One Shot

"I still need whatever information you have," Rodin said.

Reacher shook his head.

"No," he said. "You really don’t."

He returned his visitor pass to the woman at the reception desk and headed back to the public plaza. Stood in the cold sun and turned a complete circle, getting a sense of the place. All cities are the same, and all cities are different. They all have colors. Some are gray. This one was brown. Reacher guessed the brick was made from local clay and had carried the color of old farmland into the facades. Even the stone was flecked with tan, like it carried deposits of iron. There were accents of dark red here and there, like old barns. It was a warm place, not busy, but it was surviving. It would rebound after the tragedy. There was progress and optimism and dynamism. All the new construction proved it. There were work zones and raw concrete curbs everywhere. Lots of planning, lots of rebuilding. Lots of hope.

The new parking garage extension anchored the north end of the downtown strip. It suggested commercial expansion. It was south and slightly west of the kill zone. Very close. Directly west and maybe twice as distant was a length of the raised highway. It ran free and clear through a curve for maybe thirty yards before curling in behind the library. Then it curled some more and passed behind the black glass tower. The tower was due north of the plaza. It had an NBC sign near the door, on a black granite slab. Ann Yanni’s workplace, Reacher guessed, as well as Rodin’s daughter’s. East of the plaza was the office building with the DMV and the recruiting office. That was where the victims had come from. They had spilled out the door. What had Ann Yanni said? At the end of a long workweek? They had hustled west across the plaza toward their parked cars or the bus depot and had stumbled into a nightmare. The narrow walkway would have slowed them down and lined them up. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Reacher walked the length of the empty ornamental pool to the revolving door at the base of the tower. He went in and checked the lobby for a directory. There was a glassed-in board made of ridged black felt with press-in white letters. NBC was on the second floor. Some of the other suites were empty, and Reacher guessed the rest changed hands fast enough to make it worth holding on to the press-in letter system. Law Offices of Helen Rodin was listed on four. The letters were a little misaligned and the spacing was off. Rockefeller Center it ain’t, Reacher thought.

He waited for the elevator in a queue of two, him and a pretty blonde woman. He looked at her and she looked at him. She got out on two and he realized it was Ann Yanni. He recognized her from the broadcast. Then he figured all he needed to do was meet Emerson from the local PD and he would have brought the whole breaking-news tableau to life.

He found Helen Rodin’s suite. It was at the front of the building. Her windows were going to overlook the plaza. He knocked. Heard a muffled reply and went in. There was an empty reception room with a secretary’s desk. The desk was unoccupied. It was secondhand, but not recently used. No secretary yet, Reacher thought. Early days.

He knocked on the inner office door. Heard the same voice make a second reply. He went in and found Helen Rodin at another secondhand desk. He recognized her from her father’s photograph. But face-to-face she looked even better. She was probably no more than thirty, quite tall, lightly built. Slim, in an athletic sort of a way. Not anorexic. Either she ran or played soccer or had been very lucky with her metabolism. She had long blonde hair and her father’s blue eyes. There was intelligence behind them. She was dressed all in black, in a pantsuit with a tight stretch top under the coat. Lycra, Reacher thought. Can’t beat it.

"Hello," she said.

"I’m Jack Reacher," he said.

She stared at him. "You’re kidding. Are you really?"

He nodded. "Always have been, always will be."

"Unbelievable."

"Not really. Everybody’s somebody."

"I mean, how did you know to come? We couldn’t find you."

"I saw it on the TV. Ann Yanni, Saturday morning."

"Well, thank God for TV," she said. "And thank God you’re here."

"I was in Miami," he said. "With a dancer."

"A dancer?"

"She was Norwegian," he said.

He walked to the window and looked out. He was four stories up and the main shopping street ran away directly south, down a hill, emphasizing his elevation. The ornamental pool was placed with its long axis exactly lined up with the street. The pool was on the street, really, except they had blocked the street off to make the plaza. Someone returning from a long spell away would be surprised to find a big tank of water where once there had been roadway. The pool was much longer and narrower than it had looked from ground level. It looked sad and empty, with just a thin layer of mud and scum on the black tile. Beyond it and slightly to the right was the new parking structure. It was slightly downhill from the plaza. Maybe half a story’s difference.

"Were you here?" Reacher asked. "When it happened?"

"Yes, I was," Helen Rodin said quietly.

"Did you see it?"

"Not at first. I heard the first three gunshots. They came very fast. The first, and then a tiny pause, and then the next two. Then another pause, a little longer, but just a split second, really. I stood up in time for the last three. Horrible."

Reacher nodded. Brave girl, he thought. She hears gunshots, and she stands up. She doesn’t dive under the desk. Then he thought: The first, and then a tiny pause. That was the sound of a skilled rifleman watching where his first cold shot went. So many variables. The cold barrel, the range, the wind, the zeroing, the sighting-in.

"Did you see people die?" he asked.

"Two of them," she said behind him. "It was awful."

"Three shots and two people?"

"He missed once. Either the fourth or the fifth shot, they’re not sure. They found the bullet in the pool. That’s why it’s empty. They drained it."

Reacher said nothing.

"The bullet is part of the evidence," Helen said. "It ties the rifle to the crime."

"Did you know any of the dead people?"

"No. They were just people, I guess. In the wrong place at the wrong time."

Reacher said nothing.

"I saw flames from the gun," Helen said. "Way over there, in the shadows, in the dark. Little spits of flame."

"Muzzle flashes," Reacher said.

He turned back from the window. She held out her hand.

"I’m Helen Rodin," she said. "I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself properly."

Reacher took her hand. It was warm and firm.

"Just Helen?" he said. "Not Helena Alekseyovna or something?"

She stared at him again. "How the hell did you know that?"

"I met your dad," he said, and let go of her hand.

"Did you?" she said. "Where?"

"In his office, just now."

"You went to his office? Today?"

"I just left there."

"Why did you go to his office? You’re my witness. He shouldn’t have seen you."

"He was very keen to talk."

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing. I asked questions instead."

"What questions?"

"I wanted to know how strong his case was. Against James Barr."

"I’m representing James Barr. And you’re a defense witness. You should have been talking to me, not him."

Reacher said nothing.