Page 48 of In Too Deep

“You hit him with that?”

Reacher nodded.

“Is he…?”

“Dead? No. He can still stand trial.”

Knight shrugged and scooped up Kane’s phone. She leaned over to hold it near his face and when it unlocked she straightened up andopened his messages. She searched through his conversations for a moment then selected the one she wanted. It was between Kane and four other numbers. No names were attached. Knight scrolled back through the last few days’ worth to get a sense of Kane’s style and vocabulary, then she typed:911. Return to base, stat. Confirm receipt then radio silence, 48 hours. Full compensation to follow regardless of abort.

She hit Send, then waited. The first reply came in after thirty seconds. It was a cartoon thumbs-up. A second came a moment later. It showed a round, cartoon face with a hand at its temple like it was saluting. Reacher found it in poor taste.

Knight said, “Good. That rules out unwelcome guests.” She dropped Kane’s phone onto his chest. “Now, where’s Vidic?”

Reacher said, “Upstairs. But his phone is here.” He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to Knight.

She said, “That’s some spooky kind of ESP.”

“Not really. He was the nearest when I needed a way to call you.”

—

Reacher showed Knightwhich room Vidic was in so that she could use his face to unlock his phone. She called up his messages, then shook her head. She tried his call log. His contacts. And she shook her head again.

She said, “He’s a sneaky asshole, this guy. He deletes everything. His phone’s like it’s never been used. But don’t worry. I have a couple of other tricks up my sleeve.” She called up a menu and spent a moment sliding her finger up and down the screen, then shook her head for a third time. “Damn. There’s a way to see the places a person’s been, if you know where to look. Not many people do. He does, apparently. And he knows how to disable that feature. OK. Let’s try one other thing.” She swiped and prodded at the screen for anothermoment, then a smile broke out on her face. “Look at this.” She held the phone out for Reacher to see. The screen was filled by a map with a dot on it, like the one she’d used to track Kane’s guys earlier.

Reacher said, “He has a phone tag thing in her car?”

Knight smiled. “Don’t be an idiot. They’re sharing their locations. They haven’t been doing it long.”

“That’s a thing?”

“Of course. Lots of people do it. Couples. Relatives. Co-workers. Creepy stalkers in abusive relationships.”

Reacher took another look at the screen. “That dot is Paris?”

Knight nodded. “Her phone, anyway. It’s not like she has a chip implanted in her.”

“How do you know?”

“Implanting chips? That’s not a thing. Not yet, anyway.”

“How do you know it’s Paris’s phone? We don’t have any messages or call logs to compare the number with.”

Knight didn’t reply right away. The smile faded from her face. “I mean, they’re a man. A woman. They’re absconding together. Who else could it be?”

Reacher said nothing.

“You got a better way to track her down?”

“No. I’m coming up empty. So let’s give this a try. The location’s not far away. It won’t take long to get there. And if we find someone else, not Paris, maybe they’ll be connected somehow. They might know where she is.”

—

Reacher was firstdown the stairs and by the time he was halfway along the hall he realized Knight was hanging back. He said, “You coming?”

Knight crossed her arms. She said, “I think it’s better you go alone.I’ll stay here. Handle things if the agents get here before you’re back. Or the police. Or Kane’s guys, if they see through my message standing them down.”

“You sure?”

---