Page 33 of Better off Dead

I stood to the side and knocked.

“Come in.” It was the woman from the Red Roan. I recognized her voice.

So far, so good.

I pushed the door and stepped into the room. The woman was in the corner to my left. The room was large enough and the gap between the door and the frame was narrow enough that I hadn’t seen her from the corridor. She was still wearing the yellow sundress. And now she had a gun in her hand. A Beretta M9. A weapon she would be very familiar with if I was correct about who she was. She was aiming it right at my chest.

She had planned the setup well. She was too far away for me to grab the gun without giving her ample time to pull the trigger. My only move was to dive back through the door. But she would be expecting that. There was no guarantee I would be fast enough. Plus I didn’t know where her friend was. She could have the corridor covered by now. And I needed whatever information she could give me. Whether she was in a sharing mood or not.

I pushed the book aside with my foot. Let go of the door. And raised my hands to chest height.

“To the bed.” The woman gestured with the gun.

I moved across.

She said, “See the pictures?”

There was a stack of photographs on the pillow. I picked it up. There were five of them. Four-by-sixes. Color. Of five different men. All in Hot Weather ACUs.

“Show me which one’s Michael,” she said. “Then we’ll talk.”

I shuffled through the images. Slowly and carefully.

“Show me the wrong one and the vultures are going to be well fed tonight.” She still had the gun leveled on my chest.

Two of the men were African American. One was Hispanic. The other two were Caucasian. Like Fenton. That narrowed the odds. One out of two is better than one out of five. But still not close enough for comfort. I pictured Fenton’s face. She wasn’t Michael’s identical twin. That was obvious. And I’d never seen him. I had no idea how similar they looked. But I had nothing else to work with. I compared the two guys’ eyes to what I remembered of Fenton’s. Their noses. Mouths. Ears. Hair color. The shape of their heads. Their height. Then I thought about what I’d do if I wanted to catch someone in a lie.

I tossed all five pictures back onto the bed.

“What kind of game are you playing?” I kept my eyes on her trigger finger. “Michael’s not in any of those pictures.”

The woman didn’t lower the gun. “Are you sure? Look again. Like your life depends on it. Because it does.”

“I don’t need to. His picture’s not there.”

“OK. Maybe it isn’t. How do you know him?”

“Through his sister. Michaela.”

“His older sister?”

“His twin.”

“Who joined thechair force?”

“Army intelligence.”

The woman lowered the gun.

“All right. I’m sorry. I had to be sure. Please, sit.”

Chapter25

I lowered myself onto thebed. The woman came out of the corner and crossed to the other side of the room. She perched on the edge of an armchair that looked like it had been made in the fifties. And not cleaned since the sixties. The gun was still in her hand.

She said, “I’m Sonia.”

“Reacher. How do you know Michael?”

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