aspen was happiest. The track went left and right, around trees, around rocks the size of cars, some of them piled high on top of each other, some of them overhanging.
After more than four slow miles the track came to a building. It was made of logs, and looked like a vacation cabin. Livable, but not for long. Not a permanent home. Dusty windows. Unoccupied. Maybe abandoned. The crew-cab didn’t stop. It churned on by, all four wheels working, and half a mile later it passed another cabin just the same. Dusty windows, unoccupied. Maybe abandoned. Reacher figured they were in a compound, laid out like an old-fashioned vacation camp, with isolated accommodations in separate woodland clearings, all connected together by winding tracks like the one they were on, which in theory might sooner or later lead to some kind of central destination.
It did. The track came around the base of a wooded slope, and opened up on what looked at first like empty blue sky, but turned out to be a small plateau on the low slopes of a mountain, with infinite views north and east. There was a sprawling log house made of massive timbers. Not a commercial enterprise. Not an office or a camp clubhouse. Just the main family home. Maybe the cabins had been for their guests. Or for children and grandchildren. Maybe great-grandchildren. Some kind of patriarch’s dream. Maybe the owner had been a big man in the county.
The crew-cab didn’t stop.
They followed it onward, away from the big house, along another winding track, around a long artful curve through the trees, and then another in the other direction, and finally they came out in another clearing, which had a cabin set high on a rock foundation, at the head of a small fissure or ravine, which crumbled away in a southwesterly direction, and which thinned the trees enough to show a narrow view of the empty plains and the distant horizon. From the front porch the magic hour before sunset would be spectacular. The house itself was made of logs, neat and plain, like a child’s drawing, with a door in the middle, and a window on the left, and a window on the right, with a green metal roof and a chimney. Civilized, Reacher thought. Reasonably big. Not up a tree. Plus far from anywhere, comfortably concealed, as secret as could be, but with a view from the porch.
Why give it up?
Next to the house was a barn, with an open door.
Parked in the barn was an old SUV, an ancient model, boxy and battered and square, covered with rust and red dust so thick it looked baked on.
Up ahead the crew-cab stopped.
Bramall stopped.
The guy with the boots got out. He walked around to the Toyota’s front passenger door, and he pulled it open.
He said, “Mrs. Mackenzie first.”
She got out. The guy led her down a beaten-earth path, and up the porch steps, to the door. He knocked, and she waited. A small figure, her face set, her hair tumbling everywhere.
The guy got a response from inside, and he opened the door, and held it, like a bellboy in a hotel. Mackenzie stood still for a second, and then she walked past him, and into the house. The guy closed the door after her, and came down off the porch, and walked back to his truck.
No sound.
No movement.
“Rose Sanderson is in there?” Bramall said.
“Yes,” Reacher said.
“You know this because you know two things.”
“Three altogether,” Reacher said. “I didn’t mention the extra one.”
“You know Rose lives here, and you know no one in town recognizes her sister.”
“And I know she won a Purple Heart.”
Bramall was quiet a long moment.
“It was a facial wound,” he said.
Reacher nodded.
“Had to be,” he said.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that no one recognizes her sister. Bad enough she hides all the time. Bad enough she turns her face away. Bad enough she holes up in the bedroom when the roofer works inside.”
Bramall sat in the car, but Reacher was stiff from sitting. He got out to take a stroll. To loosen up, like he had at the comfort stop in Wisconsin. He took the ring out his pocket. The gold filigree, the black stone, the tiny size. S.R.S. 2005. Against the vast wilderness all around it looked impossibly delicate, and intricate, and finely wrought.
He walked to the lip of the ravine, and looked at the view. He could see fifty miles. A slice of Colorado, but mostly Wyoming. Thin clear air, immense tawny plains, spiky trees, rocky outcrops, hazy mountains. Nothing moving. He felt all alone on an empty planet. He could imagine hiding out there. Seeing no one. No one seeing him. Nowhere better.
She might not want to be found.
He turned away, and walked up to the garage, and took a look at the old SUV. It was an ancient Ford Bronco, the same make and model he rode in from Casper to Laramie, with the guy who turned logs into sculptures with chainsaws. That had been a basic vehicle, but Rose Sanderson’s was plainer still. It was scoured back to bare metal by wind and sand. The metal looked like it had returned to some kind of primitive ore. It was scabbed and pitted, and dented here and there by minor collisions. No panel was straight. The tires were worn. The front end smelled of gasoline.
He walked back to the Toyota. By that point Mackenzie had been in the house an hour. Bramall had his window down. For the air, presumably. Thin and clear, warm in the sun, cold in the shadows.
Bramall said, “One of those days.”
“I woke up knowing,” Reacher said.
“A hands-on client is always a problem. I could have prepared her. I could have cleaned things up a bit.”
“I suppose your job is done now. Don’t leave without me. I need a ride back to town.”
“After you give her the ring.”
“Not important anymore. Not in the scheme of things. Mrs. Mackenzie can pass it on.”
“I won’t leave right away,” Bramall said. “Partly because I think Mrs. Mackenzie is about to request an extension to my contract. She’s going to need some kind of help. If not from me, then at least she’ll expect a ride to the hotel. Or the airport.”
“Does your phone work from here?”
“Two bars, if you face the ravine.”
“Which the house does. She could have called from here. When she said, shut up, Sy, I’m on the phone. It was either here or Porterfield’s place. Had to be one or the other.”
“You plan on asking her much about Porterfield? I’m with the majority here. The thing with the bear is most likely bullshit.”
“That plan has changed. Because of the hands-on client. The story skipped straight to the big reunion. Rose won’t talk to us now. It won’t occur to her. Why would it? When your long-lost twin sister shows up at your door, you don’t necessarily invite the cab driver in the house. You don’t make small talk.”
“You wanted to know the story.”
“I got most of it,” Reacher said. “I got to the part where it ends about twenty miles before the road runs out.”
Twenty minutes later the front door opened and Mackenzie stepped out on the porch. She turned and closed the door. She stood still, more than a minute, visibly breathing, deep and slow, in and out. Then she stepped down on the scrub path. She started walking. Bramall and Reacher got out of the car to meet her. She had been crying. That was clear.
At first she said nothing. It was as if she had lost the power of speech. Her lips moved and she made sounds, but no words came out.
“Take it easy,” Bramall said.
She took a breath.
She said, “My sister would like to speak with Mr. Reacher now.”
Reacher looked at her, first in surprise, then as if about to ask a question, which he didn’t, because what could he say? Is she a mess? Was it worse than you expected?
She looked back at him, defeated, and she half shrugged and half nodded, as if saying yes and no to everything.
He walked down the scrub path and stepped up on the porch.
Chapter 33
Reacher turned the knob, and opened the door, and stepped inside.
He realized in his mind he was expecting some kind of an elaborate gothic vision, involving shrouded windows and darkness, with maybe a lone candle burning somewhere, and a vague figure talking softly behind a heavy veil. The reality was a bright sun-filled house made of shiny logs the color of wildflower honey. The front door opened directly into the living room. It was small and neat and clean, but mostly empty. Nothing in it but two large armchairs, placed one either side of the fireplace, at comfortable and companionable angles.
Rose Sanderson was in the left-hand chair.
Below the neck she was her sister’s double. No mistake. She sat in a chair the exact same way. Her resting posture was identical. The angle of her wrist. The spread of her fingers. The tilt of her waist. A replica.
Above the neck, not so much. Not anymore. She was wearing a silver track suit top, with a tight hood, which was pulled up around her head. She had tightened the drawstring in front until only an oval of face was showing. On the left was a web of scar tissue, random and uneven, and on the right was a sheet of aluminum foil, oozing with some kind of thick ointment. She had pressed the foil to the shape of her head. Like half a mask.
A silvery color.
She wasn’t sweating. She wasn’t trembling. Her eyes looked OK. Better than OK. Her eyes were the eyes of a person who felt deeply serene and contented.
She said, “I want to ask you about something my sister said.”
Her voice was the same. Same note, same pitch, same volume. Reacher shook her hand and sat down in the empty chair. Up close he could see the left-hand part of her face was somehow reconstructed. It was stitched together from small fragments. The right-hand part was hidden under the home-made tinfoil poultice.
He said, “What do you want to ask me?”
“My sister says you found my class ring in a pawn shop.”
“I did.”
“Therefore your involvement here was completely accidental.”
“It was.”
“But it strikes me you would say that anyway, whether or not it was true. And it strikes me my sister is the type of person who might believe it.”
“Where else would I find your ring?”
“A police evidence locker, maybe.”
“Who do you think I am really?”
“Maybe still the 110th MP.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Then why did you mention it on the video?”
“So you would know I wasn’t bullshitting about being in the army. No one would claim the 110th if they didn’t have to.”
She nodded inside her hood. The foil on her face rustled and clicked.
Reacher said, “Are you expecting a visit from the 110th MP?”
“Not specifically,” she said. “Maybe someone like that.”
“Why?”
“A number of things.”
“Not me,” Reacher said. “I’m just a guy, passing through. Nothing more.”
“You sure?”
“Promise.”
She nodded again, as if the matter was settled.
He took the ring from his pocket, one last time, and he handed it over. She rolled it in her palm, and looked at it from every direction. She smiled. The foil clicked, and a jagged hollow crease appeared in her left cheek, as if the structure of her face had collapsed. Maybe a weak suture.
She said, “Thank you.”
He said, “You’re welcome.”
She said, “I honestly thought I would never see it again.”
Then she gave it back.
“I would owe you forty dollars,” she said. “Haven’t got it right now.”
“It’s a gift,” he said.
“Then I accept. Thank you. But not now. Would you hold it for me? Just a month or so. I could call when I’m ready.”
“You’re worried you’ll trade it away again.”
“Just recently everything has gotten so damn expensive.”
“Must be difficult making ends meet.”
“It is.”
“Is that why you’re worried about meeting someone like the 110th MP?”
She shook her head.
“I’m not worried about what I do,” she said. “No one is interested in my situation. They’ve given up on people like me.”
“Then why expect a visit?”
“Something different. I had a friend whose case is still open. Back burner I’m sure, but some work must get done. One day they’ll have enough.”
“For what?”
“To take another look, I suppose. My working assumption is one day they’ll send a guy. For a moment I hoped you were him, equipped with my ring as a stage prop. But apparently you’re not him. That’s OK. I just wanted to check. Would you ask my sister to come by again?”
Mackenzie was in the front seat of the Toyota. Her skin was pale. Her flawless face looked hyper-vivid, impossibly smooth, impossibly perfect. Reacher told her Rose wanted to see her again. She looked a question at him. He didn’t know what she was asking. Maybe she was looking for some kind of general agreement it could have been worse. Some kind of optimistic thinking. Or not. He couldn’t tell. He made an all-purpose don’t-know expression, and she nodded, as if she understood. She got out of the car and walked up the path to the house. She went inside again.
She closed the door.
Reacher took her place in the car.
He closed the door.
Bramall said, “How was it?”
“Pretty bad,” he said. “It hasn’t healed.”
“What state was she in?”
“High as a kite.”
“On what?”
“Something she claims has just gotten very expensive. I guess she’s still holding out for the good stuff. She’s not in the toilet stall yet.”
“Agent Noble implied she would have to be by now. He claims he tracks every shipment.”
“Maybe he was out sick the day they taught real life. Nothing works a hundred percent.”
“What did she want to speak with you about?”
“She’s expecting some kind of investigator to show up one day, asking questions about Porterfield. She was disappointed I wasn’t him. She thinks it’s still an open case.”
Bramall didn’t reply.
Reacher asked him, “What did Mrs. Mackenzie have to say?”
“Nothing good.”
“I woke up knowing.”
“Rose Sanderson got hit in the face by five pieces of shrapnel from an improvised explosive device concealed at the side of a road outside a small town in Afghanistan. The shrapnel appeared to be mostly small fragments of metal, probably off-cuts from a village-style engineering shop. The five pieces that hit her peeled her face off in chunks, and what stayed on was then badly abraded by smaller particles in the blast. But these days battlefield medicine is a miracle. They found most of the missing parts in her helmet and they sewed her back together again. Big name plastic surgeons, the whole nine yards.”
“But?” Reacher said.
“Two main problems,” Bramall said. “I mean, OK, this was amazing work, no question. This was a definite KIA in Vietnam, and probably any other time in history, until the last few years. It was a virtuoso performance by the doctors. But great as it was, it was actually pretty lousy. It just can’t be done. She was left with scars like a jigsaw puzzle. Nothing fits right. Nothing works right. She looks like a horror movie. And that’s the good news.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“The concealed explosive device was concealed in a dead dog. That’s something they do out there. This one was maybe four days old. Getting ripe. The weather was hot. The blast drove rotting tissue and necrotic