That didn't help him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and turned away.
“Look, we'll find her and find out what she knows. What are the chances that she's with Jan? Reachers are drawn to each other. If she found him, she could be helping him. Medicoms aren't readily available here, and we know he has one. We find her, we could find him.”
“You're fucking kidding, right? I've just been mind-raped and you want me to go and shake hands with the motherfucker that tried to kill me!”
“If they have a medicom, then they could have Darcy.”
“Fine, so we wait for Charlie and John to come back in a day or two, and we all go together.”
“And risk losing them? We can't do that. I can't do it. But if you want to stay here, I understand. It might even be safer if I go alone. They can't hurt me, after all, and, if Jan isn't there, I can find out what she got from you and maybe even take it back.”
Roxy hesitated, took a final puff, then tossed his cigarette into the gutter. “I'll come with you. If you're going to die you're gonna want company, and quite frankly I'd rather die at your side than have John Smith stringing me up by my testicles because I let you go out there alone.”
* * *
Mark's phone started vibrating in his pocket. He'd camped outside the yard all night and hadn't even realised he'd drifted off. There was movement in the lot, but he was too far away to make out who it was. He answered his phone, bleary-eyed.
“Bellamy, where are you?”
“Eh….” Mark swallowed, trying to think up a lie Adams would believe. “I'm, eh… with someone.”
“Oh. Oh, I see…. Well, I suppose you need to let your hair down every now and again. Look, the sheriff is going to take me out to where the first girl was last seen, see if we can work out where she came from and if there's a pattern. You do the rounds with Curtis' picture in town when you're done. See if any of the locals have seen him.”
“Okay,” Mark said, his eyes drawn to a familiar shape outlined against the car yard. She was coming towards him. He moved back, slipping into the shadows of the opposite building while she walked by. She was with the singer again, moving with purpose towards the centre of town.
“I'll see you back at the pub later. If you see Curtis, don't approach him. Just call me straight away.”
“Yes, sir.” Mark hung up. He had no intention of going around Blackwater looking for a lost cause. His Reacher was here, and he was going to get her.
26
They moved from business to business, flashing the picture of the mystery girl. A few of the locals had seen her, although she had managed to move through the town relatively unnoticed. Nobody knew where she had come from or where she was staying, only that she wasn't local. When she did come to town she came for supplies, spending little, and they were starting to suspect she had light fingers too.
“They're staying close by,” Rachel said as they walked. “We could scout the surrounding area, borrow a car and investigate the nearby houses.”
Roxy snorted. “Or we could go out into the middle of nowhere, dig a hole for ourselves, and lay down and die. Cut out the middleman.”
“You're not being particularly helpful.”
“Well, you're not being particularly bright,” Roxy grumbled. “We don't know that this girl is anything to do with us. And if she is, she's the enemy.”
Rachel ignored him. He didn't understand. She could feel it in her gut. This all had meaning and purpose. They were being steered towards the girl, and if God was ever going to help them, wouldn't it be to save one of his own? If they let Curtis get away, that would be it for Darcy.
She needed to do this. There was blackness in her life, blemishes on her history, and this act would save her. She needed to feel herself again. Once upon a time she was a doctor and she saved lives. That was a part of who she was, as much a part of her as being a Reacher.
She led the way, moving towards a canned-food store. “You try in there. I'm gonna try the next one along.”
The next building was a connection point. Several dusty and faulty interfaces were fixed against a ramshackle metal shed. The whole room hummed with electricity. Two women stood over one interface, the younger clumsily typing, the older arguing over spelling. Rachel glanced around, looking for someone in charge, but the place was empty. She approached the women, but neither recognised the girl.
“Hello, Rachel,” a voice said behind her. Her stomach dropped. He had been on her mind so much she considered the possibility she'd lapsed into some sort of madness. But when she turned, keeping her hands neutrally at her sides, she could see that he was really there.
“Mark.” She had no idea what to say, and, as his eyes bore into her, she felt the shame consume her again.
He was different from the man she saw in the club. There was a sharpness to his expression, a confidence to the way he was holding himself. He kept a hand in his pocket, likely holding some sort of weapon. She concentrated on him, feeling his intent to bring her to justice and little else. Once upon a time he'd loved her.
“You're a long way from home,” she said. In all the time they were together, Mark had never left S'aven. She couldn't even imagine how he had got all the way out here.
“I don't have a home anymore.” The change in him was coldness. He was hardened, bordering on cruel. Inside his body she could sense the overwhelming pain he was struggling against. It was agony: persistent, violent agony.
And it was her fault he was like this. There were so few good men in S'aven, and she had broken one of the best. She swallowed, trying to hold her nerve.
“I need you to come with me.”
She shook her head. “I'm sorry. I can't.” He couldn't make her, and he knew it.
He withdrew the small Taser he'd been hiding, but he wasn't going to use it. His hand trembled as he held it. She reached out and he backed away. He was afraid of her. He had good reason to be too.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” she said. “I would never hurt you, Mark.”
“Don't touch me.” His voice was firm even though he was on the edge of tears.
She raised her hands. “Okay, I won't touch you. I promise. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for a killer. Looks like I found one.”
She nodded. There was no point hiding it from him. “I'm sorry. You're right. I killed Gary. I killed him, and you got the blame. But I didn't know they were going to arrest you. I didn't even think they'd link him back to us. Mark, if I had thought for one minute any of that was going to happen to you….” She felt tears in her own eyes. For four years this man had been the only other person in her life. She held him at night when things were rough, patched up his wounds, counselled him, made love to him. Their relationship had been built around a lie, but their days together were as real as any other relationship could be.
“You would have what? Come back for me? You murdered my friend.”
His friend. His rapist friend. But he wouldn't see it like that, and this was not the time to persuade him what she did was necessary. Even when they were together he didn't listen to her about his corrupt, sleazy partner. There was no way he'd believe her now. “Where's the other agent?”
“What does he matter—you want him dead too?”
She sighed. This was going nowhere. “I know you're angry, but you should tell your boss that I think the man you're looking for is here.”
“He knows. That's why we came.”
This was a surprise, but then she realised Curtis must have killed again. They had followed the bodies. Rachel was certain now; the girl had to be connected to Curtis. Her gut was right. “There was a girl here. A Reacher. I think she's working with Curtis.”
“You think I'm going to trust you?”
A flash of colour coming up behind Mark caught her eye.
“You don't have to, mate,” Roxy said behind him. “The girl is here. In the store. And she's alone.”
Mark turned. He had more confidence pointing the T
aser at Roxy. Not that Roxy gave it a second glance. His attention was entirely on Rachel.
“Maybe, given our current predicament, we might want to let this bird fly.”
But she couldn't. There was a way she could make things right, not just with Darcy but with Mark too. “No. Not now. Mark, listen to me. You have every right to feel angry, and I will never be able to make up for what I did to you. But if this girl gets away, we won't find Curtis and more girls will die. Call your partner. He can help us. We can bring Curtis down together.”
He hesitated, but only for a moment. With a nod, he swapped his weapon for his phone and dialled a number.
“It's me. I'm with Rachel now. No, just the other guy. I don't know, he looks homeless.”
Roxy frowned.
“They think they have found the killer…. Okay.” He hung up and looked at Rachel. His composure had changed, and she saw something new in him. “He said to call him if we find Curtis.”
It was Rachel's turn to frown. “He doesn't want to come with us?”
“He's out of town chasing up a lead. He'll come find us when he's done.”
“Hey, she's on the move,” Roxy said. The three of them turned in time to see the small, mousy girl slip past the communication booth and down the street.
27
After Charlie had slept wedged between two burnt-out cars, on a bed of gravel and broken bottles, he didn't think he'd ever have a worse night's sleep. He was wrong. His body raged in rebellion when he woke up. The morning sun struck his eyes, and for a moment he was paralysed. He stretched his legs and tried not to cry out. The sodden sleeping bag clung to his legs, weighing his body down. He tried to shuffle out of it, and with each twist his bladder threatened to make a bad situation worse. There was movement to his left as his brother made his way back.
“Scouted a mile down the mountain, you can just about make out the camp. Looks like them,” he said, bemused by Charlie's struggle. “Need a hand?”
“No.”
“You sure? Looks like the sleeping bag might be winning.”
With an agonising heave, Charlie pushed the bag down. Using the wall behind him, he stood up, defiant and victorious. And then rushed to the right before he pissed himself.
“So we're gonna play this cautiously,” he said over his shoulder. “Sol's gonna try and provoke you, but I don't want you retaliating or getting violent. Understand?” Charlie packed himself away and gave his brother a stern look.
John said nothing, but his jaw twitched.
“I mean it, John. Say nothing and do nothing. We go in, find out what he knows about Lilly, and we leave.”
“If you think it's gonna be that simple, then sure, that's what we'll do.”
Charlie knew he was being optimistic, but if he thought about what could go wrong he wouldn't leave the mountain. “It's as simple as we want it to be. We have the money he wants. There's no need for things to get ugly.”
“If you say so.”
There was no point arguing. John would ultimately do what was required. Charlie just hoped it wouldn't get them killed. With purpose, he let his brother lead the way. He couldn't trust Sol, but if they were smart nobody had to get hurt.
* * *
Man had turned his back on God. The sons and daughters of Adam were too disobedient, too destructive. Their time was over. But all was not lost. In what seemed like eternal darkness there was now a light. God had sent his angels, his saviours. The Reachers were salvation, redemption, hope. They would change the world and make it better. For decades Sol had preached his sermons, making promises and assurances to dupe the desperate. When times were at their darkest, his followers numbered hundreds; strays, loners, families, couples, all were welcome and their donations eagerly pocketed. They followed Sol and his Reachers in a convoy of battered caravans and converted trucks to abandoned clearings, skirting the edge of civilisation. But as the brothers arrived in the camp they found it was a diminished morsel of its former self. Where once there would have been a large convoy filled with families eager to die for the old Reacher, there were now only five caravans. There were no children any more, not even Reacher children—a staple of the old community. This wasn't what Charlie had expected at all, and he approached the vans with more caution because of it.
Four women were standing by an outside cooker, smoking meat in the late-morning sun. They looked to Charlie and John, and Charlie wondered if they could make out the boy that had once sat with them. He'd been with these people what seemed like a lifetime ago. The women's faces were haggard and as leathery as the meat they were cooking, but decades ago they had been young and fertile, trying to coax him to a quiet corner in the hope they could bear a Reacher child. Would they remember? Would they recognise their depravity now he had returned, a man far stronger than their leader? He doubted it. The people here were conditioned, allowing Sol's gospel to overshadow their real fears. What did it matter that they tried to abuse Reacher children? What did it matter that they sold out their own children's innocence for sanctuary?
He stared hard at the last of Sol's women, watching as each turned away. He wanted them to be ashamed of what they had done—betraying a naive kid because their leader was afraid of him. But mostly he wanted them to be afraid. They'd made the wrong choice. They chose Sol over Charlie, and it was a decision they would regret. He'd make sure of it.
Straightening his back, he entered the circle of caravans, John slightly behind him, covering any strategic points they might be vulnerable from. Those out in the open scattered. Charlie let them go, his attention fixed on the biggest of the vehicles. With a tilt of his head he let John know the trailer was Sol's.
At their left, a man stepped from an old converted horsebox. Charlie paused, sensing him as another Reacher. It was his first twinge of doubt, but he tried to push it aside. Though the man was older than Charlie, Charlie couldn't remember him from his time with Sol. The man stared at Charlie and then let his full attention fall on John. Had Sol told them all about the infamous John Smith? Charlie could imagine them all sat together around the fire, listening to stories about the abomination. He dismissed the Reacher and continued forward. Sol would never keep a Reacher capable of threatening his own power close by, and if he was no threat to Sol, he wouldn't be a threat to Charlie. He flexed his fingers, feeling invigorated. Just like when he was with Rachel, his Reacher powers seemed stronger. This he could use to his advantage.
“Sol!” he called, letting his voice echo around the valley. He waited. The others in the camp started to gather, keeping close to their vehicles, hands subtly moving to crude weapons.
Charlie kept his focus on the main vehicle, watching as shadows moved in the open doorway. He caught sight of red hair, and then a young girl wrapped in a flimsy shawl and little else stepped out into the open. She gawped at Charlie, and for a second he gawped back—she was closer in age to Lilly than to Rachel. Was her family here, or was she alone? Before he could ask, the spot beside her was filled.
Sol pressed his hand on the girl's shoulder, his bare chest littered with self-inscribed tattoos—markings he liked to pretend were some sort of divine script. The wind whipped at his wild white hair, pushing aside the beard to expose his aging flesh. The semblance of immortality he had once carried was slipping. Could the others see yet? Charlie glanced again at the young girl. She could tell. The depleted camp, the lack of a Reacher community—these were signs of the end of Sol and his people.
Charlie threw a bag of money at the old man's sandaled feet. He could use the cash to revive his cause or to flee the shackles of this decaying cult. Charlie couldn't decide which his former mentor would take, and he didn't care.
“A donation?” Sol asked, his thick eyebrows raised in amusement.
Charlie stepped forward, feeling John match his footsteps. “Payment as negotiated. Now, where is my daughter?”
Sol pursed his lips, nodding as if the scene pleased him. “This has been a long time coming, Charlie. I almost thought
you'd given up on your daughter to pursue other ambitions. Come, have some tea with me, you can tell me how you managed to escape the Institute again.”
Charlie felt his brother tense behind him. John didn't appreciate games, and he wasn't going to stay quiet if Sol tried to drag this out. If they wanted to get out without a fight, Charlie had to stand his ground.
“Where is she, Sol?”
Sol didn't answer immediately, and the tension mounted. As depleted as his power now was, Sol still played the game as if he would win. There was no doubt in his manic eyes, no hesitation in his actions. His confidence made Charlie second-guess himself. There was more going on here, he just couldn't figure out what.
“What's the hurry? It's taken you, what, a year to get here? Or are you panicking that you've left your darling Rachel alone?”
Charlie didn't rise to the taunt. He squared his feet, feeling the myriad weapons the people around him were concealing. “Fine. John, get the money. Let's go, he doesn't know anything.”
“Don't be so melodramatic, Charlie, I was only teasing.” Sol leaned to the girl and murmured something in her ear. She disappeared into the trailer and returned moments later with an envelope. She clearly didn't want to leave the confines of the caravan a second time, but Sol insisted. Doing her best to cover her bare legs, she hurried across to Charlie, holding out the envelope as far as she could, keeping as much distance as possible between them.
Charlie took it and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He was expecting a map, plans to a secret laboratory somewhere, anything. But this was just a checkpoint record. “What's this?”
“That, Charlie, is the vehicle your daughter was transported on and the direction she was taken in.”
“That's it?” John pushed past Charlie. “That's all you had. You motherfucking piece of—”
Every Storm Breaks (Reachers Book 3) Page 15
