The Jack Reacher Cases (A Man Born For Battle) Page 2

  “For doing what?”

  Roquelle’s eyes flattened. “Nothing you don’t want to do.”

  Tanya noticed that Roquelle’s eyes darted away from hers when she answered. People had told Tanya not to trust Roquelle, that she was bad news, but she didn’t believe it. She thought the older girl was cool, tough and bold. The kind of person she, Tanya, wanted to be.

  There was a knock on the room’s door and Roquelle opened it.

  A man stepped inside.

  He was tall, with broad shoulders, sandy hair and blue eyes.

  He shut the door behind him and stared at Roquelle, then glanced over her shoulder at Tanya.

  “This is her?” he asked Roquelle.

  Her friend turned to her but answered the man.

  “Yes.”

  The man nodded, reached back and slid home the dead bolt on the door as well as the security chain.

  “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Tanya.” She paused, then added, “What’s yours?”

  His hands went to his belt. He unclasped the buckle and slid the long piece of leather from around his waist. He held it loose in his hands, like a whip.

  “Call me Reacher,” he said. “And then take off your clothes and get on the bed.”

  5

  Pauling’s face darkened at the news. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, Michael,” she told Tallon.

  “Yeah, helluva thing,” he said. The message had come out of nowhere and although he’d tried to call Manny, there wasn’t an answer. Instead, Manny had sent an address in Indiana and asked Tallon to meet him there as soon as possible.

  She watched as he slowly packed a bag. They’d spent most of the day in bed, knowing they’d be apart, but not knowing for how long. Their lovemaking had been gentle since Pauling’s injuries but now, they’d thrown caution to the wind and let their passion and emotion take control.

  Tallon was going to fly back to his ranch near Death Valley, collect his vehicle and gear, and then drive to the small town in Indiana he’d never heard of: Gideon.

  Pauling felt a strange sense of guilt. She’d needed Tallon during her recovery from the gunshot wounds and now it seemed like he was going off to help someone else. She knew he was on the verge of accepting a private security gig in Africa and wondered if another act of charity would prevent him from going. Secretly, she hoped it would. Pauling wanted him to scale back his military contracts, especially overseas in dangerous areas. She wanted this for purely selfish reasons.

  “Does your friend not trust the police?” she asked him.

  Tallon zipped up his single suitcase; traveling light was a habit of his.

  “Probably not,” he answered her. “Manny spent time in military security both in the service and out. He’s a really sharp guy. Extremely organized. Highly motivated. Even if the local cops are good, Manny is better. No doubt in my mind.”

  Pauling knew he was right. “Maybe by the time you get there they’ll have caught the people responsible.”

  Even as she said it, she was guessing it wouldn’t be true. If Manny was as good as Tallon said, he wouldn’t have called his old buddy and asked for help. If Manny thought the cops were going to catch the guilty party, there would be no need for Tallon’s services.

  Pauling saw Tallon glance at his watch.

  “Time to go if I’m going to make my flight,” he said.

  They embraced again and kissed. She felt his hands perhaps subconsciously touch the parts of her body where she’d been shot. It would be the first time since that gun battle she would be alone.

  “Are you sure you’re okay with me leaving?” he asked again. “I can call one of my other guys to go help Manny.”

  “He asked you,” she said. “You need to go. And yes, I’ll be fine.”

  He kissed her again. She looked into his blue eyes, saw the humor behind them.

  “You need to come out West,” he said. “Get some sunshine, you’re looking kind of pale. Almost ghoulish.”

  Pauling pushed him toward the door and gave his butt a little smack. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  She was still laughing when she closed the door. But the smile faded quickly as she faced the empty space.

  Alone again, she thought.

  6

  She would have preferred to use the acronyms, but it sounded a little ridiculous. So instead of saying ISP (CID) she introduced herself as “Detective Pitts: Indiana State Police – Criminal Investigation Division.”

  The local Gideon cop, a big farm boy named Davenport, literally stepped back from her, as if her title had delivered some sort of physical affront. Using her full title was laborious, but it saved the time it would have taken for the local cop to figure out what it stood for.

  She saw him look for a name tag and then back up at her.

  Farm boy Davenport nodded. Pitts wondered when was the last time he’d seen a black woman up close and personal. Weeks? Months? Worse yet, she was his superior in this case, but so far, he seemed to be handling it okay.

  The crime scene technicians had come and gone, except for the lead coroner, a man named Chang. His team had worked the scene thoroughly, photographing the victims, bagging any trace evidence they could find and mapping the crime scene.

  Then, they’d removed the bodies of the three dead women who’d been hung from the welcome arch that spanned the road into Gideon, Indiana.

  Pitts, or “Stevie” to her close friends, (her parents had been huge Stevie Wonder fans) had also worked the scene. She’d made notes, sketched the position of the bodies and tried to interview any witnesses she could find. All while trying not to get in the way of the crime scene techs. They were there to do a job, too and at times, working a crime scene was like a carefully choreographed dance – especially when it was done right.

  For the time being she was here alone. Her partner had retired two weeks earlier and the brass back in Indianapolis were still trying to find a replacement. Pitts sort of enjoyed working solo, but knew she would need help on this one. This kind of case was going to blow up fast in the media if it wasn’t solved quickly. Nothing got the bureaucracy of the ISP moving faster than bad press. Pitts had seen it time and time again.

  Now, Chang, the lead coroner, approached her.

  “First thoughts?” Pitts asked him. They’d rubbed shoulders a few times and Pitts knew Chang was good at what he did. He was a tiny man with an oval face and breath that always smelled like onions.

  “The bodies were clean,” he said. “No signs of a struggle or sexual assault.”

  “So more than one killer,” Pitts intuited. “Unless it was one person who had put the fear of God into them and motivated them to follow orders without putting up a fight.”

  Chang put a tiny hand to his chin. “My guess is more than one perp. It would have been a rather elaborate process to hang three women from the bridge. Plus, speed would have been of the essence and this road sees a fair amount of traffic, even though the town is small.”

  “Any prints?”

  “Maybe. A few partials near where the ropes were tied to the railing.”

  “Anything special about the rope?”

  Chang shook his head. “Afraid not. But we’ll test the fibers and see if anything jumps out. Pretty clean overall, though. Whoever did this was highly organized and very thorough.”

  “Great,” Pitts muttered.

  Chang wished her luck, promised he would expedite the processing of the crime scene findings and then left.

  Pitts stood and looked at the little arch. “Welcome to Gideon,” it said.

  “Hardly,” she said to no one.

  She walked back to her unmarked sedan and pointed it toward town. It was time to get some coffee and to find a hotel.

  Pitts had a feeling she wouldn’t be leaving this shithole any time soon.

  7

  The bar was not trendy. Instead, it was a neighborhood kind of place, not too far from the FBI’s New York office just off of Lafayette in Lower Manhattan.

  Pauling was the last to arrive as the others had come together directly from the job.

  “We thought maybe we should bring you a vest,” Agent Nicky Friselle said. Nicky was one of Pauling’s last real friends still with the Bureau. She was a firecracker of a woman with short red hair and was usually dressed in a form-fitting black suit and whose favorite thing in the world was a black leather jacket. Nicky was a dogged investigator; her tenacious nature was legendary.

  Pauling had finally accepted the invitation from her old coworkers to meet for a drink. They’d visited her during her rehab and eventually, were aggressive in getting her out of her condo.

  “A vest wouldn’t have helped, but I appreciate the thought,” Pauling said.

  “Looking good, Pauling,” Agent Roger Chinnock said. He was the youngest of the crew, tall and good-looking. Pauling had been partially responsible for his training and while he was very intelligent, he had a stubborn streak and it had taken some time for him to recognize the need for some degree of conformity at the Bureau. Their relationship had been rocky, but it seemed since she’d left hard feelings had all been forgotten.

  “You too, Roger.”

  Now that Tallon had left to go help his friend Manny, Pauling had started to feel just a little bit sorry for herself. So when the invitation had come, she’d finally relented and agreed to the outing.

  Pauling said hello to the others in the group: there was Agent Christina Paulette, a specialist in financial crimes, as well as Agent Bart Osgood, a year away from retirement and looking like he needed the rest.

  They ordered drinks – sparkling water for Pauling as she was still on a few medications to ensure an infection-free recovery.

  They swapped stories and then Pauling asked them what they were up to, which was an oftentimes awkward turn of conversation. She knew they would have to be careful what they said, despite Pauling’s history as an FBI agent. Talking about classified information was a sure way to abruptly end your career.

  “Mostly dealing with our friends to the south,” Nicky said. “What with the current administration’s focus on illegal immigration, and the recent massacre of innocents, it’s ramped up quite a bit.”

  The “massacre” Nicky referred to, Pauling knew, was that of a group of American families who’d been slaughtered en masse traveling to Mexico City. No one knew if it was a planned hit or simply a case of mistaken identity.

  “We call them the CBGBs,” Roger said. Pauling knew this was a nickname for the notorious Mexican drug cartel CJNG. That acronym stood for Jalisco New Generation Cartel, responsible for brutal murders on both sides of the border. “They’ve gone full throttle on their small-town approach. But even worse? They’re finally taking on a big city. Guess which one?”

  “Well, if you’re working on it…”

  “Yep,” Roger admitted, without actually verbalizing it. “Hey, if you can make it on Broadway, you can make it anywhere.”

  Pauling knew what he was talking about, as well. Unlike most cartels who fought for major metropolitan areas like New York and Miami – the sites of some of the most brutal cartel turf wars of all time – CJNG focused on small communities where law enforcement was both local and minimal.

  It was a strategy that had served them well as they’d expanded their empire and filled their coffers quite well over the past few years. Now, it sounded like they were going big-time.

  “The many-headed hydra,” Pauling said, referring to the sheer number of “soldiers” the cartels employed. It seemed whenever a kingpin was taken out, there were dozens more ready to take his (or sometimes her) place.

  They ordered some appetizers and when those were done, as well as another round of drinks, people started to drop off.

  Finally, it was just Pauling and Nicky.

  “You know, this was more than just a social occasion,” Nicky said. “Did you realize that or have you been out way too long?”

  Pauling knitted her brows. “What are you talking about?”

  “We could use you back at the Bureau. Osgood’s retiring and there’s been talk you’d be the perfect person to replace him.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “What?” Nicky replied, counting off her points on her fingers. “One, you sold your company. Two, you’re unemployed. Three, you’re still single. What possible excuse could you have to not come back and work with me? We make a great team, you know that.”

  “Um, I don’t have an excuse.”

  “Perfect. When can you start?”

  Pauling laughed. She knew Nicky was only half-serious. “I said I don’t have an excuse. But I have lots of good reasons.” Now it was Pauling’s turn to count off her points. “One, I don’t need a paycheck. Two, my time at the Bureau was great, but I’ve moved on, permanently. And three, while I am still single, that doesn’t mean I’m not in a relationship.”

  “Oh, is this the Tallon guy I’ve been hearing about?” Nicky said, her eyes wide with excitement. Probably for the gossip, Pauling thought.

  “How did you know?” Pauling asked.

  “Come on, Lauren. The FBI knows everything.”

  Pauling laughed. “Yes, Michael’s a good guy. More importantly, we’re really good together.”

  “When can I meet him?” Nicky actually rubbed her hands together which sent Pauling off into a fit of laughter.

  When she was done, she realized Nicky was waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t actually know,” Pauling replied.

  8

  The cheeseburger might be the greatest thing God had ever invented.

  La Roca sat in the booth at the truck stop, some two hundred miles from his destination in Indiana, and looked at the culinary masterpiece before him. He thought of all the dry tortillas stuffed with bland beans he’d choked down in his lifetime. How it all seemed so incredibly poor in comparison to the beautiful concoction of bread (they called it a bun) meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion. Not to mention the mayonnaise – another new word! – and pickles.

  Next to the cheeseburger was a pile of yet another American brilliance: French fries. What kind of mad man could think up such a thing?

  La Roca devoured his meal with great enthusiasm. He’d heard of people getting very fat eating American food; especially what they called “fast food.” He didn’t understand that term.

  At the moment, he didn’t care.

  The food was absolutely delicious and getting fat seemed ridiculous. He was all muscle anyway. Besides, in his line of work, people didn’t really worry about long-term health matters. Few lived long enough to experience them.

  A truck driver sat down in the booth across from him. La Roca could feel the man’s eyes upon him. He stayed focused on his food.

  “Great, another Mexican,” the man said.

  La Roca looked up.

  The man was staring at him. He had on a dirty baseball cap, greasy T-shirt. On his face was a scraggly red beard. A pale face and two bloodshot blue eyes stared back at him.

  “You people are ruining this country,” the trucker said.

  La Roca focused on what was left of his cheeseburger.

  A waitress came up to the truck driver’s table. “Don’t start nothin’, Randall. We don’t want no more trouble and if you cause a ruckus, Dale will kick you out of here once and for all.”

  She had glanced over at La Roca and smiled but he ignored her.

  The waitress left and La Roca finished his meal. He put a twenty dollar bill on the table.

  He sat and waited until the waitress brought the truck driver a plate of food. She cleared La Roca’s plate and muttered a thank you for the tip.

  When she left, he stood and walked to the truck driver’s booth.

  As he passed, he paused, placed a finger against one side of his nostril and blew out a gob of nasal mucous from the other nostril. It landed in the middle of the truck driver’s hash browns.

  The man gasped, dumbfounded, and La Roca walked to the men’s room as he heard the truck driver scramble from the booth, cursing.

  The waitress had turned her back on the dining area and was saying something to the cook who was busy flipping meat on a grill.

  No one else seemed to notice.

  La Roca walked into the men’s room and waited. The door banged open and the truck driver stormed inside.

  He didn’t hesitate and immediately launched himself at La Roca.

  The man’s fist came around in a big looping swing and La Roca let it hit the side of his jaw. His head bent under the blow, but he also heard bones in the man’s hand break. La Roca’s thick, powerful neck absorbed the force of the blow and the rest of his body showed no effect from the punch.

  The truck driver howled with pain and La Roca waded in. He drove his massive skull forward and headbutted the man on the bridge of his nose. He heard the cartilage crunch under the force. The truck driver sagged. La Roca knocked the man’s cap from his head, grabbed a handful of hair and smashed his face into the edge of the granite counter. The man’s teeth sprinkled onto the bathroom floor like pennies dropped from someone’s pocket. Blood gushed from the man’s face and poured onto the bathroom floor.

  La Roca smashed the man’s face into the edge of the granite counter again. And again. And again.

  The man’s entire face was caved in and La Roca dropped him onto the floor. The truck driver’s pants were sliding down and La Roca saw the top of his ass crack. He felt a stirring in his own pants.

  When he’d been in prison in Mexico, he’d learned to appreciate the benefits of man-on-man sex. It had been some time since his last sampling, but he wondered if he should take the opportunity now. He thought he detected the man on the floor still breathing. That was good. He didn’t want to have sex with a corpse.

  But then the truck driver gave a last gasp and a spray of blood shot from the man’s mouth. He gargled, and spasmed and then was still.