by Diane Capri
Otto told Gaspar she’d meet him at the airport and left to check one last thing. She didn’t expect to find Reacher across the street at the rooftop jazz bar. But she felt compelled to try.
CHAPTER 48
Monday, February 14
6:00 p.m.
Detroit, Michigan
After the all too brief time in the warmth of Mexico, Otto flew home to Detroit. The moment she stepped outside of the airport to catch a taxi, bone-chilling cold assaulted her senses. She was still too hyped up to sleep, and she had piles of paperwork to handle. She asked the taxi to drop her off at her office.
She completed the required reports, including just the bare facts. Rex Mackenzie was dead. Rose and Jane stayed in Guadalajara. When Rose’s face healed, she’d be a beauty once more. Although the sisters would never be the same again, they were free to reinvent themselves now.
They were unlikely to return to Chicago where Big Mike Bavolsky, Noble said, had hired a contract killer to deal with them. Noble had a lead on Bavolsky’s location. If Bavolsky was apprehended things could change for Rose and Jane. But Otto didn’t think they’d change their minds about Chicago. Too many bad memories.
As Otto typed the words and they appeared on the screen, they seemed surreal. Overwhelming fatigue colored her recollection of everything that happened on the Guadalajara rooftop. She saw Rex Mackenzie go over the edge in a continuous loop in her head. Dutifully, she recorded each action leading to his death.
The Boss said they’d found a key to another storage unit in San Antonio in Scorpio’s pocket. When the locals went into the unit, they found another stash of drugs.
Noble was getting warrants for both the St. Louis and San Antonio facilities. He expected to find more contraband and figure out how to trace it all to its source. The obvious answer was an inside man at the pharmaceutical company. She expected to read about another big drug bust one day soon. Noble was a rising star at DEA, for sure.
She left out all mention of Reacher. She’d never actually seen him. She’d run over to the jazz club as quickly as she could get there, but Reacher wasn’t there.
She talked to the bartenders and a few of the patrons, who were all too drunk to recall a massively big man dressed in work clothes and heavy boots shooting a gun across the roof. If Scorpio’s first shot had hit him, no one seemed to notice. Gunshots were not uncommon in Guadalajara, they’d said.
In the end, she gave up the search and left Guadalajara after Rose promised to tell Reacher to call her.
He’d called her before, so the possibility wasn’t laughable. But she wouldn’t hold her breath until he did so again. She had plenty of questions to ask him, and the Boss would be pleased if calls from Reacher could be traced.
Truth to tell, she wasn’t altogether sure what she’d do if he called, anyway. Her feelings about Reacher had become more complicated, and she didn’t have the mental clarity to sort them out tonight.
Wearily, she put the last period in place, sent the report, and closed up her desk.
Which was when she noticed the comforting quiet in the office. She was alone in the room where she felt safest in the world, surrounded by the best security on the planet.
She remembered it was Valentine’s Day. Everyone else had already gone home to sweethearts and lovers.
On Valentine’s Day, memories of her ex-husband surfaced with less bitterness. He’d been a stellar Valentine. In the beginning. But that was long ago, and she’d had no real sweetheart to celebrate with since the divorce.
At the moment she was just fine with that. She was too tired to go out, anyway. She closed her eyes and realized just how exhausted she really was.
There were beds in the building. She could sleep here. But she wanted to get home, plop into bed, and sleep for twenty-four hours straight.
She donned her coat and gloves and headed for the elevator to the underground parking garage. She leaned her back against the elevator’s wall and closed her eyes for the short ride down.
The car stopped at the basement level with a jolt.
She stepped out of the elevator and headed toward her usual parking spot around the corner, on the back side of the elevator.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket with an incoming call. She fished it out and saw a couple of delayed text messages from the Boy Detective. Both said the same thing. “Call me. Urgent.”
Her phone vibrated again. She dismissed the two texts and checked the caller ID. A smile lifted her spirits when she saw it was John Lawton, her favorite Treasury agent.
She’d been trying to schedule a date with him for a few weeks now, but their schedules never meshed. He lived in New York City and she didn’t. That was the first problem, but not the only one.
She answered as she always did. “Otto.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Lawton replied.
Her smile widened. “And right back atcha.”
“Are you free for dinner?” he asked.
She blinked. “What?”
“Dinner. You know. Two people. Nice restaurant. Wine. Candlelight. Surely you’ve heard of it,” he teased.
“Are you here? In Detroit?” She turned her head left and right, and then twisted her body around to look behind her.
Which was when she saw a bulky man in a black overcoat. He was approaching from a parked SUV two aisles over. She didn’t recognize him, but she didn’t know everyone who worked in the building.
He was more than six feet tall and the overcoat made him appear almost square from his shoulders to his hips. Both gloved hands rested at his sides. An old-fashioned fedora covered his hair and the wide brim shadowed his face.
Lawton said, “Kim, are you still there?”
Something about the bulky man alerted her internal radar. She shivered with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.
He walked straight toward her from the shadows. The garage was badly lit by ceiling fluorescents. A few of the bulbs flickered and others were burned out.
“Yeah. Sorry, John. Let me call you right back.” She ended the call and slid the phone into her pocket.
Perhaps she was overreacting after Guadalajara, but she was only a dozen steps from a concrete support pillar broad enough to cover a petite woman. She hurried across to put the column between her and the approaching threat. She drew her weapon and prepared to shoot.
If he walked on by, no problem. She didn’t mind staying alive and feeling foolish later.
The man’s pace never faltered. He was four yards away now.
He moved directly toward the pillar.
Two yards away, he altered his path to pass on the pillar’s left side. Otto kept her weapon ready and moved to keep the concrete column between them.
When he walked past, heading toward the elevator, she released her breath.
He approached the corner at the elevator hoistway.
Almost simultaneously, the Boy Detective’s voice shouted from her right side. “Bavolsky! Stop!”
The big man whipped his head to the right, toward the voice.
He saw her.
For the first time, she spied the pistol in his hand.
His right arm raised in one long, quick, gracious arc, like a ballet dancer.
He positioned the gun without even the briefest hesitation, prepared to shoot.
Half a moment before he squeezed the trigger, Otto fanned out from her position behind the pillar, aimed, squeezed off two shots, and ducked behind the concrete once again.
She heard another shot ring out from the Boy Detective’s position.
The man’s body jerked with the near-simultaneous impact of all three bullets.
His arm fell wide.
He fired a split second too late.
His shot hit the concrete pole near her shoulder and ricocheted across the garage.
Otto aimed again, but his lifeless body had already hit the ground.
She heard running footsteps fast approaching and spun her aim toward the threat.
“Otto! Don’t shoot! It’s me! Noble!”
She held her fire and peered into the shadows. He ran beneath a working fluorescent light ten feet away and paused to let her see. She lowered her weapon to her side.
He ran up to the body and checked the big man’s neck for a pulse. She walked toward them. Noble looked up. He shook his head.
He stood and holstered his gun. “I tried to warn you.”
She nodded, still breathless.
For the first time, she got a good look at the big man.
It was a face she recognized, although she’d never seen him in person before.
Fair hair. Icy blue eyes. A nose that had been busted a few times.
The visceral reaction came first.
A surge of adrenaline flooded her body. Her heart pounded hard and fast. Her stomach churned.
Dissociation followed almost instantly as if she was floating outside her body, watching from above.
“Jack Reacher!” she cried out.
The sound of her own voice jarred her awake. She raised her head, disoriented until she recognized her surroundings. She’d fallen asleep at her desk. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, to be sure.
“Get a grip, Otto,” she said aloud, sternly. The effects of adrenalin rush weakened but persisted. “Of course, that didn’t happen. You dreamed the whole thing.”
Her heart slowed, but her gut still churned. “Your car’s not in the garage. You took a taxi here, remember?”
The disassociation settled. She was grounded in her chair once more. “Go home. Sleep. You’re exhausted.”
The experience was a message from her subconscious, she knew. But what was the message? Reacher had saved her life once. He wouldn’t try to kill her. Would he?
Shaking her head and feeling foolish now, she collected her belongings and made her way to the elevator.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She checked the caller ID. A confused smile crossed her lips when she saw it really was John Lawton this time.
“Hi, John,” she said, still a little shaky.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Lawton replied.
Her smile widened as she stepped into the elevator car and pushed the button for the lobby. “I was just dreaming about you.”
“Well, that sounds promising,” he said with pleasure in his voice. “Are you free for dinner?”
* * *
Otto and Gaspar’s Hunt for Jack Reacher continues in
JACK OF SPADES
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Have you read all of Diane Capri’s Hunt for Jack Reacher books so far? More adventures with Otto and Gaspar are coming soon! Pre-Order JACK OF SPADES so the next book shows up on your ereader as soon as it releases.
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The Hunt for Jack Reacher Series:
(in publication order with Lee Child source books in parentheses)
Don’t Know Jack • (Killing Floor)
Jack in a Box (novella)
Jack and Kill (novella)
Get Back Jack • (Bad Luck and Trouble)
Jack in the Green (novella)
Jack and Joe • (The Enemy)
Deep Cover Jack (Persuader)
Jack the Reaper • (The Hard Way)
Black Jack • (Running Blind / The Visitor)
Ten Two Jack • (The Midnight Line)
Jack of Spades
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For a complete list of Diane Capri Books visit:
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(Click each title to buy or download a sample)
The Jess Kimball Thrillers Series:
Fatal Enemy (novella)
Fatal Distraction
Fatal Demand
Fatal Error
Fatal Fall
Fatal Edge (novella)
Fatal Game
Fatal Bond
Fatal Past (novella)
Fatal Dawn
The Hunt for Justice Series:
Due Justice
Twisted Justice
Secret Justice
Wasted Justice
Raw Justice
Mistaken Justice (novella)
Cold Justice (novella)
False Justice (novella)
Fair Justice (novella)
True Justice (novella)
The Heir Hunter Series:
Blood Trails
Trace Evidence
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Diane Capri is an award-winning New York Times, USA Today, and worldwide bestselling author. She’s a recovering lawyer and snowbird who divides her time between Florida and Michigan. An active member of Mystery Writers of America, Author’s Guild, International Thriller Writers, Alliance of Independent Authors, Novelists, Inc., and Sisters in Crime, she loves to hear from readers and is hard at work on her next novel.
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FROM LEE CHILD
THE REACHER REPORT:
March 2nd, 2012
The other big news is Diane Capri—a friend of mine—wrote a book revisiting the events of KILLING FLOOR in Margrave, Georgia. She imagines an FBI team tasked to trace Reacher’s current-day whereabouts. They begin by interviewing people who knew him—starting out with Roscoe and Finlay. Check out this review: “Oh heck yes! I am in love with this book. I’m a huge Jack Reacher fan. If you don’t know Jack (pun intended!) then get thee to the bookstore/wherever you buy your fix and pick up one of the many Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. Heck, pick up all of them. In particular, read Killing Floor. Then come back and read Don’t Know Jack. This story picks up the other from the point of view of Kim and Gaspar, FBI agents assigned to build a file on Jack Reacher. The problem is, as anyone who knows Reacher can attest, he lives completely off the grid. No cell phone, no house, no car…he’s not tied down. A pretty daunting task, then, wouldn’t you say?
First lines: “Just the facts. And not many of them, either. Jack Reacher’s file was too stale and too thin to be credible. No human could be as invisible as Reacher appeared to be, whether he was currently above the ground or under it. Either the file had been sanitized, or Reacher was the most off-the-grid paranoid Kim Otto had ever heard of.” Right away, I’m sensing who Kim Otto is and I’m delighted that I know something she doesn’t. You see, I DO know Jack. And I know he’s not paranoid. Not really. I know why he lives as he does, and I know what kind of man he is. I loved having that over Kim and Gaspar. If you haven’t read any Reacher novels, then this will feel like a good, solid story in its own right. If you have…oh if you have, then you, too, will feel like you have a one-up on the FBI. It’s a fun feeling!
“Kim and Gaspar are sent to Margrave by a mysterious boss who reminds me of Charlie, in Charlie’s Angels. You never see him…you hear him. He never gives them all the facts. So they are left with a big pile of nothing. They end up embroiled in a murder case that seems connected to Reacher somehow, but they can’t see how. Suffice to say the efforts to find the murderer and Reacher, and not lose their own heads in the process, makes for an entertaining read.
“I love the way the author handled the entire story. The pacing is dead on (ok another pun intended), the story is full of twists and turns like a Reacher novel would be, but it’s another viewpoint of a Reacher story. It’s an outside-in approach to Reacher.
“You might be asking, do they find him? Do they finally meet the infamous Jack Reacher?
“Go…read…now…find out!”
Sounds great, right? You can get i
t HERE. Check out “Don’t Know Jack,” and let me know what you think.
So that’s it for now…again, thanks for reading THE AFFAIR, and I hope you’ll like A WANTED MAN just as much in September.
Lee Child
