Running Blind

“Because it means it isn’t a guy with time to drive a truck all over the place. It means it could be anybody, using the airlines, in and out quick as you like.”

BLAKE WENT BACK to the Suburban to make his calls, and Harper found Reacher and walked him fifty yards up the road to where agents from the Spokane office had spotted tire marks in the mud on the shoulders. It had gone dark and they were using flashlights. There were four separate marks in the mud. It was clear what had happened. Somebody had swung nose-in to the left shoulder, wound the power steering around, backed across the road and put the rear tires on the right shoulder, and then swooped away back the way he had come. The front-tire marks were scrubbed into fan shapes by the operation of the steering, but the rear-tire marks opposite were clear enough. They were not wide, not narrow.

“Probably a midsize sedan,” the Spokane guy said. “Fairly new radial tires, maybe a 195/70, maybe a fourteen- inch wheel. We’ll get the exact tire from the tread pattern. And we’ll measure the width between the marks, maybe get the exact model of the car.”

“You think it’s the guy?” Harper asked.

Reacher nodded. “Got to be, right? Think about it. Anybody else hunting the address sees the house a hundred yards ahead and slows enough to check the mailbox and stop. Even if they don’t, they overshoot a couple of yards and just back right up. They don’t overshoot fifty yards and wait until they’re around the corner to turn. This was a guy cruising the place, watching out, staying cautious. It was him, no doubt about it.”

They felt the Spokane guys setting up miniature waterproof tents over the marks and walked back toward the house. Blake was standing by the Suburban, waiting, lit from behind by the dome light inside.

“We’ve got appliance cartons listed at all three scenes,” he said. “No information about contents. Nobody thought to look. We’re sending local agents back to check. Could be an hour. And Julia says we should go ahead and rip the tub out. I’m going to need some engineers, I guess.”

Reacher nodded vaguely and paused, immobilized by a new line of thought.

“You should check on something else,” he said. “You should get the list of the eleven women, call the seven he hasn’t gotten to yet. You should ask them.”

Blake looked at him. “Ask them what? Hi, you still alive?”

“No, ask them if they’ve had any deliveries they weren’t expecting. Any appliances they never ordered. Because if this guy is speeding up, maybe the next one is all ready and set to go.”

Blake looked at him some more, and then he nodded and ducked back inside the Suburban and took the car phone out of its cradle.

“Get Poulton to do it,” Reacher called. “Too emotional for Lamarr.”

Blake just stared at him, but he asked for Poulton anyway. Told him what he wanted and hung up within a minute.

“Now we wait,” he said.

'SIR!” THE CORPORAL said.

The list was in the drawer, and the drawer was locked. The colonel was motionless at his desk, staring into the electric gloom of his windowless office, focusing on nothing, thinking hard, trying to recover. The best way to recover would be to talk to somebody. He knew that. A problem shared is a problem halved. That’s how it works inside a giant institution like the Army. But he couldn’t talk to anybody about this, of course. He smiled a bitter smile. Stared at the wall, and kept on thinking. Faith in yourself, that’s what would do it. He was concentrating so hard on recapturing it he must have missed the knock at the door. Afterward he figured it must have been repeated several times, and he was glad he had the list in the drawer, because when the corporal eventually came in he couldn’t have hidden it. He couldn’t have done anything. He was just motionless, and evidently he was looking blank, because right away the corporal started acting worried.

“Sir?” he said again.

He didn’t reply. Didn’t move his gaze from the wall.

“Colonel?” the corporal said.

He moved his head like it weighed a ton. Said nothing.

“Your car is here, sir,” the corporal said.

THEY WAITED AN hour and a half, crowded inside the Suburban. The evening crept toward night, and it grew very cold. Dense night dew misted the outside of the windshield and the windows. Breathing fogged the inside. Nobody talked. The world around them grew quieter. There was an occasional animal noise in the far distance, howling down at them through the thin mountain air, but there was nothing else at all.

“Hell of a place to live,” Blake muttered.

“Or to die,” Harper said.

EVENTUALLY YOU RECOVER, and then you relax. You’ve got a lot of talent. Everything was backed up, double-safe, triple-safe. You put in layer upon layer upon layer of concealment. You know how investigators work. You know they won’t find anything beyond the obvious. They won’t find where the paint came from. Or who obtained it. Or who delivered it. You know they won’t. You know how these people work. And you’re too smart for them. Way, way too smart. So you relax.

But you’re disappointed. You made a mistake. And the paint was a lot of fun. And now you probably can’t use it anymore. But maybe you can think of something even better. Because one thing is for damn sure. You can’t stop now.

THE PHONE RANG inside the Suburban. It was a loud electronic blast in the silence. Blake fumbled it out of the cradle. Reacher heard the indistinct sound of a voice talking fast. A man’s voice, not a woman’s. Poulton, not Lamarr. Blake listened hard with his eyes focused nowhere. Then he hung up and stared at the windshield.

“What?” Harper asked.

“Local guys went back and checked the appliance cartons,” Blake said. “They were all sealed up tight, like new. But they opened them anyway. Ten paint cans in each of them. Ten empty cans. Used cans, exactly like we found.”

“But the boxes were sealed?” Reacher said.

“Resealed,” Blake said. “They could tell, when they looked closely. The guy resealed the boxes, afterward.”

“Smart guy,” Harper said. “He knew a sealed carton wouldn’t attract much attention.”

Blake nodded to her. “A very smart guy. He knows how we think.”

“But not totally smart anymore,” Reacher said. “Or he wouldn’t have forgotten to reseal this one, right? His first mistake.”

“He’s batting about nine hundred,” Blake said. “That makes him smart enough for me.”

“No shipping labels anywhere?” Harper asked.

Blake shook his head. “All torn off.”

“Figures,” she said.

“Does it?” Reacher asked her. “So here, why should he remember to tear off the label but forget to reseal the box?”

“Maybe he got interrupted here,” she said.

“How? This isn’t exactly Times Square.”

“So what are you saying? You’re downgrading how smart he is? How smart he is seemed awful important to you before. You were going to use how damn smart he is to prove us all wrong.”

Reacher looked at her and nodded. “Yes, you are all wrong.” Then he turned to Blake. “We really need to talk about this guy’s motive.”

“Later,” Blake said.

“No, now. It’s important.”

“Later,” Blake said again. “You haven’t heard the really good news yet.”

“Which is what?”

“The other little matter you came up with.”

Silence inside the vehicle.

“Shit,” Reacher said. “One of the other women got a delivery, right?”

Blake shook his head.

“Wrong,” he said. “All seven of them got a delivery.”