Worth Dying For_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [31]
Cassano turned left out of the lot.
Dorothy the housekeeper made a third pot of coffee. She rinsed the percolator and filled it again and set it going. She said, “Seth Duncan had a hard time in school. He got bullied. Eight-year-old boys can be very tribal. I guess they felt they had permission to go after him, because of the whispers at home. And none of the girls stuck with him. They wouldn’t go to his house, and they wouldn’t even talk to him. That’s how children are. That’s how it was. All except one girl. Her parents had raised her to be decent and compassionate. She wouldn’t go to his house, but she still talked to him. Then one day that little girl just disappeared.”
Reacher said, “And?”
“It’s a horrible thing, when that happens. You have no idea. There’s a kind of crazy period at first, when everyone is mad and worried but can’t bring themselves to believe the worst. You know, a couple of hours, maybe three or four, you think she’s playing somewhere, maybe out picking flowers, she’s lost track of the time, she’ll be home soon, right as rain. No one had cell phones back then, of course. Some people didn’t even have regular phones. Then you think the girl has gotten lost, and everyone starts driving around, looking for her. Then it goes dark, and then you call the cops.”
Reacher asked, “What did the cops do?”
“Everything they could. They did a fine job. They went house to house, they used flashlights, they used loud-hailers to tell everyone to search their barns and outbuildings, they drove around all night, then at first light they got dogs and called in the State Police and the State Police called in the National Guard and they got a helicopter.”
“Nothing?”
The woman nodded.
“Nothing,” she said. “Then I told them about the Duncans.”
“You did?”
“Someone had to. As soon as I spoke up, others joined in. We were all pointing our fingers. The State Police took us very seriously. I guess they couldn’t afford not to. They took the Duncans to a barracks over near Lincoln and questioned them for days. They searched their houses. They got help from the FBI. All kinds of laboratory people were there.”
“Did they find anything?”
“Not a trace.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Every test was negative. They said the child hadn’t been there.”
“So what happened next?”
“Nothing. It all fizzled out. The Duncans came home. The little girl was never seen again. The case was never solved. The Duncans were very bitter. They asked me to apologize, for naming names, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t give it up. My husband, neither. Some folks were on our side, like the doctor’s wife. But most weren’t, really. They saw which way the wind was blowing. The Duncans withdrew into themselves. Then they started punishing us. Like revenge. We didn’t get our crop hauled that year. We lost it all. My husband killed himself. He sat right in that chair where you’re sitting and he put his shotgun under his chin.”
“I’m sorry.”
The woman said nothing.
Reacher asked, “Who was the girl?”
No reply.
“Yours, right?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “It was my daughter. She was eight years old. She’ll always be eight years old.”
She started to cry, and then her phone started to ring.
Chapter 17
The phone was a clunky old Nokia. It was on the kitchen counter. It hopped and buzzed and trilled the old Nokia tune that Reacher had heard a thousand times before, in bars, on buses, on the street. Dorothy snatched it up and answered. She said hello and then she listened, to what sounded like a fast slurred message of some kind, maybe a warning, and then she clicked off and dropped the phone like it was scalding hot.
“That was Mr. Vincent,” she said. “Over at the motel.”
Reacher said, “And?”
“Two men were there. They’re coming here. Right now.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know. Men we’ve never seen before.” She opened the kitchen door and glanced down a hallway toward the front of the house. There was silence for a second and then Reacher heard the distant hiss of tires on blacktop, the moan of a slowing engine, the sound of brakes, and then the