"People messenger things all the time," Walker said. "It's routine. And it was too hot for walking."
Reacher nodded. "Maybe. It didn't mean much at the time. But then something else didn't tie up. The collarbone."
"What about it?"
Reacher turned to face Alice. "When you fell off your inline skates, did you break your collarbone?"
"No," Alice said.
"Any injuries at all?"
"I tore up my hand. A lot of road rash."
"You put your hand out to break your fall?"
"Reflex," she said. "It's impossible not to."
Reacher nodded. Turned back through the candlelit gloom to Walker.
"I rode with Carmen on Saturday," he said. "My first time ever. My ass got sore, but the thing I really remember is how high I was. It's scary up there. So the thing is, if Carmen fell off, from that height, onto rocky dirt, hard enough to bust her collarbone, how is it that she didn't get road rash, too? On her hand?"
"Maybe she did."
"The hospital didn't write it up."
"Maybe they forgot."
"It was a very detailed report. New staff, working hard. I noticed that, and Cowan Black did, too. He said they were very thorough. They wouldn't have neglected lacerations to the palm."
"She must have worn riding gloves."
Reacher shook his head. "She told me nobody wears gloves down here. Too hot. And she definitely wouldn't have said that if gloves had once saved her from serious road rash. She'd have been a big fan of gloves, in that case. She'd have certainly made me wear them, being new to it."
"So?"
"So I started to wonder if the collarbone thing could have been from Sloop hitting her. I figured it was possible. Maybe she's on her knees, a big clubbing fist from above, she moves her head. Only she also claimed he had broken her arm and her jaw and knocked her teeth loose, too, and there was no mention of all that stuff, so I stopped wondering. Especially when I found out the ring was real."
A candle on the left end of the table died. It burned out and smoke rose from it in a thin plume that ran absolutely straight for a second and then spiraled crazily.
"She's a liar," Walker said. "That's all."
"She sure is," Bobby said.
"Sloop never hit her," Rusty said. "A son of mine would never hit a woman, whoever she was."
"One at a time, O.K.?" Reacher said, quietly.
He could feel the impatience in the room. Elbows shifting on the table, feet moving on the floor. He turned to Bobby first.
"You claim she's a liar," he said. "And I know why. It's because you don't like her, because you're a racist piece of shit, and because she had an affair with the schoolteacher. So among other things you took it on yourself to try and turn me off of her. Some kind of loyalty to your brother."
Then he turned to Rusty. "We'll get to what Sloop did and didn't do real soon. But right now, you keep quiet, O.K.? Hack and I have business."
"What business?" Walker said.
"This business," Reacher said, and propped Alice's gun on the tabletop, the butt resting on the wood and the muzzle pointing straight at Walker's chest.
"What the hell are you doing?" Walker said.
Reacher clicked the safety off with his thumb. The snick sounded loud in the room. Candles flickered and the lantern hissed softly.
"I figured out the thing with the diamond," he said. "Then everything else made sense. Especially with you giving us the badges and sending us down here to speak with Rusty."
"What are you talking about?"
"It was like a conjuring trick. The whole thing. You knew Carmen pretty well. So you knew what she must have told me. Which was the absolute truth, always. The truth about herself, and about what Sloop was doing to her. So you just exactly reversed everything. It was simple. A very neat and convincing trick. Like she told me she was from Napa, and you said, hey, I bet she told you she's from Napa, but she isn't, you know. Like she told me she'd called the IRS, and you said, hey, I bet she told you she called the IRS, but she didn't, really. It was like you knew the real truth and were reluctantly exposing commonplace lies she had told before. But it was you who was lying. All along. It was very, very effective. Like a conjuring trick. And you dressed it all up behind pretending you wanted to save her. You fooled me for a long time."
"I did want to save her. I am saving her."
"Bullshit, Hack. Your only aim all along was to coerce a confession out of her for something she didn't do. It was a straightforward plan. Your hired guns kidnapped Ellie today so you could force Carmen to confess. I was your only problem. I stuck around, I recruited Alice. We were in your face from Monday morning onward. So you misled us for twenty-seven straight hours. You let us down slowly and regretfully, point by point. It was beautifully done. Well, almost. To really make it work, you'd have to be the best con artist in the world. And like old Copernicus says, what are the odds that the best con artist in the world would happen to be up there in Pecos?"
There was silence. Just sputtering wax, the hissing of the lantern, five people breathing. The old air conditioner wasn't running. No power.
"You're crazy," Walker said.
"No, I'm not. You decoyed me by being all regretful about what a liar Carmen was and how desperate you were to save her. You were even smart enough to reveal a cynical reason for wanting to save her. About wanting to be a judge, so I wouldn't think you were too good to be true. That was a great touch, Hack. But all the time you were talking to her on the phone, muffling your voice to get past the desk clerk, telling him you were her lawyer, telling her if she ever spoke to a real lawyer, you'd hurt Ellie. Which is why she refused to speak with Alice. Then you wrote out a bunch of phony financial statements on your own computer right there at your desk. One printout looks much the same as any other. And you drafted the phony trust deeds. And the phony Family Services papers. You knew what real ones looked like, I guess. Then as soon as you heard your people had picked up the kid you got back on the phone and coached Carmen through the phony confession, feeding back to her all the lies you'd told to me. Then you sent your assistant downstairs to listen to them."
"This is nonsense."
Reacher shrugged. "So let's prove it. Let's call the FBI and ask them how the hunt for Ellie is going."
"Phones are out," Bobby said. "Electrical storm."
Reacher nodded. "O.K., no problem."
He kept the gun pointed at Walker's chest and turned to face Rusty.
"Tell me what the FBI agents asked you," he said.
Rusty looked blank. "What FBI agents?"
"No FBI agents came here tonight?"
She just shook her head. Reacher nodded.
"You were playacting, Hack," he said. "You told us you'd called the FBI and the state police, and there were roadblocks in place, and helicopters up, and more than a hundred fifty people on the ground. But you didn't call anybody. Because if you had, the very first thing they would have done is come down here. They'd have talked to Rusty for hours. They'd have brought sketch artists and crime scene technicians. This is the scene of the crime, after all. And Rusty is the only witness."
"You're wrong, Reacher," Walker said.
"There were FBI people here," Bobby said. "I saw them in the yard."
Reacher shook his head.
"There were people wearing FBI hats," he said. "Two of them. But they aren't wearing those hats anymore."
Walker said nothing.
"Big mistake, Hack," Reacher said. "Giving us those stupid badges and sending us down here. You're in law enforcement. You knew Rusty was the vital witness. You also knew she wouldn't cooperate fully with me. So it was an inexplicable decision for a DA to take, to send us down here. I couldn't believe it. Then I saw why. You wanted us out of the way. And you wanted to know where we were, at all times. So you could send your people after us."
"What people?"
"The hired guns, Hack. The people in the FBI hats. The people you sent to kill Al Eugene. The people you sent to kill Sloop. They were pretty good. Very professional. But the thing with professionals is, they need to be able to work again in the future. Al Eugene was no problem. Could have been anybody, out there in the middle of nowhere. But Sloop was harder. He was just home from prison, wasn't going anyplace for a spell. So it had to be done right here, which was risky. They made you agree to cover their asses by framing Carmen. Then you made them agree to help you do it by moonlighting as the kidnap team."
"This is ridiculous," Walker said.
"You knew Carmen had bought a gun," Reacher said. "You told me, the paperwork comes through your office. And you knew why she bought it. You knew all about Sloop and what he did to her. You knew their bedroom was a torture chamber. So she wants to hide a gun in there, where does she put it? Three choices, really. Top shelf of her closet, in her bedside table, or in her underwear drawer. Common sense. Same for any woman in any bedroom. I know it, and your people knew it. They probably watched through the window until she went to shower, they slipped some gloves on, a minute later they're in the room, they cover Sloop with their own guns until they find Carmen's, and they shoot him with it. They're outside again thirty seconds later. A quick sprint back to where they left their car on the road, and they're gone. This house is a warren. But you know it well. You're a friend of the family. You assured them they could be in and out without being seen. You probably drew them a floor plan."