No Plan B

“Really? Because here’s what I think. You got to town. Met a woman. Spent the night. Maybe a few nights. You pissed her off somehow. Or you overstayed your welcome. Wouldn’t leave, despite all the hints she dropped. So she lost patience and trashed your stuff. Cut it up. Or set it on fire. Yes. Tell me she burned it. Please. Let that be it.”

“OK. A woman burned it.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Then where’s all your stuff?”

“Right here. In my pocket.”

“What can you possibly fit in your pocket?”

“Everything I need.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. For now.”

—

Bruno Hix and Damon Brockman were operating on the assumption that there were four categories of prisoner at Winson. That’s what they expected because that’s what they had mandated. What they didn’t realize was that there were actually five.

The fifth category was in fact the oldest. It predated Minerva’s ownership of Winson by several years. It had not been defined by professionals. No doctors were involved in the process. No psychologists. No accountants. Certainly no lawyers. Its members had always been identified by Curtis Riverdale, personally. He relied on his decades of experience. His natural ability to read people. To spot certain things, however well hidden. Things like extreme desperation. Or exceptional greed. Things that would cause an inmate to arrange for his wife, or occasionally his sister, to come to the prison whenever Riverdale told him to. And then to wait, penned in on the secure side of the glass divider, while one of the old guard escorted the woman to his office. Where he put his own personal spin on the concept of the conjugal visit.

Sometimes, if Riverdale felt like spicing things up a little, he had the prisoner brought up, too. He had him cuffed to a steel bar he’d had attached to the wall in the corridor for that specific purpose. And he left his door open. Just a crack. Not so wide that the prisoner could see into the room. But enough to make sure the sounds from inside weren’t muffled in any way.

Riverdale had a visit lined up for that evening. With the wife of a new fish. He was looking forward to it. If she lived up to his expectations he was thinking of having her brought back on Friday afternoon. To celebrate Winson’s return to business as usual.

Assuming everything went according to plan.

—

The farther Hannah Hampton drove, the less she spoke.

She had started out pretty talkative after deciding not to drop Reacher off at the Greyhound station. She wanted to know all about him. To understand what kind of guy would walk away from the army and wander around the country with no job. No home to return to. No definite destination. No luggage. She asked him about his childhood. His parents. His brother. How he felt when each of them had died. How he had been affected by growing up on military bases all around the world. She was fascinated by his life as an army cop. She wanted to know about the best case he had investigated. The worst. About any that still haunted him. Why he had left the service. And how he felt about being cast adrift after putting his life on the line for other people for thirteen years.

Reacher was happy to answer. His replies were mostly factual. They were mostly positive. He had come to terms with anything negative in his life years ago. The conversation ticked along. The tires thumped and rumbled over the joints and gaps in the road. Hannah’s phone directed them onto I-70. The highway stretched away in front of them. The mountains grew smaller in the rear window, then finally disappeared into the distant haze. Hannah continued due east until they were well clear of Denver, then cut across on the diagonal, almost to the edge of the state. Then they turned again. Straight to the south this time. They plunged across the narrow strip that stretched out sideways from Oklahoma. And kept going, deeper and deeper into Texas.

The conversation began to dry up after Hannah raised the subject of relationships. Reacher turned the questions back toward her and she deflected by talking about her marriage to Sam Roth. He sounded like a nice guy. Hannah had endless anecdotes about him. About their life, together but not together. Some of her memories were tender. Some were funny. Some were wild, from way back in the day. As Hannah reminisced her voice changed. It grew quieter. She spoke more slowly. Eventually a tear ran down her cheek. Just one. She wiped it away and glanced across at Reacher with a look that said, Your turn.

Reacher said nothing.

Chapter 21

Damon Brockman was not the kind of guy who readily changed his mind.