Page 61 of The Secret

“How do you get paid?”

“Dead drop. Cash.”

“How did you meet?”

“We’ve never met. Friend of mine said he knew someone who was looking for help. I was looking for work. It’s all done at arm’s length.”

“You said you killed a science freak. Neville Pritchard?”

“Yeah. Sounds right. I don’t really care about names.”

“Two in one day?”

“No. Pritchard was five days ago.”

“You sure?”

“Dates are the kind of thing I remember.”

“How did you find him?”

“I was told where he’d be.”

“At his house?”

“At an RV camp. In his RV. That’s how I knew to take a hose.”

The shapes and patterns in Reacher’s head were shifting and rearranging themselves like the shards in a kaleidoscope. Charles Stamoran was already in the frame for Neilsen’s death but they’d chalked Neville Pritchard’s up to the two women. Now this guy was admitting he’d killed them both. On the same person’s orders. So that put two murders at Stamoran’s door. Not one. And Pritchard had been dispatched days earlier than they’d realized. Stamoran hadn’t just used the other scientists as bait. He’d used them as cover. He was even colder than Reacher had thought.

Reacher said, “I’m going to give you a choice. You can repeat what you told me to a detective. Or you can die right here, right now.”

The guy was looking at his crushed left hand, and he was waving it around as if he was trying to cast out the pain. But his right hand was also moving. It was creeping toward his waist. To his pocket. Through the shadow cast by his fallen flashlight. That made Reacher late seeing it. He was slow to lift his foot. The guy’s hand had reappeared. He was holding something. A piece of metal, round, with vicious spikes sticking out in all directions. He bent his wrist. He was shaping to flick his hand up and launch the thing. He had plenty to aim at. Reacher’s thigh. His groin. His stomach. Even his face or his neck. Plenty of major arteries in those places. Lots of critical organs. A wound from that kind of weapon could be serious. Maybe fatal. So Reacher stamped down. Harder than he’d intended. He caught the guy’s hand square on. Drove it back down.Straight into his abdomen, along with the razor-sharp disc. Reacher couldn’t see the resulting damage. The shadow was too deep. But right away he could taste a telltale bitter, metallic tang at the back of his throat.

The guy looked up and grunted in pain. He whispered, “Guess you know what you can do with your detective now.”

—

It was almostmidnight when Reacher got back to his new hotel. Smith and Walsh were waiting for him in the bar. Reacher didn’t feel like being around strangers so he suggested they reconvene in his room. He took a cup of coffee with him. Smith brought a whiskey. Reacher got the impression it wasn’t her first. Walsh was sticking with water.

When they were all settled in the living room side of Reacher’s suite he told them what had happened at the ruined church. He couldn’t hide his frustration. He’d been hoping to convert their suspicions into facts but all he’d come away with was more theory. And it was a theory that made Stamoran look worse, not better. Neilsen’s killing could still be seen as a panicked reaction to an imminent threat but given the timing, Pritchard’s was looking more like a cold, calculated maneuver.

“I’m just glad you’re OK,” Smith said. She shivered. “A noose? He was going to hang you? My God.”

Reacher said, “That was never going to happen.”

Walsh said, “He gassed Pritchard.”

“I’m not Pritchard,” Reacher said.

Smith said, “At least the guy from tonight can’t kill anyone else.”

“He’s just a foot soldier. It’s the general I want. And I’m running out of patience. It’s time to shake things up.”

“What have you got in mind?”

“I’m going to talk to Stamoran. Show him the phone records. Look him in the eye and see how he reacts.”

“You can’t be serious.” Smith stared at Reacher. “Oh shit. You are serious.”

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