The Hard Way

Might be.

Pauling said, "Jade packed?"

"Kate packed, too," Reacher said.

"What did Kate pack?"

"Just one thing. But her most precious thing. Her best memory. The photograph with her daughter. From the bedroom. One of the most beautiful photographs I’ve ever seen."

Pauling paused a beat.

"But you saw it," she said. "She didn’t take it."

Reacher shook his head. "I saw a photocopy. From Staples, color digital, laser, two bucks a sheet. Brought home and slipped into the frame. It was very good, but not quite good enough. A little vivid in the colors, a little plastic in the contours."

"But who packs for a kidnap? I mean, who the hell gets the chance?"

"They weren’t kidnapped," Reacher said. "That’s the thing. They were rescued. They were liberated. They were set free. They’re alive somewhere. Alive and well and happy. A little tense, maybe. But free as birds."

They drove on, slow and steady, through the northern reaches of London, through Finchley and Swiss Cottage, toward Hendon.

"Kate believed Dee Marie," Reacher said. "That’s what happened. Out there in the Hamptons. Dee Marie told her about Anne, and warned her, and Kate believed her. Like Patti Joseph said, there was something about the story and something about her husband that made Kate believe. Maybe she was already feeling the same kind of things that Anne had felt five years before. Maybe she was already planning to go down the same road."

Pauling said, "You know what this means?"

"Of course I do."

"Taylor helped them."

"Of course he did."

"He rescued them, and he hid them, and he sheltered them, and he risked his life for them. He’s the good guy, not the bad guy."

Reacher nodded. "And I just told Lane where he is."

They made it through Hendon and negotiated their last London traffic circle and joined the M-1 motorway at its southern tip. Reacher hit the gas and forced the little Mini up to ninety-five miles an hour.

Pauling said, "What about the money?"

"Alimony," Reacher said. "It was the only way Kate was ever going to get any. We thought it was half of the Burkina Faso payment, and it was, but in Kate’s eyes it was also half of their community property. Half of Lane’s capital. She was entitled to it. She probably put money in, way back. That’s what Lane seems to want his wives for. Apart from their trophy status."

"Hell of a plan," Pauling said.

"They probably thought it was the only way. And they were probably right."

"But they made mistakes."

"They sure did. If you really want to disappear, you take nothing with you. Absolutely nothing at all. It’s fatal."

"Who helped Taylor?"

"Nobody."

"He had an American partner. On the phone."

"That was Kate herself. You were half-right, days ago. It was a woman using that machine. But not Dee Marie. It was Kate herself. It must have been. They were a team. They collaborated. She did all the talking, because Taylor couldn’t. Not easy for her. Every time Lane wanted to hear her voice for a proof of life she had to pull the machine off the mouthpiece and then put it back on again."

"Did you really tell Lane where Taylor is?"

"As good as. I didn’t say Bishops Pargeter. I stopped myself just in time. I said Fenchurch Saint Mary instead. But that’s close. And I had already said Norfolk. I had already said thirty miles from Norwich. And I had already said Grange Farm. He’ll be able to work it out. Two minutes, with the right map."

"He’s way behind us."

"At least two hours."

Pauling was quiet for a second.

Reacher said, "What?"

"He’s two hours behind us right now. But he won’t always be. We’re taking the long way around because we don’t know the English roads."

"Neither does he."

"But Gregory does."

Reacher drove seven exits on the M-1, acutely aware that the road was taking him west of north, not east of north. Then he drove six clockwise exits on the M-25 beltway before finding the M-11. All completely dead time. If Gregory drove Lane straight through the center of London directly to the southern tip of the M-11 he would cut the two-hour deficit by an exactly corresponding amount.

Pauling said, "We should stop and call ahead. You know the number."

"That’s a big gamble," Reacher said. "At highway speeds it costs time to slow down, turn off, park, find a phone that works, call, and get back on the road. A lot of time, at British speeds. And suppose there’s no answer? Suppose they’re still out there hoeing the weeds? We’d end up doing it again and again."

"We have to try to warn them. There’s the sister to think about. And Melody."

"Susan and Melody are perfectly safe."

"How can you say that?"

"Ask yourself where Kate and Jade are."

"I have no idea where they are."

"You do," Reacher said. "You know exactly where they are. You saw them this morning."

Chapter 64

THEY TURNED OFF the highway at Newmarket and set out cross-country toward Norwich. This time the road was familiar, but that didn’t make it any faster. Forward motion, without any visible result. A big sky, whipped clean by wind.

"Think about the dynamic here," Reacher said. "Why would Kate ask Taylor for help? How could she ask any of them for help? They’re all insanely loyal to Lane. Did Knight help Anne? Kate had just heard that story. Why would she walk up cold to another of Lane’s killers and say, hey, want to help me get out of here? Want to double-cross your boss? Help me steal his money?"

Pauling said, "They already had a thing going."

Reacher nodded at the wheel. "That’s the only way to explain it. They had already started an affair. Maybe long ago."

"The CO’s wife? Hobart said no fighting man would do that."

"He said no American fighting man would do that. Maybe the British SAS does things differently. And there were signs. Carter Groom is about as emotional as a fence post but he said that Kate liked Taylor and that Taylor got on well with the kid."

"Dee Marie showing up must have acted like a kind of tipping point."

Reacher nodded again. "Kate and Taylor made a plan and put it in action. But first they explained it to Jade. Maybe they thought it would be too much of a sudden trauma not to. They swore her to secrecy, as much as they could with an eight-year-old. And the kid did pretty well."

"What did they tell her?"

"That she already had one replacement daddy, now she was getting another. That she already lived in one new place, now she was moving on."

"Big secret for a kid to keep."

"She didn’t exactly keep it," Reacher said. "She was worried about it. She straightened it out in her head by drawing it. Maybe it was an old habit. Maybe mothers always say, draw a picture of something you’re going to see."

"What picture?"

"There were four in her room. On her desk. Kate didn’t sanitize well enough. Or maybe she just mistook them for regular clutter. There was a big gray building with trees in front. At first I thought it was the Dakota from Central Park. Now I think it was the Grange Farm farmhouse. They must have shown her photographs, to prepare her. She got the trees just right. Thin straight trunks, round crowns. To withstand the wind. Like light green lollipops on brown sticks. And then there was a picture of a family group. I thought the guy was Lane, obviously. But there was something weird about his mouth. Like half his teeth had been punched out. So it wasn’t Lane. It was Taylor, clearly. The dentistry. Jade was probably fascinated by it. She drew her new family. Taylor, Kate, and her. To internalize the idea."