There were lights on in the house. Plenty of them. Like a cruise ship at night on the open ocean. But there was no sign of uproar. There were no cars on the driveway. No pick-up trucks, no SUVs. No large figures in the shadows. No sound, no movement. Nothing. The front door was closed. The windows were intact.
Reacher turned in and parked on the driveway and walked to the door. He stood right in front of the spy hole and rang the bell. There was a whole minute's delay. Then the spy hole darkened and lightened and locks and chains rattled and the doctor opened up. He looked tired and battered and worried. His wife was standing behind him in the hallway, in the bright light, with the phone to her ear. The phone was the old-fashioned kind, big and black on a table, with a dial and a curly wire. The doctor's wife was not talking. She was just listening, concentrating hard, her eyes narrowing and widening.
The doctor said, 'You came back.'
Reacher said, 'Yes, I did.'
'Why?'
'Are you OK? The Cornhuskers are out and about.'
'We know,' the doctor said. 'We just heard. We're on the phone tree right now.'
'They didn't come here?'
'Not yet.'
'So where are they?'
'We're not sure.'
Reacher said, 'Can I come in?'
'Of course,' the doctor said. 'I'm sorry.' He stepped back and Reacher stepped in. The hallway was very warm. The whole house was warm, but it felt smaller than before, like a desperate little fortress. The doctor closed the door and turned two keys and put the chain back on. He asked, 'Did you see the police files?'
Reacher said, 'Yes.'
'And?'
'They're inconclusive,' Reacher said. He moved on into the kitchen. He heard the doctor's wife say, 'What?' She sounded puzzled. Maybe a little shocked. He glanced back at her. The doctor glanced back at her. She said nothing more. Just continued to listen, eyes moving, taking mental notes. The doctor followed Reacher into the kitchen.
'Want coffee?' he asked.
I'm not drunk, he meant.
Reacher said, 'Sure. Lots of it.'
The doctor set about filling the machine. The kitchen was even warmer than the hallway. Reacher took off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair.
The doctor asked, 'What do you mean, inconclusive?'
Reacher said, 'I mean I could make up a story about how the Duncans did it, but there's really no proof either way.'
'Can you find proof? Is that why you came back?'
Reacher said, 'I came back because those two Italian guys who were after me seem to have joined up with a regular United Nations of other guys. Not a peacekeeping force, either. I think they're all coming here. I want to know why.'
'Pride,' the doctor said. 'You messed with the Duncans, and they won't tolerate that. Their people can't handle you, so they've called in reinforcements.'
'Doesn't make sense,' Reacher said. 'Those Italians were here before me. You know that. You heard what Eleanor Duncan said. So there's some other reason. They have some kind of a dispute with the Duncans.'
'Then why would they help the Duncans in their own dispute with you?'
'I don't know.'
'How many of them are coming?' the doctor asked.
From the hallway his wife said, 'Five of them.' She had just gotten off the phone. She stepped into the kitchen and said, 'And they're not coming. They're already here. That was the message on the phone tree. The Italians are back. With three other men. Three cars in total. The Italians in their blue Chevy, plus two guys in a red Ford, and one guy in a black car that everyone swears is Seth Duncan's Cadillac.'
THIRTY-NINE
REACHER POURED HIMSELF A CUP OF COFFEE AND THOUGHT FOR a long moment and said, 'I left Seth Duncan's Cadillac at the Marriott.'
The doctor's wife asked, 'So how did you get back here?'
'I took a Chevy Malibu from one of the bad guys.'
'That thing on the driveway?'
'No, that's a GMC Yukon I took from a football player.'
'So what happened with the Cadillac?'
'I left a guy stranded. I stole his car, and then I guess he stole mine. Probably not deliberate tit for tat. Probably just coincidental, because there wasn't really an infinite choice down there. He didn't want some piece-of-shit pick-up truck, obviously, and he didn't want anything with big-time security built in. The Cadillac fit the bill. Probably the only thing that did. Or else he was just plain lazy, and didn't want to look around too long. The Cadillac was right there. We were all in the same hotel.'
'Did you see the guys?'
'I didn't see the Italians. But I saw the other four.'
'That makes six, not five. Where's the other one?'
'I promise you something,' Reacher said. 'The guy who took the Cadillac put his bag on the back seat, not in the trunk.'
'How do you know?'
'Because that's where the sixth guy is. In the trunk. I put him there.'
'Does he have air?'
'He doesn't need air. Not any more.'
'Sweet Jesus. What happened?'
Reacher said, 'I think whatever else they're doing, they're coming here to get me first. Like a side issue of some kind. Like mission creep. I don't know why, but that's the only way I can explain it. The way I see it, they all assembled tonight in the Marriott and the Italians announced the mission and gave the others a description, probably vague and definitely secondhand, because they haven't actually laid eyes on me yet, and then I bumped into one of the others after that, in the lobby, and he was looking at me, like he was asking himself, is that the guy? Can it be? Can it? I could see him thinking. We got out to the lot and he put his hand in his pocket and I hit him. You ever heard of commotio cordis?'
'Chest wall trauma,' the doctor said. 'Causes fatal cardiac dysrhythmia.'
'Ever seen it?'
'No.'
'Neither had I. But I'm here to tell you, it works real good.'
'What was in his pocket?'
'A knife and a gun and an ID from Vegas.'
'Vegas?' the doctor said. 'Do the Duncans have gambling debts? Is that the dispute?'
'Possible,' Reacher said. 'No question the Duncans have been living beyond their means for a long time. They've been getting some extra income from somewhere.'
'Why say that? They've been extorting forty farms for thirty years. And a motel. That's a lot of money.'
'No, it isn't,' Reacher said. 'Not really. This isn't the wealthiest area in the world. They could be taking half of what everyone earns, and that wouldn't buy them a pot to piss in. But Seth lives like a king and they pay ten football players just to be here. They couldn't do all that on the back of a seasonal enterprise.'
The doctor's wife said, 'We should worry about that later. Right now the Cornhuskers are on the loose, and we don't know where or why. That's what's important tonight. Dorothy Coe might be coming over.'
'Here?' Reacher asked. 'Now?'
The doctor said, 'That's what happens sometimes. With the women, mostly. It's a support thing. Like a sisterhood. Whoever feels the most vulnerable clusters together.'
His wife said, 'Which is always Dorothy and me, and sometimes others too, depending on exactly what the panic is.'
'Not a good idea,' Reacher said. 'From a tactical point of view, I mean. It gives them one target instead of multiple targets.'
'It's strength in numbers. It works. Sometimes those boys can act a little inhibited. They don't necessarily like witnesses around, when they're sent after women.'
They took cups of coffee and waited in the dining room, which had a view of the road. The road was dark. There was nothing moving on it. It was indistinguishable from the rest of the nighttime terrain. They sat quiet for a spell, on hard upright chairs, with the lights off to preserve their view out the window, and then the doctor said, 'Tell us about the files.'
'I saw a photograph,' Reacher said. 'Dorothy's kid was Asian.'