by Diane Capri
Like her mother insisted, when there’s only one choice, it’s the right choice.
With exaggerated patience, Kim recapped what Gaspar seemed to be ignoring. “Reacher’s old unit had nine members, counting Reacher. We’ve spent two days trying to track them down. We were only able to locate three. We’re set to meet the first two of those this afternoon. You were supposed to come up with a can’t-miss approach for today’s two. What are we going to say?”
Gaspar’s tone was clipped, as if he were reciting the phone book. “We’re doing a routine background check on Jack Reacher for the FBI Special Personnel Task Force, updating his personnel file since he left the Army. We want to know, soup to nuts, what they can contribute to our almost non-existent data.”
“Just like that?”
“Why not? The guy’s a licensed P.I. and the woman’s a forensic accountant. Both ex-Army police. They’ll get it.”
Kim drained the coffee cup and refilled. She felt taut as a drawn bowstring.
“He didn’t call you?” she asked.
“Sure, he called,” Gaspar told the view out the window. “He warned me about Reacher coming our way. He sent the report. I’ve read it. Nothing worth getting our panties in a wad over. Let’s not get off course again just because he’s yanking our chains, okay? We tried that last week and it nearly got us killed.”
Now that they had at least an understandable plan, Kim wanted to stay on track, too. Despite running into dead ends everywhere they turned, they’d managed to uncover bits of Reacher’s Army file that the Boss had refused to supply. They’d already tracked down two of Reacher’s prior commanding officers. Both generals now, and both tight-lipped. Deliberately unhelpful, beyond suggesting they interview members of the elite special investigative unit Reacher had recruited and trained. For two years, the team had been inseparable, a force to be reckoned with, never messed with. If Reacher had kept in touch with anyone, the two generals said, it would be the eight other members of that unit.
Given what she knew about Reacher so far, Kim had her doubts. But a group of people once that tight could be a gold mine of information. Maybe. Besides, neither she nor Gaspar had identified any viable alternatives.
So, after unencrypting the Boss’s early morning e-mail, they had even fewer.
She asked, “I wouldn’t feel too optimistic about my life span if I were in Reacher’s old unit, would you?”
Gaspar shrugged again, distracted, still gazing out the window—or at his reflection. “Special investigative units are manned by soldiers with a death wish, Sunshine,” he said. “Volunteers for extremely hazardous duty. Natural risk-takers. Adrenaline junkies. They continue risking life and limb after discharge, too. Predictably, they don’t live long.”
She nodded. “True. But, Reacher’s team never lost a member while they were handling the Army’s extremely hazardous duty. They leave the service, and now four of the eight are dead, another is presumed dead, not one has died of natural causes, and their leader can’t be found.”
Gaspar shrugged. “The first one died in a car wreck. Car crashes kill plenty of Americans every year.”
As if he’d said one member of Reacher’s unit had died on a trip to Mars, she asked, “You believe that was an accident?”
At long last, he turned to her. “You don’t, I suppose,” he sighed.
“Let’s say you’re right. One car wreck. What about the others? Five years ago, one member of the unit disappeared and three more members died. All within days of each other. All three of the known dead tortured, their legs broken to immobilize them. And then each one dropped, still alive, from a helicopter miles above the desert floor. That is not normal risk-taking, adrenaline-junkie death-defiance, Chico. No way.”
The data they’d uncovered on Reacher’s army days had, as usual, revealed too little. He had never been popular with his peers. As a military policeman, Reacher was in trouble often and he’d made enemies.
But he’d been discharged fifteen long years ago and a lot of those enemies were dead or not interested in Reacher anymore. Unlikely Reacher would hide from anyone out to hurt him, anyway, based on the little Kim knew of the man. He was more of a confront-me-if-you-dare type.
So why was he living so far off the grid not even a sniffing bloodhound could find him? There had to be a reason, and the one she’d reluctantly reached was as good a working hypothesis as any.
Gaspar shrugged, wagged his head back and forth. “It bothers me that I’m starting to understand you. You’re actually thinking Reacher killed four members of his own unit? Oh, and maybe five while we’re at it, counting Jorge Sanchez, who hasn’t been found yet.” His tone conveyed precisely how preposterous he thought her suspicion was. “The Boss sure as hell didn’t tell me that. Can you prove it?”
She said nothing.
“That’s what I figured, Susie Wong.” He grinned. “And what about the remaining three? It’s inconvenient for your theory that psycho-killer Reacher didn’t off them, too, isn’t it?”
She replied, “We haven’t actually laid eyes on them yet, have we?”
Kim wasn’t joking. She’d believe they still walked the earth when she actually saw and spoke to them. All she could say for sure at this point was that she hadn’t located death certificates for them. Where Reacher was concerned, the absence of records proved nothing.
Dave O’Donnell was first on today’s interview list because he was located right in Washington DC. The other two, Karla Dixon and Frances Neagley, resided in New York and Chicago, respectively. Kim and Gaspar would be visiting Dixon as soon as they finished with O’Donnell, then back here tonight and head to Chicago for Neagley in the morning.
Gaspar turned from his window-gazing. “Don’t worry so much. Mucking around with 15-year-old contacts will probably be another waste of time. But I get it. Interrogating the last three unit members is the only plan we’ve got. Let’s just waste our time with O’Donnell and then we can move on wasting it with the last two. Have I mentioned lately how much I love this job?”
Kim didn’t expect to get much help out of O’Donnell or the others in tracking Reacher down, either, but she didn’t have any other ideas. They’d finish the interviews in forty-eight hours or less. At that point, she’d demand that the Boss give her the resources they needed to accomplish the job or relieve her of the Reacher assignment. She had better things to do with her time and Gaspar was practically desperate to get back to Miami. This was bullshit.
She glanced at her Seiko. 9:43 a.m. They’d booked a 3:30 flight out of National to New York City to interview Dixon. That gave them plenty of time to interview O’Donnell and get to the airport. She grabbed her overcoat and headed toward the door. “Come on, Cheech. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Yes, Ma’am, Boss Dragon Lady,” Gaspar said. His tone was light, but Kim noticed his limp was more pronounced this morning, which too often meant he hadn’t slept enough.
She was worried, even if Gaspar wasn’t. She didn’t for a moment believe the Boss had called this morning to warn her about provoking Reacher because he was concerned for their safety. Whatever the Boss was up to, her experience proved she’d need to keep her wits about her to deal with it. And she’d need a full-bodied partner, too.
She reached into her pocket for another antacid and held it in her mouth as the elevator dropped forty floors in twenty seconds.
CHAPTER THREE
Thursday, November 11
10:30 a.m.
Washington, DC
A small, square sign on the wall to the left of the doorknob proclaimed, “David O’Donnell, Discreet Inquiries by appointment only.”
Everything seemed quiet enough.
Gaspar turned the knob, pushed O’Donnell’s office door open and entered the interior lobby with Kim three steps behind.
A middle-aged woman, maybe about seventy, give or take a decade, was seated behind the reception desk. She glanced up from her computer screen and peered over the bright, orange
-framed readers perched on her nose. The readers magnified her flawless complexion. Her eyes rounded and she hesitated a moment too long, shooting a quick whiff of discomfort through Kim.
The woman cleared her throat. In a voice that seemed to croak from disuse or maybe nerves, she said, “May I help you?”
Kim nodded. “We’d like to see Mr. O’Donnell, please.”
“Do you, uh, have an appointment?” Her left hand trembled as she reached to the side of her desk, maybe feeling for a calendar that wasn’t there.
“No,” Gaspar said.
“I’m afraid Mr. O’Donnell isn’t available.” The more she talked, the more Southern her accent became.
“No problem. We’ll wait,” Gaspar said, settling himself into the closest chair and adopting his usual waiting posture. Legs outstretched, crossed at the ankles, hands clasped over his flat stomach, eyelids sinking, if not yet closed. He wasn’t sleeping, but if he sat there more than five minutes, he would be.
The secretary cleared her throat again. “He, uh . . . .”
“I’m sorry,” Gaspar said, glancing lazily around her desk, as if he were looking for a nameplate or a business card. “I didn’t catch your name. Mrs. . . . ?”
Curiously, she didn’t fill in the blank. Maybe she’d noticed they hadn’t offered their names, either. Instead, she replied, “If you could just leave your contact information, that would probably be best.”
Gaspar said, “Glad to wait. Go ahead with your work, Mrs. Droptini.” His eyes settled closed.
Startled that Gaspar had somehow discovered her name, she said automatically, “Mrs. Droptini is my mother-in-law.”
Gaspar grinned. “You prefer Myra Dale, then?”
Myra Dale shifted uncomfortably in her chair and turned her attention to Kim, who smiled blandly as if she, too, was content to wait for O’Donnell’s appearance.
Kim glanced around the small lobby, ignoring Myra Dale Droptini even as she could feel the woman watching her.
Something was not right with the woman. Or the situation. Kim’s discomfort level rose as the Boss’s early morning warning about Reacher resurfaced. But at the moment, she saw very little out of the ordinary.
What did she need to learn here? She didn’t know. Her entire assignment had been contained in a single thin file. Too thin. O’Donnell could fix that. He’d known Reacher reasonably well back in the day. O’Donnell could add some color, if nothing else, to her black-and-white knowledge.
But would he? After the first few questions she’d prepared for him, she’d follow wherever the interview led. She expected to have plenty of time and to exhaust everything O’Donnell knew, even if he didn’t realize he knew it.
Was it possible that Myra Dale Droptini knew anything useful about Reacher? She seemed like a woman who would know what was going on in her boss’s business. Kim made a mental note to ask Myra Dale after she questioned O’Donnell.
O’Donnell’s private office down the interior hall was likely more spacious than the lobby, which was little more than an anteroom outfitted with two sets of armless chrome and black leather chairs separated by 12-inch glass-topped pedestal tables. There might be a small conference room, maybe another smallish space somewhere for a coffee pot. She sniffed. No coffee aroma floating around. Too bad.
Kim had no access to banking records so she didn’t know how successful O’Donnell’s business actually was, but he seemed to be doing all right.
The office suite was large enough for a solo private investigator in the nation’s capital. Class A space was notoriously pricey in DC; she didn’t hold it against him that his lobby was compact by her Detroit standards. One high-end piece of artwork hung on each narrow white wall, furniture was minimalist but expensive, and the carpet had been upgraded.
In her prior life, had she been auditing O’Donnell’s financial records, she’d have approved of his choices in quality and quantity. Good enough to inspire confidence; not so showy as to invite distrust. Precisely the correct mix for his probable clientele.
Current issues of political magazines rested on the tabletops along with small dishes of individually wrapped hard candy. Kim snagged a couple, unwrapped one, and popped it in her mouth, puckering up when the sour apple flavor hit her salivary glands.
O’Donnell wasn’t hiding from anyone. His current private investigator’s license was discreetly displayed near the door. According to official databases, O’Donnell had first obtained the license immediately after his Army discharge and had maintained it consistently since. His number was listed.
He also had a concealed weapons permit and several registered firearms, according to public records.
If he had a wife and kids, or even an ex-wife or step-kids, that information was missing from the files she’d located. Nothing about the immediate décor suggested O’Donnell was tethered to anyone in particular, but Kim noticed more framed objects on the walls of the corridor leading deeper into the suite. Family snaps?
When she wandered toward them, Myra Dale stiffened in her chair and made a small, choked sound. What was wrong with that woman? Kim kept walking and Myra Dale did nothing to stop her.
The most interesting photo was at least fifteen years old. A group of nine soldiers, two women and seven men, taken while they were on active duty. All nine looked different from their Army personnel file headshots, but they were recognizable. The giant in the middle was unmistakably Reacher. The rest were the eight members of his special investigative unit, including the ones who were now dead or missing, as well as O’Donnell, Dixon, and Neagley.
The other frames held flashy photo ops of O’Donnell with various politicians and prominent celebrities, suggesting he was well connected, too. Yes, O’Donnell was doing okay after leaving the big green machine.
Reacher might be doing okay, too, she realized. It was a new idea where Reacher was concerned. Maybe Reacher had enough money to buy his privacy. Could that be true? It was as likely an explanation for his success at disappearing as any other she’d considered.
In some ways, a wealthy Reacher made more sense.
She’d traversed the interior hallway almost to the last door on the right, which was cracked open. O’Donnell might be there, might’ve just instructed his secretary to say he was out. She and Gaspar could get this interview over with and head to Dixon in New York. Otherwise, they could flip the interviews: go to Dixon now, come back for O’Donnell tomorrow morning.
She’d taken another step toward the doorway when she heard Myra Dale’s voice behind her.
“Please,” she said, a bit more loudly. “Please don’t go in there. The officer said she’d be right back.”
The officer?
Kim didn’t look back, and didn’t stop. She counted on Gaspar to deal with Myra Dale Droptini. He said something and Myra Dale answered, but Kim paid no attention.
Just as she pressed against the door, she noticed the yellow crime scene tape that had fallen onto the carpet and been kicked aside. What the hell?
When the door swung open, she confirmed enough space to enter O’Donnell’s personal office and stared at the cold, dried, bloody mess blanketing the room.
The next few minutes passed with glacial speed.
Kim’s experience said the scene was at least five days old. Maybe more. It fell into the familiar gap between before and long after murder. Which explained why the office felt not quite abandoned and not yet restored to whatever it would become. Probably helped explain Myra Dale’s odd behavior, too. Trapped out front in a workspace that seemed normal while incessantly aware that horror reposed down the hall.
Had Myra Dale been the one who discovered the body? Or had she been here when he’d been killed? Either way, Kim understood Myra Dale’s nervousness now and felt sorry for her. Some people recovered from such experiences, but many did not. Myra Dale seemed less resilient than she needed to be.
Kim’s experience supplied the warm, acrid scent of blood and bone and grey matter and guns attacking her nos
trils as it had at fresher crime scenes. She imagined slimy specks clinging to her face and clothes. Even as her skin crawled, she felt separated from the atmosphere inside the room by the time gap between murder and what cold evidence remained.
Out of habit, her mind reconstructed the killing. The victim was most likely Dave O’Donnell. The blast had propelled pieces from the front of his head around the room, and blood had continued to flow from his head wound afterward as his heart kept pumping. Judging from the amount of dried blood covering his desk, around the outline of his fallen upper body and beyond, O’Donnell’s heart had been strong. Crime techs must have worked here for hours collecting evidence amid the gory mess.
Gaspar approached, glanced around the room, and then his gaze met Kim’s. “Droptini says she’s been closing out the confidential files this morning. An officer has been watching her to be sure she didn’t destroy evidence. Officer stepped out to get coffee. Expected back any second.”
“I’ll hurry,” Kim replied, grabbed her smartphone, glanced at her watch, and videotaped the scene, dictating just-the-facts into her official report.
“Thursday, November 11, 10:58 a.m. FBI Special Agents Kim Otto and Carlos Gaspar on the scene of what appears to have been a murder committed several days ago.”
Kim allowed the video to record the room’s contents. She left no time gaps that might provoke questions later. She panned the desk where the blood evidence suggested the body was found and thought hard about the audio report, what to leave in, what to leave out, before she spoke again.
“The victim appears to have been seated at the desk at the time of death and based on the estimated amount of blood loss and outline of the body’s position was probably male. Evidence of a single bullet removed from the wall directly in front of the desk chair suggests one shot in the head, back to front, at close range. Death was likely near instantaneous, although the gunshot was followed by a continuing heartbeat for several seconds.”
