by Scott Blade
I said, “Janey.”
He asked, “Who?”
I said, “Your phone. Where is it?”
He said, “Pocket. Right. Pants.”
I kept the barrel of the shotgun close to his face so that the end was all he could see and I knelt down, slowly because I still had tremendous pain in my chest.
I reached into his right pant pocket and fished out a cell phone.
I said, “Passcode?”
He said, “HEATHR. Only with one ‘E.’ The first one.”
A girlfriend’s name or a wife’s name. I didn’t care.
I typed the passcode and then clicked on the messages icon.
Vaughn had never told me the names of the two dead cops.
I asked, “What’re the two dead cops’ names?”
Crocket paused for a long second. He gasped and continued to breath heavily. He was losing a lot of blood.
I repeated the question.
He said, “Trevors and Woggins.”
I searched for the names in his messages and found Trevors, fourth message down. I clicked on it and sifted through the messages. Right there on the first scroll down was a picture of Janey Saunt. It was the same as the one from the camera in Ryan Saunt’s motel room. She was gagged and tied and dirty and half naked. She was terrified, just the way I had found her.
Crocket said, “I need a hospital. Please! Take me!”
I slipped the phone into my pocket and gripped the shotgun with both hands.
I stepped closer to him and aimed the shotgun at his head.
I thought of Janey, her father, and I wondered about how many victims Crocket and his crooked cops had captured.
I shot him in the head with my last Magnum round.
Chapter 32
I HAD PUT my boots and socks and the rain poncho back on.
I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe my prints off of Crocket’s cell phone and I dropped it on the remains of his body.
I used my shirt again to wipe the flashlight of my prints and then I wiped everything that I could remember that I had touched on the way out—the backdoor knob, the Remington, the Glock, the two magazines, and even the spent casings, which I took with me, along with the Remington.
I walked back out into the side street. I had wiped the shotgun, the Glock, the magazines, and the casings and held them through the sleeve of the rain poncho. I dumped them onto the street, right in the center. The rain continued to pound down and would wipe away any forensics that I had missed.
I stayed there for a moment and let the rain shower away any residue or blood splatter that was on me as well. I even took off the rain poncho and my shirt and let nature wipe everything away.
I slipped my shirt back on, wet and all, and then the rain poncho.
I walked back down the side street. I walked up close to the cop that I had left out here. It appeared that he had tried to wiggle back to the police cruiser, but hadn’t made it.
He was dead. The damage to his face was too much. I wasn’t sure what exactly had killed him, but he was dead and I didn’t think twice about it.
I walked back to the Silverado. The whole time my chest was throbbing and I was moving slowly.
I made it back to the truck. I still had the bulletproof vest slung over my shoulder and there was the Glock that I had left on the seat of the truck. I opened up the truck and took out the Glock.
I wiped it and tossed it into the distance in the rain. The vest I stretched out on the hood so that the rain washed one side and then I flipped it and let it pour down on the other.
I tossed it into a puddle and stomped it down with my foot. It didn’t resurface.
I hopped in the truck and fired it up and drove back toward Hope.
Chapter 33
BACK IN HOPE, I stopped in one place and that was the hospital, where I knew that Vaughn and Oliver and Janey and Saunt were. I had thought about driving through. I could’ve taken Saunt’s Silverado as far as Denver and left it somewhere, or maybe even have driven north for a while before anyone noticed that it was gone, but my chest hurt so badly that I wanted to have it checked out.
Vaughn was waiting too. She was standing in the entrance to the emergency room.
She saw me walk in and didn’t wait to speak. She ran straight up to me and hugged me tight.
She said, “It’s so great!”
I flinched as she hugged me because the pain in my chest erupted into a stabbing sensation unlike anything I had ever felt.
At the same time, we both asked, “What?”
I spoke first.
I said, “I fell out there. My chest hurts. Maybe I broke a rib.”
She said, “Let’s get you checked out! Come on!”
She led the way, pulling my hand behind her.
We walked through the corridors and open doors back to the emergency room and she pushed me into an empty room that was a part of the whole emergency room. It was an area separated from the other rooms by curtains.
She sat me on a bed and said, “Wait here.”
She left and returned moments later with that ER doctor that I had seen earlier.
She said, “This guy’s with us. Check him out. His chest hurts.”
The doctor came over to me. Vaughn stayed with me and didn’t say anything else.
The doctor said, “Okay. Let me have a look.”
He reached out and felt my chest and my upper body. It hurt and I let him know.
He said, “My! It looks like you got a fractured rib. Possibly broken.”
I stayed quiet.
He said, “Let’s have a look. Pull up your shirt, please.”
Vaughn stepped back and out of the way and I lifted my shirt.
That was when I saw the two large, black bruises on the center of my chest and abdomen.
The doctor said, “My! Looks like you been shot! Only through a vest.”
Vaughn stepped forward and looked at the bruises.
I shrugged and said, “Not shot. Just clumsy.”
The doctor nodded.
Vaughn said, “Looks like you slipped to me.”
I nodded and said, “I did. After you guys left. I slipped.”
The doctor shrugged and said, “We’ll need some x-rays to be sure.”
I nodded.
Vaughn said, “Do whatever it takes. The department will pay for it.”
The doctor said, “Okay by me.”
Vaughn said, “And keep it off the books.”
I looked at her and she smiled back at me.
Chapter 34
IT TURNED OUT that one of the bullets had fractured my rib, nothing too serious according to the doctor, not for taking a bullet in the vest, but he said that it was very serious for only slipping in the rain. I had shrugged that off, but it seemed to be a running joke to the nurses. I guessed that because of my size they must’ve thought it was funny that I was so frail that a simple fall had fractured my rib.
I spent the night in the hospital. They kept me in the ER for the first hour until after they had wrapped my torso up tightly with bandages and then they moved me to a room by myself.
Vaughn had left for the night and didn’t return until the next afternoon. At least, I don’t think that she returned but I wouldn’t know for sure because I slept like a baby.
I only woke up once and that wasn’t for Vaughn. It was for something that I had thought was a myth, a tall tale, a legend. I was woken up by a good-looking nurse, about five years older than me, with blonde hair held back in a ponytail. She told me that I was to get a sponge bath because I had been out in the rain and they needed to change my bandages. So might as well give me a sponge bath really quickly.
It wasn’t anything sexual, not really, but I did enjoy it. She only sponged my chest and arms and neck and shoulders and then my back. Nothing in the lower region, which was unfortunate because she was a good-looking woman.
Afterward, she changed my bandages and I fell back asleep. I had been given some good painkil
lers, not sure what, but they made me feel better and let me sleep.
Vaughn woke me around two-thirty in the afternoon.
When I woke up, I wasn’t even sure if I had really been given a sponge bath or if I had dreamed the whole thing because of the painkillers; either would’ve been possible.
She was wearing street clothes, a pair of jeans and a red leather jacket with a white t-shirt underneath that was tight enough to be noticed, but left room for the imagination.
She said, “I’m proud of you.”
I asked, “For what?”
I was hoping that she wouldn’t mention the dead cops.
She said, “For helping us find Janey.”
I stayed quiet.
She said, “I brought you some new clothes. I already threw out your old ones.”
I asked, “Why?”
She said, “I know your family. I know that you don’t need them anymore.”
I smiled.
She said, “I think that it’s a good idea if you move on. Today.”
She paused a beat and looked up at the wall beyond me.
She said, “Oliver has some FBI agents coming in tonight. They will have lots of questions and they’ll be taking over the crime scenes.”
I nodded.
She said, “I think that it’d be best if you’re gone before then.”
I said, “Is that what you want?”
She smiled at me and said, “I’m married. Was married.”
I said, “Was?”
She said, “He died. I’d love for you to stay, but I think that there’ll be questions and if you aren’t here for them then you can’t answer them.”
I said, “Right.”
She said, “No one here knows you. You’re just a guy passing through.”
I nodded.
I asked, “What about Janey?”
Vaughn smiled and said, “That’s the good news. Janey is going to be fine. She’s endured a lot of trauma and probably sexual assault, but she’ll recover.
“Her father is the really good news. He came out of surgery. They said that the bullet had cracked his skull pretty badly, but his brain was intact. They say that he’s got a long road ahead of him as far as physical therapy, but they think that he might make a full recovery.”
I nodded, but didn’t smile.
I said, “That’s great news.”
Vaughn said, “The court will charge him with homicide, but I’d bet that he’ll have a strong defense.”
I said, “Temporary insanity is probably reasonable.”
She nodded.
She moved in close to the bed and sat on the edge. She reached out and held my hand and smiled again at me.
I asked, “What?”
She said, “I’m really glad that I met you.”
I said, “Me too.”
She said, “I hope that you find him. Reacher.”
I nodded and said, “I will.”
Vaughn hugged me tightly and then she backed away and smiled again.
She said, “Okay. Get dressed. I’ll drive you.”
I asked, “Where to?”
She said, “Someplace else.”
I nodded.
Chapter 35
VAUGHN DROVE US out past Hope and off toward the next town to the south. We drove the whole afternoon and into the early evening.
We stopped at a truck stop with a diner that wasn’t local, but rather one of those small chains. She filled up her police car with gas and I went to the bathroom.
When I came out she suggested that we grab a bite to eat. We did.
We drank coffee.
We talked and laughed. She told me some of her favorite stories about her husband from before he had been blown up in the war. She smiled a lot. She told me the story about Jack Reacher. She told me everything that she knew about him and her memories of him. She even told me about their sex together.
She told me about Despair and told me that she denied involvement after the explosion. She never mentioned Reacher, but the FBI asked about him anyway. Eventually, they had dropped it altogether. Local agents were promoted and others retired and others left the agency. The entire ordeal became old news. No one was interested after a while.
She told me about how her department had a shake up once and she was promoted to chief.
Vaughn told me about her past relationships and how some guys came and some went and a few stuck around.
I told her about my life and my search for Jack.
The day rolled by and it was time to go.
I hugged Vaughn one last time and stood out in the parking lot of a truck stop that was similar to the one that I had started in only days before. She pulled out slowly from the lot and got onto the blacktop and headed north.
I watched until she was lost to sight.
I walked back to the store and went in and bought a bottled water. I paid with cash and went back outside.
I walked to the blacktop and looked south. I stared into the distance. Cars drove by at a medium rate and then I turned back and looked north.
I looked south again and thought about right versus left. South was right and north was left. My philosophy so far had been to go left when I wasn’t sure. But this time I turned right and headed south.
RECKONING ROAD
a Jack Cameron novella
Scott Blade
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Dedication
To Reacher Creatures everywhere!
“Clay Ellison. He never killed a man who didn’t need killing.” –Jack Reacher, Echo Burning.
Chapter 1
I WAS COMPLETELY OUT OF BREATH.
I ran for almost a mile after the car had swerved and barely missed me.
I started on the shoulder, thumb out, middle of the night. Didn’t expect the car to stop for me. Didn’t expect it because no one picked up hitchhikers anymore. That had been my experience. Then again, maybe they just didn’t pick me up. Especially in the middle of nowhere. I was no kind of dream passenger anyway. Not in the middle of the night. And not on a nearly abandoned highway. Sometimes I was surprised that anyone at all dared to stop for me. Even a driver who felt exhausted after a long day and night of traversing endless highways and hooking interstates and tolls and copious bridges and now wanted some company, perhaps someone to take over the wheel and make the last leg of their trip for them. A good trade for a ride—you drive for me, and I provide you with transportation and a climate-controlled vehicle. Not a bad exchange. In fact, it was a very capitalistic enterprise, trading one thing for another. The oldest tale of American capitalism. Christopher Columbus would’ve approved.
But in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of the night. I was the last thing someone wanted to see. And so hardly anyone ever stopped for me. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Sometimes people did stop. But statistically, it seemed like no one compared to all of the cars that passed me by on a daily basis. Any given day, hundreds or maybe thousands of cars and trucks drove by me. How many stopped? Maybe one. Maybe two.
Statistics.
So when I saw the headlights of a car barreling down the deserted highway in the middle of the night, I thought maybe it would pick me up. I thought maybe it was fate. Statistically, it was a zero chance probability. I should’ve known better. But my legs ached and my feet throbbed and my shoulders stung from sleeping on the dry ground under a tree. Miles back and the night before, I’d been tired and hadn’t found a motel, not on an abandoned western interstate in Texas. So I’d laid up under a tree off of the highway, down a hi
ll, just wanting to rest my eyes for a couple of hours. I’d woken up this morning, and my shoulders hurt. Not a good way to start my day.
Moments before I leaped out of the way to avoid being plowed over at over sixty-five miles an hour by the car, I saw inside the vehicle. I couldn’t see the driver, but my first instinct was that there were two occupants. Perhaps they scrambled for the wheel in some sort of struggle like two guys who had gotten into a spontaneous argument turned violent. A friendly conversation turned bad. Or maybe they fought because the passenger was an unwilling participant on their journey. Perhaps the driver was victim to a criminal hitchhiker. Whatever the reason, I didn’t like almost being hit by a car. And maybe I should’ve let it go. But I couldn’t. Not after it had almost run me down. Not after I had walked for hours. Not after the aches and pains I’d acquired from sleeping on the hard ground.
So I watched as the car weaved from lane to lane and then dipped down over a hill and ramped up into the air at the apex. The wheels came up off of the ground a bit, and then the car swerved from shoulder to shoulder and the taillights faded away into the blackness. The car was soon lost to sight.
I didn’t think it would make it too far. Not in the reckless state it was in. Surely, there was a considerable chance it’d crash into a tree. And that’s exactly what it did.
Chapter 2
THE CAR WAS A BLACK FORD FUSION.
The vehicle year, I didn’t know. Whether it was an LS or an XL, I didn’t know. I didn’t know if it even came in an LS or XL. What I did know was that it had crashed into a thin tree about fifty yards off of the side of a broken section of Route 66. The headlights were on, bright halogen bulbs still lighting up the dead road beyond the tree. The engine coughed and sputtered. I walked for a good ten minutes and nearly a mile of highway before I reached it. More even.
I had walked a total of four hours in the dark that night. It had been that long since the last sign of civilization. I’d spent the last twelve hours walking with little human interaction. But that provided something I liked—silence.
In the cities, I had seen people walking with eyes half on their cell phone screens and half on the road ahead. I had seen the same in the small towns. The same in the midsized towns. The same on trains. The same at day, and the same at night. I had seen people driving the same way. Maybe a little less occupied with their phones, but only because the ones who were more occupied with their phones had probably lost their driving privileges. Or worse.
