Page 117 of Bulletproof Jack: Hunting Lee Child's Jack Reacher

He was big and his stride was much longer than hers. But he’d have had to cover a lot of ground a lot faster than Kim thought likely.

She kept walking up the trail, alongside the creek. She passed the places where old moonshiners sold their wares from hastily built moonshine stands, because the trail was not very accessible to the sheriffs back then.

When she turned a corner, she heard the ambulance siren in the distance, coming closer. She couldn’t leave Russell out there while she chased a ghost.

But she knew Reacher was here. Somewhere. She felt it in her gut. The one reliable instinct that never let her down.

Reacher was here. Or he had been here, anyway.

Kim made it to the open gorge and scanned the area from top to bottom and along all sides. The drone was no longer dancing in the wind. Reacher, if he’d been the guy chasing the drone, wasn’t there now.

The sound of the ambulance siren traveled across the open air of the gorge. It was very close now. But for the trees blocking her view where she stood by the creek bed, she might have seen the ambulance arriving at the overlook.

Indecision stalled her progress. She was close to Reacher. Perhaps closer than she’d ever been. She might find him here if she kept looking.

Which would mean failing Russell. Could she do that?

Russell had come to extract her and the dead Lucas Stuart when she’d needed him back in Detroit. He’d been a reliable partner throughout this thing, sticking with her through thick and thin, even though he wasn’t required to do so. Finding Reacher was not his assignment, after all.

No, she couldn’t possibly leave Russell to face the consequences alone.

She kept hiking along the creek a few more yards. But when the ambulance siren stopped, indicating it had reached its destination, she knew she’d run out of time.

Kim paused and swiveled her head in all directions, rotating her entire body three-hundred-sixty degrees. She peered deep into the woods and listened intently. She inhaled the scents of rain and old leaves and maybe a rank animal or two.

But she didn’t see the big man. Or anyone else. Or the drone, for that matter.

“Kim. You’ve got to go. Now. Russell is depending on you.” She scolded herself as she searched a few minutes more. Finally, she turned and ran back to the SUV.

She kept scanning the area around the trail as she ran. When she reached the parking lot, she noticed a set of fresh tire tracks.

Another vehicle had been parked here.

When?

Had the tracks been there when she arrived?

Or had the vehicle come and gone while she was searching?

Where was it now?

She jumped into the SUV and hurried back to the overlook.

She spied the big luxury sedan with the bullet holes in the doors and the destroyed windows.

Chang had been lucky. A few centimeters one way or another with those bullets might have made all the difference.

The ambulance had arrived. Four paramedics on scene. Two were loading Chang onto a back board and then to a gurney.

Russell was standing near the driveway. Kim pulled up alongside of him. He took the passenger seat and slammed the door after himself.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Copy that,” Kim replied as she pressed the accelerator and headed away from the Devil’s Punchbowl.

After a while, Russell said, “Did you find Reacher?”

Kim shook her head. “Not this time.”

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