Worth Dying For_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [69]
Vietnamese, possibly, or Thai, or Cambodian, or Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean. Dorothy wasn’t. Arthur probably hadn’t been, either. Not a native Nebraskan farmworker. Therefore Margaret was adopted. She had been a sweet little thing. The photograph was dated on the back, in a woman’s handwriting, with an added note: Nearly eight! Beautiful as ever! It was a color picture, probably amateur, but proficient. Better than a snapshot. It had been thought about and composed, and taken with a decent camera. A good likeness, obviously, to have been given to the police. It showed a little Asian girl, standing still, posing, smiling. She was small and slight and slender. She had trust and merriment in her eyes. She was wearing a plaid skirt and a white blouse.
She was a lovely child.
Reacher heard the stoner’s voice in his mind, from earlier in the day: I hear that poor ghost screaming, man, screaming and wailing and moaning and crying, right here in the dark.
And at that point Reacher took a break.
Sixty miles north Dorothy Coe took a pork chop from her refrigerator. The chop was part of a pig a friend had slaughtered a mile away, part of a loose cooperative designed to get people through tough times. Dorothy trimmed the fat, and put a little pepper on the meat, and a little mustard, and a little brown sugar. She put the chop in an open dish and put the dish in the oven. She set her table, one place, a knife, a fork, and a plate. She took a glass and filled it with water and put it next to the plate. She folded a square of paper towel for a napkin. Dinner, for one.
Reacher was hungry. He had eaten no lunch. He called the desk and asked for room service and the guy who had booked him in told him there was no room service. He apologized for the lack. Then he went ahead and mentioned the two restaurants named on the billboard Reacher had already seen. The guy promised a really excellent meal could be gotten at either one of them. Maybe he was on a retainer from the Chamber of Commerce.
Reacher put his coat on and headed down the hallway to the lobby. Two more guests were checking in. Both men. They looked Middle Eastern. Iranian, possibly. They were small and rumpled and unshaven and not very clean. One of them glanced at Reacher and Reacher nodded politely and headed for the door. It was dark outside, and cold. Reacher figured he would use the diner for breakfast, and therefore the rib shack for dinner. So he turned right on the back street and hustled.
The doctor walked fast to beat the cold and made it home inside an hour. His wife was waiting for him. She was worried. He had some explaining to do. He started talking and got through the whole story before she spoke a word. At the end he went quiet and she said, “So it’s a gamble, isn’t it? Is that what you’re saying? Like a horse race. Will Reacher come back before Seth gets home and finds out that you just sat there and watched his car get stolen?”
The doctor said, “Will Reacher come back at all?”
“I think he will.”
“Why would he?”
“Because the Duncans took that kid. Who else do you think did it?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t here. I was in Idaho. I was a kid myself. So were you.”
“Believe me.”
“I do. But I wish you would tell me exactly why I should.”
She said nothing.
The doctor said, “Maybe Seth won’t go home. Maybe he’ll spend the night at his father’s place.”
“That’s possible. People say he often does. But we shouldn’t assume.” She started moving around the house, checking the window locks, checking the door locks, front and back. She said, “We should wedge the doors with furniture.”
“Then they’ll come in the window.”
“Tornado glass. It’s pretty strong.”
“Those guys weigh three hundred pounds. You saw what they did to my car.”
“We have to do something.”
“They’ll burn us out. Or they’ll just stand on the step and tell us to open up. Then what are we going to do? Disobey them?”
“We could hold out a day or two. We have food and water.”
“Might be longer than a day or two. Might be forever. Even if you’re right, there’s no guarantee Reacher will find the proof.