wasted time. She
“So who was the guy on the tape?” Kim asked.
“You tell me.”
“I would if I could,” Kim said. Then she heard Gaspar coming down the stairs.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Gaspar dropped his bags on the hallway floor and stepped into the room fully dressed, wide awake, and ready to go. “Our flight leaves Atlanta in ninety-five minutes. We’ve got to run. What’s the best route outta here, chief?”
Roscoe said, “You can’t leave. GHP wants to talk to you.”
“They can send me an e-mail. Or kiss my ass. My badge is shinier than theirs.” He moved into the kitchen, located the coffee pot, loaded grounds and water. He pulled out mugs and rooted around for sugar and milk as if he was competing for speed records. Way too much energy. Kim closed her eyes.
“Hey there, Sunshine,” he called. “You might want to put some clothes on. It’s a little chilly out there for pajamas.”
When she didn’t move, he said, “Get in the shower. Wake up. I’ll pop a coffee in for you when it’s finished. Come on. Shake and bake. Hubba hubba. Got to move it.” Talking a mile a minute. Maybe he had located more amphetamines.
He said, “Before we leave, Chief Roscoe, I need you to answer a couple of questions about bringing down the Kliner Foundation. I read the transcripts. Several times. Couple open issues in my head.”
“Such as?”
“Your testimony covered the highlights. I need to know the things you left out. Reacher was the heavy lifter, but how, exactly, did he do it? Forewarned and forearmed and all that. And tell me what happened after. Especially after old man Teale died. The mayor now is what? His kid?”
Kim believed in preparation. It had saved her life more than once. She tried to concentrate.
Roscoe said, “We answered everything relevant back then. Testimony took weeks. Every state and federal agency you can imagine got involved, and even a couple of foreign governments.”
Kim didn’t believe she'd answered everything; Gaspar wouldn’t either.
“And afterward?” Gaspar asked.
“Nothing afterward. By the time the whole mess was sorted out, Reacher was long gone. I ran for mayor and lost to Junior Teale. He never forgave me. We all went back to the way we’d lived before.” She shrugged. “The human condition, I guess. Hard to break the bonds of inertia.”
“Not everybody went back, obviously,” Gaspar said. “Otherwise, Harry Black couldn’t have accumulated those Kliners.”
The coffee was done. He poured a big mug of strong black energy sufficient to run a small train and carried it across the room. Waved it under Kim’s nose like smelling salts. She reached up; he pulled away like pulling a puppet string.
Enticed to her feet, he rewarded her with the mug, pointed her toward the guest bath and lightly shoved between her shoulder blades. “Get going. You don’t want me to come in there with you, but I will if that’s what it takes.”
She wrinkled her nose at him and moved slowly out of reach. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Batista. Just try it. See what happens.”
He grinned, nodded. “That’s the spirit. I’m leaving in fifteen minutes. If you’re not ready, I’ll come in there and get you.”
“You and what army?”
As if she’d dashed away at his request, he simply picked up with Roscoe where he’d left off while he mixed coffee for himself “Lotta cops killed during the Kliner fiasco, too. Nobody prosecuted. No way to make that happen unless deals were made, even if Reacher was long gone.”
Roscoe said, “Above my pay grade.”
Gaspar let it go. “Was Harry working with Margrave PD during the Kliner days? Could he have been on the inside, gotten hold of the fakes back then?”
Roscoe said, “He was a cadet over in Calhoon county.”
“But?” Kim called from the hallway.
Roscoe’s thoughts seemed years away. “Reacher said at the time, the only safe thing is to assume everybody is involved.”
Gaspar had said almost the same words to Kim a few hours ago. About Roscoe. And Finlay. And the boss, too. She suddenly understood she had a secret weapon. Which was Gaspar.
Instantly Kim knew why she’d been chosen. And understood how she would win.
Simple yet profoundly easy:
Kim turned to face the kitchen.
Gaspar had poured a mound of sugar and a river of milk into his mug, then added a dash of coffee, took a swig, smacked his lips, carried his mug over and settled into the seat Kim had just vacated.
Roscoe said, “I thought I knew Harry and Sylvia. Clearly, I didn’t. I went to school with Harry. Sylvia worked for me. I’d have sworn they were both as honest as the day is long.”
Kim was still in the hallway.
Gaspar looked up and said, “Ten minutes. And I’m not kidding.”
“All right, already, I’m going.” From inside the guest bathroom, she couldn’t hear the remainder of their conversation.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
A huge harvest moon showed Kim the buildings growing smaller in the side mirror along the county road through Margrave, the post office, the police station, and finally Eno’s diner. She watched them slide behind her without regret.
Roscoe had advised them to travel through the peanut farms, to stay away from the highway cloverleaf, which would still be lousy with government agents from many different jurisdictions. The advice suited Kim just fine.
Gaspar turned west on a wandering road that led toward some place called Warburton. It took them through miles of arable land. They passed bumpy side tracks that looped around and led back to the road again, suitable for dropping farm equipment and workers. Otherwise, nothing but uninterrupted middle-of-nowhere.
Then seven or eight miles from town, on the right, Gaspar pointed out a stand of trees. A little oval copse. The
