Jack Frost

by Diane Capri

  Then she resettled on the bed with her laptop open and dialed Gaspar while she paged through the files he’d sent. She didn’t see anything with Reacher’s name on it.

  This intel was mostly about Fern Olson and Burke. There was another file labeled Susan Turner, which was a name she hadn’t heard before.

  Gaspar had also included a bit about the pilot. Wayne Romone. Employed by an air cargo outfit out of Rapid City. Family man.

  Her attention was dragged from the screen when Gaspar answered.

  “You’re up late,” he said with a yawn.

  “Sounds like you’re the one who’s tired.” She heard the baby fussing close by.

  Gaspar’s wife and his four daughters were no doubt abed hours ago. His son was almost six months old now, but he was a noisy baby who seemed to sleep even less than his father.

  “Did you read the files?”

  “Not yet. Can you give me the highlights?”

  “How about I just cut to the chase. There’s no mention of Reacher anywhere in Fern Olson’s life. If she dealt with him when he went through Bolton seven years ago, there’s no mention of that, either.”

  Kim cocked her head and thought about it. “Huh. I got nothin’ brilliant to add.”

  “Yeah, well, me neither,” Gaspar said. “The file labeled Susan Turner is interesting, though.”

  “Who’s Susan Turner?” Kim said, perking up.

  “No idea who she is now. But seven years ago, she was the head of the army’s 110th Investigative Unit,” Gaspar replied, obviously pleased with himself because he finally had something substantive to share. “Based at Rock Creek, Virginia. Reacher talked to her several times while he was in Bolton. She ordered up his personnel file. Held onto it for a while. Then sent it back.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Good question. She didn’t file a report.”

  Kim cocked her head and considered the options. “Can you chase down the actual conversations?”

  “You think they were recorded back then? And more importantly, that the recordings still exist?” His tone was clearly annoyed, and the fussy baby wasn’t helping his mood.

  She grinned. “This is the army, Chico. They keep everything, don’t they?”

  “Sometimes. But I’ve been looking. So far, no luck.” He paused to be sure she was paying attention. “You know who you could ask.”

  “Not in this lifetime,” she replied decisively.

  “Okay. But Cooper can probably get the recorded conversations from way back then. Hell, he probably has them already.”

  She nodded, even as she realized he couldn’t see her. “I’ll think about it.”

  “While you do that, something else interesting came up.”

  “I’m all ears,” she said with a yawn. Maybe the wine was finally doing its job.

  “I sent you the intel. It’s classified. So don’t let Cooper know you have it.”

  “Like that’s possible,” she said. “Okay. What is it?”

  He sighed and she heard little Juan crying again. “It’s always about the timing, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no paper trail that I can find putting Reacher in Bolton. Ever. But we know he was there. And we can piece together the approximate time frame.”

  “Yeah, Woody and Mitchell said it was about seven years back.”

  “Right,” he said, inhaling deeply. “No record of Reacher in town. But seven years ago, there was a big explosion near Bolton. I’m still digging, but something of intense interest to Homeland Security and the North American Air Defense Command. Bunch of other official interest, too.”

  Kim sat straight up on the bed. “Missile launch? Maybe a missile strike?”

  “The top brass everywhere denied it.”

  “Which means nothing.”

  “They found bodies, weapons. Even the burned-out remains of an airliner. Definitely some kind of underground bunker. There’s thousands of pages of documentation and reasonable conclusions drawn by reasonable people,” Gaspar said, between cooing noises intended to calm little Juan, who wasn’t having it. “Final answer? A refueling accident, they said.”

  Kim drained the last of the wine and wished for more. “Which means something happened. Something serious and explosive. Figuratively and literally.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “And Reacher was here at the time.”

  “Timing fits.”

  “Susan Turner knew all about it?”

  “Seems likely.”

  “How about Fern Olson?”

  “That’d be my guess. Yours?” he said, just as Juan started to scream like he was being attacked by wolves. “And I gotta go before the kid wakes up the whole of Miami.”

  “Okay. Thanks. What about—” she said, but Gaspar had already hung up.

  Kim glanced at the clock. It was well after one in the morning. She was still too keyed up to sleep.

  She pulled up the Susan Turner file Gaspar had sent and began to read.

  Two hours later, she’d finished digesting the files and went to bed. But she didn’t sleep. Too much on her mind.

  Always where Reacher was concerned, there were too many questions and too few answers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Saturday, May 14

  Near Bolton, South Dakota

  5:20 a.m.

  Keegan woke up when the sunrise glinting off the Land Rover shot bright rays across his face. He’d slept fitfully in the passenger seat, waking when aches and pains caused by his awkward body position were too sharp to ignore.

  He wasn’t a young man anymore. His stomach gnawed and rumbled with hunger, and his throat felt like he’d swallowed the Sahara.

  Keegan sat up and palmed his hair into place. Sleeping in cars, going without food and water, all of it was beyond his body’s limits. He couldn’t simply wait here, though. He had to move.

  Walsh was still unconscious behind the steering wheel and his breathing was irregular. He smelled like stale vomit and urine, which didn’t help Keegan’s already queasy stomach.

  He leaned across the console and punched the start button on the engine. After the engine caught, he lowered the window and turned his face toward the cool fresh air outside.

  “Walsh,” he said, hoping a few hours’ sleep might have revived him. “Walsh. Can you hear me?”

  Walsh did not respond with so much as the flick of an eyelid.

  Keegan reached to check Walsh’s carotid pulse again. His heartbeat was weak and sluggish, but it was still there.

  Walsh wasn’t dead.

  But he probably would be if Keegan couldn’t find a doctor soon.

  Newton Hills was probably two miles ahead, give or take. Finally daylight. It was as safe to move as things were likely to get.

  Keegan opened the passenger door and looked at the ground around the Land Rover. He didn’t see any snakes or smell the big grizzly nearby.

  He reached under the seat for the pistol he’d stored there. Carefully, he stepped outside, gun in hand. If he saw a rattlesnake, he’d shoot it. If anybody heard the shots and came running, he’d deal with them, too.

  He stood back, looking at the vehicle, shaking his head. “Nothing you can do about that.”

  The Land Rover’s right front wheel had rolled over a rock and off a steep incline. The tire was flat and the wheel was bent. Keegan didn’t know much about cars, but he could see the SUV wasn’t drivable.

  They had traveled about thirty yards off the road through the dense, rocky underbrush. Briefly, he considered trying to carry Walsh to the road and make an effort to flag down a passing farmer.

  “Who are you kidding, old man?” he chided himself. “Maybe when you were a young buck. You’d both collapse before you reached the pavement.”

  He glanced at Walsh again. He probably couldn’t walk anyway, even with support.

  Which meant Walsh couldn’t go anywhere, and Keegan couldn’t stay here to wait for help. He shook his
head. “How idiotic would that be?”

  The kind of help likely to come along was law enforcement personnel searching for escapees.

  They’d find themselves right back in prison. He’d come way too far to give up.

  “Now what?” Keegan said aloud as if someone might answer. No one did.

  He went back to the Land Rover and leaned inside. He pushed the button to start the engine and raised the windows.

  He glanced around. The SUV was stolen. Walsh’s ID was fake. They’d ditched the orange jumpsuits and anything else remotely connected to Bolton prison a while back.

  DNA or fingerprints or even facial recognition software might identify Walsh fairly quickly.

  “Maybe they can’t process any of that out here in the field, at least for an hour or two,” he mumbled under his breath.

  He looked around again. They were pretty much concealed by the trees and the bushes. They might be invisible from the road. Maybe even from the air.

  “If anyone comes along, they won’t find nothing tying me to Walsh right away. Nothing connecting us to the prison break,” he shook his head. “This is the best I can do. For now.”

  He tried to rouse Walsh one last time, but nothing worked.

  “I’ll be back, soon, Walsh,” he said as if the unconscious man could understand him. “Wait here. Don’t try to go anywhere. I’ll bring help.”

  If Walsh heard anything Keegan said, he gave no sign.

  Keegan backed out of the SUV and closed the passenger door. He had the pistol in one pocket and extra ammo in another pocket. He kept a close eye on the ground as he walked toward the road, avoiding rocks and vines and anything resembling a snake.

  Soon, he’d reached the county road. He looked both ways. No cars, no bicycles, no hitchhikers. Just a stretch of blacktop and the sunrise coming up in the distance.

  Keegan shoved the pistol into his waistband in the small of his back and covered it with his jacket. It had been a long time since he’d shot a pistol, but he’d been an expert back then. If he needed the weapon, he was sure he could shoot straight enough.

  He stepped into the roadway and headed toward Newton Village. He’d kept in shape while he was incarcerated. He was thirsty and hungry and he hadn’t slept all that well in the SUV, either. Which meant his pace was slower than it should have been.

  But it was still very early. He should make it to the village before too many witnesses were awake to notice where he came from.

  He’d been expecting to catch a ride into the village. So far, no passing vehicles of any kind had traveled along this stretch of road in the early dawn. Perhaps there wasn’t a roadblock ahead. Which was okay.

  But it also meant he had no choice but to put his head down and march forward. He shoved his hands into his pockets for warmth, which was awkward for walking, but at least it was slightly warmer and kept his fingers supple enough.

  He walked northward about a mile until he came to a bend in the road. He couldn’t see around the bend. He listened for oncoming traffic but heard none.

  When he came around the bend, he saw a lone farmhouse on the right at the end of a long unpaved driveway. He was still outside the village limits, which was probably why there were no other homes around.

  Smoke rose from the dilapidated chimney, which probably meant it was occupied. The abandoned look the place had made him wonder. Living this far from town, he figured they were probably self-sufficient. They’d have first aid supplies on hand.

  Keegan spent about three minutes thinking through the risks before he walked toward the driveway.

  At first, he couldn’t see any movement inside. The windows in the place were dark. The whole building would probably have been invisible from the road at night.

  But as he narrowed his eyes for better vision and peered, he noticed lights shining from the back of the house. Maybe the kitchen was back there. Maybe the owners were having breakfast and coffee. He imagined a hardscrabble old man and a scrawny woman frying eggs and drinking thick, black coffee.

  A big “No Trespassing” sign was posted in several places along the road. He wondered how serious the old man was about it.

  His stomach growled and he grinned.

  “You’re at the point where simply thinking about food makes your stomach sit up and take notice, eh?” he said, patting the pistol resting against his back to confirm it was still there.

  This far away from civilization, the farmer was likely to have a vehicle. After breakfast, Keegan could use the gun to persuade the farmer to help get Walsh to a doctor.

  Mindful of the “No Trespassing” signs and worried about making it all the way to the house without being seen, he stepped off the road before the driveway entrance. He moved into the trees before he advanced toward the house.

  He didn’t know many farmers. But the ones he’d seen in movies tended to own shotguns. And they knew how to use them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Saturday, May 14

  Near Bolton, South Dakota

  6:05 a.m.

  Fern Olson opened one eye and looked at the bedside clock. She lay quietly, listening to the old house creak. A strong, cold breeze blew under the door and washed over her bed. Dad probably went outside to collect the newspaper, leaving the back door open long enough to let the heat rush out.

  She’d tried to persuade him to read the national papers online. No luck.

  “No, thanks.” He’d cast a deep scowl toward her at the mere suggestion. “I get more national news than I care to know from the television. It’s the local news I care about. I’ve been reading the Bolton Eagle all my life.”

  Fern had shrugged and moved on. She’d given up arguing with her father years ago. He had always done exactly whatever he wanted. None of his personal habits had changed for decades.

  She snuggled further into the warmth under the duvet and closed her eyes. She hadn’t slept enough. It was Saturday. Maybe she could get another couple of hours of shuteye.

  She’d almost drifted off when a second cold gust blasted over her face like a bucket of ice water.

  Dad must have left the back door wide open. Why hadn’t he returned and closed the cold out?

  She took a deep breath and caught a whiff of bacon frying. She frowned. Did he leave the stove on?

  “Are you trying to burn the house down?” she muttered, as ill-tempered as her old man. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, as her ex-husband had always insisted.

  Fern threw off the duvet and sat up on the bed. She sucked in a sharp breath as the cold wind assaulted her entire body all at once. She quickly found her robe and her slippers and headed for the kitchen.

  Just as she reached the bedroom door, it flew open, slamming back to the wall hard enough to drive a hole in the sheetrock with the doorknob.

  Fern gasped.

  A big man stood blocking the open doorway.

  Her hands flew to cover her mouth as her eyes opened wide with fright.

  She looked up into one of the most terrifying faces she’d ever seen.

  A face she knew well. One that had invaded her nightmares for years now. Since the first time she’d met him, shackled and locked behind bulletproof plexiglass at Bolton prison.

  Even after all these years, she’d never become more at ease around the giant-sized serial killer. She didn’t expect she ever would.

  Ryan Denny.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  He looked like he’d been running through the woods all night. Which he probably had. Bolton prison was more than twenty miles south. He must have escaped with the others when the plane destroyed the exercise yard. It had taken him hours, running through the woods and the fields in the dark, to make his way here.

  Denny’s orange jumpsuit was filthy and torn in several places. His face was smeared with grime. Dried blood streaked along the side of his neck and head. His hands looked as if they’d spent the night digging and shoving and moving obstructions along the way.

 
When she’d met with him in prison, his dark eyes were always cold and piercing. Now, like the rest of him, they were wild.

  He opened his mouth to reveal a mostly toothless smile. Combined with the overpowering stench of body odor, his fetid breath almost knocked her down when he spoke.

  “Hello, Fern. I didn’t expect to find you here,” he said calmly.

  “What are you doing here, Denny?” She steadied her tone while frantically searching for a means of escape. His body blocked the doorway, the only possible exit from her room.

  “I need the keys to the truck in the barn out back. I asked the old man, but he said his daughter had them. That’s you, I assume. Hand them over.”

  Fern’s heart leapt into her throat. She managed to squeak out a question. “The old man?”

  “Found him outside, near the back door. He’d come for the newspaper, he said.”

  “Where is he now?” she asked, holding her breath between short gulps, trying not to vomit.

  Denny shrugged. “I need the keys, Fern. Give them to me.”

  Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. No words escaped, mostly because terror had clamped her vocal cords.

  Before she realized it, he’d moved two steps into the room. His arm shot straight out. He closed his big paw around her throat and lifted her off the ground like a toy.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. But you know I will, Fern.” His words were casual, even as his dark eyes narrowed and his grip tightened for emphasis.

  Fern inhaled as deeply as possible to stay alert. She’d have screamed, but his big paw blocked her windpipe. She kicked her feet and pulled at his grip with both hands.

  He never wavered.

  She felt her consciousness fading. The bedroom began to blacken around the edges of her vision.

  “Let her go!” A scream from the hallway.

  Noah. Her boy.

  Denny turned his thick neck to see behind his back. As he shifted his attention, Fern summoned the last of her strength and kicked out with both feet.

  She caught Denny with a hard kick in the groin. He barely flinched.