Worth Dying For_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [13]
Then he heard something.
Not a passing vehicle, not wind, not night sounds.
Not tires on gravel.
Footsteps on gravel.
Chapter 8
Footsteps on gravel. One pair. A light, hesitant tread, approaching. Reacher watched the window and saw a shape flit across it. Small, slight, head ducked down into the collar of a coat.
A woman.
There was a knock at the door, soft and tentative and padded. A small nervous hand, wearing a glove. A decoy, possibly. Not beyond the wit of man to send someone on ahead, all innocent and unthreatening, to get the door open and lull the target into a sense of false security. Not unlikely that such a person would be nervous and hesitant about her role.
Reacher crossed the floor silently and headed back to the bathroom. He eased the window up and clipped out the screen and rested it in the bathtub. Then he ducked his head and climbed out, scissoring his legs over the sill, stepping down to the gravel. He walked one of the silver timbers that boxed the path, like a tightrope, silently. He went counterclockwise around the circular cabin and came up on the woman from behind.
She was alone.
No cars on the road, nobody in the lot, nobody flattened on either side of his door, nobody crouched under his window. Just the woman, standing there on her own. She looked cold. She was wearing a wool coat and a scarf. No hat. She was maybe forty, small, dark, and worried. She raised her hand and knocked again.
Reacher said, “I’m here.”
She gasped and spun around and put her hand on her chest. Her mouth stayed open and made a tiny O. He said, “I’m sorry if I startled you, but I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
She said, “Perhaps you should have been.”
“Well, in fact, perhaps I was. But not you.”
“Can we go inside?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m the doctor’s wife.”
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Reacher said.
“Can we go inside?”
Reacher found the key in his pocket and unlocked the door from the outside. The doctor’s wife stepped in and he followed her and locked the door again behind them. He crossed the room and closed the bathroom door against the night air coming in through the open window. He turned back to find her standing in the middle of the space. He indicated the armchair and said, “Please.”
She sat down. Didn’t unbutton her coat. She was still nervous. If she had been carrying a purse, she would have had it clamped hard on her knees, defensively. She said, “I walked all the way over here.”
“To pick up the car? You should have let your husband do that, in the morning. That’s what I arranged with him.”
“He’s too drunk to drive.”
“He’ll be OK by morning, surely.”
“Morning’s too late. You have to get going. Right now. You’re not safe here.”
“You think?”
“My husband said you’re heading south to the Interstate. I’ll drive you there.”
“Now? It’s got to be a hundred miles.”
“A hundred and twenty.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“You’re not safe here. My husband told me what happened. You interfered with the Duncans. You saw. They’ll punish him for sure, and we think they’ll come after you, too.”
“ ‘They’?”
“The Duncans. There are four of them.”
“Punish him how?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Last time they wouldn’t let him come here for a month.”
“Here? To the lounge?”
“It’s his favorite place.”
“How could they stop him coming here?”
“They told Mr. Vincent not to serve him. The owner.”
“Why would the owner of this place do what the Duncans tell him?”
“The Duncans run a trucking business. All of Mr. Vincent’s supplies come through them. He signed a contract. He kind of had to. That’s how the Duncans work. So if Mr. Vincent doesn’t play ball, a couple of deliveries will be late, a couple lost, a couple damaged. He knows that. He’ll go out of business.”
Reacher asked, “What will they figure to do to me?”
The woman said, “They hire football players right out