept walking.
Ten yards away and directly in the path between Jake and the exit, a group of four caught his eye. Three men and a woman standing in a pool of yellow light from a fixture on a pole. A skinny guy and two pals who might have been welders. All four looked familiar. At first, he thought he’d seen them inside the casino. Maybe one of the men had played a few hands at Jake’s poker table and lost.
The skinny guy on the left of the woman looked up just as Jake was moving close. A scowl darkened his features. Jake remembered where he’d seen the guy before. The woman, too. Hard to forget that hair. It was Lucy, the waitress who’d served him great burgers and beer at the sports bar earlier. And the scrawny dude who’d grabbed her.
Skinny dude’s two pals looked like welders. Big. Beefy. Spoiling for a fight.
Jake didn’t want any trouble. All he wanted was to find his hotel room and crash for what was left of the night. The only way he could reach the exit was to plow straight through the group and come out on the other side.
He kept walking.
As he came closer, Lucy turned into the light and looked directly toward Jake. Which was when he saw her battered face. She had a vivid red imprint of an open hand on the left side of her face. Her right eye was swollen shut. She was crying.
“Keep on moving, boy,” the skinny dude said as he draped his arm around her shoulders, casually demonstrating that she was his property. The two big welders chuckled.
Jake’s whole body warmed with anger. He felt it coursing through his veins like a taser shot. His fists opened and closed at his sides without his volition. He fairly burned to teach the skinny dude and his posse a lesson they’d never forget.
But there were cameras everywhere. The casino might even be hard-wired to the local police station. The cops would be called. Everyone would be arrested. The skinny dude and the two welders would get sent to the hospital. Jake had no desire to spend time in jail because of those creeps.
The situation the night before with Julia was still fresh in his mind, too. He’d handled Carl in the parking lot of the brew pub and she’d been angry with him about it. Left the next morning without so much as waking him up to say goodbye. He didn’t understand her reaction, but he didn’t want to make that mistake again, either.
Not only that, Lucy had flat-out told him back in the sports bar that she didn’t want him to make trouble with this guy. But that was when she was at work. And it was also before Skinny Dude hit her. At least one and probably two hard blows, judging from the welt and her eye. What kind of low-life hits a woman like that? No excuse was good enough to justify it in Jake’s mind.
A dozen more strides and he’d be past them. He could walk away and never look back. He’d be gone in the morning, anyway. Lucy could fight her own battles. She’d made that clear back in the sports bar, too.
He almost made it out of the lot.
He was six feet past the knot of miscreants when he heard footfalls behind him. More than one person. Heavier steps than Lucy’s or the skinny dude’s. Which meant the welders. They’d come after him.
Both were heavy with belly fat. Shorter and older than Jake. Big chests, short arms, not much reach at all. Before they could get close enough to jump him from behind, Jake took one more step to set up his weight properly on his front foot and then he turned, sharp and fast.
The surprise stopped their forward momentum and left them standing still right in front of Jake, just for half a moment. Both of them wielded baseball bats. They were prepared to swing for the bleachers using Jake’s head for the ball. The blows would have hurt him badly, just as the welders intended, if the bats had connected.
The welders were focused on their plans, on their swings. But they were standing too close together. The angle was wrong. They couldn’t properly address Jake’s head now. But they’d already started. Momentum carried them forward and the bats, when they connected, barely glanced off Jake’s big torso.
As each bat swung through its arc and the batter’s shoulders followed through, the welders twisted away from Jake and were slightly off balance. It was the break he needed.
Before the first welder could set up for a second strike, Jake stepped in and smashed his right heel into the welder’s right kneecap. The second welde
r’s eyes rounded and he thought better of his actions. He tried to make adjustments too late. Jake switched legs and smashed his left heel into the second welder’s left kneecap. Both welders screamed, dropped their bats, and fell to one side holding their ruined knees.
Jake kicked the bats to the side before he looked up. Lucy was standing with her hands covering her mouth, a horrified expression on her battered face. Skinny Dude blanched a shade of white normally reserved for corpses.
Jake took a couple of steps forward but before he could get there, Skinny Dude did the only sensible thing. He turned and ran.
Jake approached Lucy in long strides. He was barely breathing heavy. He reached out to touch her and she backed away. “Are you okay?”
Something like delayed shock had set in. She’d stopped crying. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was set into a little “o”. She clasped her hands together and nodded her head. Which meant she still had some level of comprehension.
He said, “Call an ambulance for these two. They’re going to need surgery on those knees. As soon as the adrenaline wears off, they’ll need painkillers.”
She nodded again.
The welders were writhing around, panting and whimpering on the filthy parking lot. Skinny Dude was long gone. No one else seemed interested in the fight. They’d have been okay regardless of who won. They had no stake in the outcome. Or maybe they thought these guys had it coming.
“I’ve got to go,” Jake said. “But tell that creep if he hits you again, I’ll be back.”
Lucy nodded a third time.
Jake asked, “You got a cell phone?”
Lucy nodded.
“Call an ambulance,” he said again before he turned and threaded through the vehicles toward the hotel. He found his Jeep in the parking lot, jumped into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. He pulled out onto the roadway and turned toward the interstate.
He’d driven a mile when he heard the sirens approaching the casino. He drove in the opposite direction, made it to the entrance ramp, and headed southwest. With any luck, he’d be out of the state of Ohio before the cops came looking for him.