Page 22 of In Too Deep

“Come here. Now.”

Mary crept around the end of the counter. Her arms were rigid by her sides and her legs were straight and stiff.

“Who did you call?”

Mary’s eyes widened. “How did you find out?”

“Who?”

“I don’t have a name. Just a number. For the man who rents the three rooms. For the girls who…you know what they do in there. Listen, I’m sorry. I had to call. I need money for…you can probably guess. And he said if I go against him he’ll put me in one of those rooms. And I figured, with your questions, you must be some kind of rival. A newcomer looking to muscle in.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Here’s what you’re going to do to fix it. Look out of the window. When I’m gone, call that number again. Tell whoever answers what happened to the guy he sent. Tell him that if he sends anyone else, the same thing will happen to them. Then, when I have a spare five minutes, I’ll come for him. And he won’t send anyone, anywhere, ever again.”

—

If a chivalrousman suspected he was walking into a possible ambush, he would volunteer to go first. Give his partner a chance to escape if things went south. Vidic was not a chivalrous man. He killed his Jeep’s headlights. Coasted up to one of the heaps of spoil that hid the approach to the cave. Checked that his dome light was switched off. Opened his door. Climbed out. Crept forward until he could see the entrance. Waited for Paris to pass him. And watched to see what kind of reception was in store for her.

The place they calledthe cavewasn’t really a cave. It was the entrance to a gold mine. Only it wasn’t really a gold mine, either. A local guy, fresh back from California in 1856, had taken a gamble. He used his last few ounces of black powder to blow a hole in a rock face, planted the few miserable gold nuggets he’d been able to find out West in the rubble, and sold the mineral rights to a wannabe millionaire from Chicago. A few months and a couple dozen yards of fruitless excavation later, the venture was abandoned. It was briefly reactivated in the 1940s in the pursuit of uranium, but that search proved futile, too. The entrance was shuttered. Metal rusted. Weeds grew. People forgot that the place existed. Until Fletcher arrived. He was looking for somewhere remote to store any wares that were too hot to sell right away. When he spotted the place on a satellite image online he figured they could build something secure. But when he visited for the first time and pried open the rusty barricade he realized the hard work had been done for him. All he needed was a new set of doors. Something substantial. With keys that couldn’t be duplicated. And a security camera linked into the existing system at the house, just to be safe.

The doors to the cave were open when Paris arrived. The nose of a panel van was sticking out. Paris had never seen the vehicle before. She pulled up next to Fletcher’s Cadillac Escalade and jumped down from her Land Rover. She looked around, saw no one, then heard footsteps crunching on the gravel. Fletcher appeared from the cave’s entrance and strode toward her.

Paris said, “Darren, what’s going on? What happened to your hand?”

Fletcher glanced at his splinted fingers but ignored her question. He said, “Good. You’re here. Kane’s inside. We just need Vidic to show up.”

“Why?”

“All hands to the pumps: 911.”

“What’s happened?”

“We’ve been targeted by the FBI.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure enough to get the hell out of Dodge.”

Chapter12

Reacher waited until he sawMary’s face disappear behind the blind in the office window then he leaned down, grabbed the unconscious guy by his belt, and dragged him through the gap between the office and the diner. He moved deep into the shadows, stopped, and looked around. A dumpster was sitting in the center of the space behind the office. It was small. Not a suitable place to deposit a body. The area behind the diner was much more promising. There was a large dumpster for regular waste. Another for recycling. A tall, cylindrical container for collecting used cooking oil. And another shallower, rectangular container. It was painted green and it had a bunch of symbols stenciled on its side. Reacher didn’t recognize them so he lifted the lid and looked inside. The thing was full of food. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Onions. Various other vegetables that Reacher wasn’t familiar with. Hunks of bread. Scraps of meat. All in different stages of decomposition. All giving off a disgusting stench.

Reacher weighed his options. He came down in favor of the food container. It was long enough. Deep enough. And it was the lowest,which made it the most convenient to throw the guy’s body in using only his left hand.

—

Reacher emerged frombetween the buildings and started to turn left, toward his room. Then he stopped. He turned right instead. Went back to the diner and saw Hannah May sitting at the table he had used, drinking coffee.

Hannah May started to get to her feet. She said, “Breakfast time already?”

Reacher gestured for her to stay in her seat. He said, “Not yet. I have a question. The green dumpster out back. What happens to all the waste food that’s in it?”

Hannah May shrugged. “Goes to a farm, I think. Gets fed to the pigs. They’ll eat anything, those critters.”

“How often does it get emptied?”

---