Reacher glanced down again.
Reverse.
Karen Delfuenso had not blinked more than thirteen times. Which meant that all her letters were in the first half of the alphabet. Which was possible, but not statistically likely.
And an amateur who didn't know Morse Code might still understand the same basic drawbacks Samuel Morse had foreseen. Especially an amateur who was for some reason tense and anxious and who had limited time for communication. Such an amateur might have improvised, and come up with a shortcut system.
Drive, and reverse.
Forward, and backward.
Maybe the jerk of the head to the left meant count forward from A, because in the Western nations people read from left to right, and therefore the jerk of the head to the right would mean count backward from Z.
Maybe.
Possibly.
Right thirteen, left two, right three, right one, left nine.
N-B-X-Z-I.
Which didn't make a whole lot of sense. NB could be the standard Latin abbreviation for nota bene, which meant note well, or in other words pay attention, but what was XZI?
Gibberish, that's what.
Reacher glanced in the mirror.
Delfuenso was staring at him again, willing him to understand.
In the mirror.
Her image was reversed.
Maybe she had anticipated that. Maybe left was right, and right was left.
Forward thirteen, back two, forward three, forward one, back nine.
M-Y-C-A-R.
My car.
Reacher looked in the mirror again and mouthed, 'This is your car?'
Delfuenso nodded, urgently and eagerly and desperately and happily.
TWENTY
SORENSON STEPPED BACK and turned and looked and said, 'They went south first, and then they got back on the road and went north. Why?'
Goodman said, 'That was the way they came. Maybe they didn't know they could get back on the road any other way.'
'Bullshit. They glance north, they see the old bar and an acre of gravel, and they know they can get out that way.'
'So maybe they went for gas at the other station.'
'Why would they? There's a gas station right here, at this end of the strip, staring them right in the face. Or do you think they were worried about price comparisons?'
'Maybe they saw the cameras.'
'If one has cameras, the other has cameras too. You can bet on that.'
'The price is the same anyway, both ends. It always is.'
'So why did they loop back south?'
Goodman said, 'For some other reason, I guess.'
Sorenson set off walking south, fast over the frozen gravel, past the back of a closed-up diner, past the back of a no-name bar, past the back of a broken-down motel, past the back of a lit-up and open convenience store.
She stopped.
Ahead of her was a wide gap, and then another bar, and then another cocktail lounge, and then nothing at all until the other gas station.
She said, 'Let's assume they didn't want a drink or a meal. Let's assume they weren't interested in a room for the night. And if they wanted gas, they'd have used the nearer station. So why did they come back this way?'
'The convenience store,' Goodman said. 'They needed something.'
They hustled around to its front door and went inside to bright cold fluorescent glare and the smell of old coffee and microwaved food and antiseptic floor cleaner. A bored clerk behind the register didn't even raise his head. Sorenson scanned the ceiling. There were no cameras.
The aisles were close-packed with junk food and canned food and bread and cookies and basic toiletries, and automotive requirements like quarts of oil and gallons of antifreeze and screen wash and clip-on cup holders and patent self-extinguishing ashtrays and collapsible snow shovels. There were rubber overshoes for wet conditions, and tube socks, and white underwear for a dollar an item, and cheap T-shirts, and cheap denim shirts, and canvas work shirts, and canvas work pants.
Sorenson took a close look at the clothing aisle, and then she headed straight for the register, her ID at the ready. The clerk looked up.
'Help you?' he said.
'Between about twenty past and half past midnight, who was in here?'
'Me,' the guy said.
'No customers?'
'Maybe one.'
'Who?'
'A tall skinny guy in a shirt and tie.'
'No coat?'
'It was like he ran in from a car. No time to get cold. No one walks here. This is the middle of nowhere.'
'Did you see the car?'
The clerk shook his head. 'I think the guy parked around the back. He sort of came around the corner. I guess that was my impression, anyway.'
Sorenson asked, 'What did he buy?'
The guy straightened out a curling helix of register tape spilling out of a slot. He traced his thumbnail over pale blue ink, in an irregular pattern, stop and go, leaping backward from one time stamp to another, then pausing at an eleven-line entry.
'Six items,' he said. 'Plus subtotal, tax, total, tender, and change.'
'He paid cash?'
'He must have, if I made change.'
'You don't remember?'
'I don't pay much attention. This is not a dream job, lady.'
'What did he buy?'
The guy examined the tape. 'Three of something, and three of something else.'
'Three of what, and three of what else? This was tonight. This is not ancient history we're talking about here. We're not asking for a prodigious feat of memory.'
'Water,' the guy said. 'I remember that. Three bottles, from the refrigerator cabinet.'
'And?'
The guy looked at the tape again.
He said, 'Three other things, all the same price.'
'What three other things?'
'I don't remember.'
Sorenson said, 'Have you been smoking tonight?'
The guy went wary.
He said, 'Smoking what?'
'Maybe that's a question for Sheriff Goodman. You in shape for a search tonight?'
The guy didn't answer that. He just bounced his hand up and down, rehearsing a triumphant finger snap, waiting to remember. Trying to remember. Then finally he smiled.
'Shirts,' he said. 'Three denim shirts, on special. Blue. Small, medium, and large. One of each.'
Sorenson and Goodman walked out of the store and looped around to the back lot again. Sorenson said, 'Karen Delfuenso was their hostage and they planned to use her as their smokescreen, so they couldn't let her stay in the skimpy top. Too memorable. They knew there could be roadblocks. So they made her change.'
'They all changed,' Goodman said. 'Three people, three shirts.'
Sorenson nodded.
'Bloodstains,' she said. 'Like the eyewitness told us. At least one of their suit coats was wet.'
'We screwed up,' Goodman said. 'Both of us. I told the roadblocks two men in black suits. Then any two men. You told them any two men. But it wasn't any two men. It was any three people, two men and a woman, all in blue denim shirts.'
Sorenson said nothing. Then her phone rang, and the Iowa State Police told her they had rewound their dashboard video and located Karen Delfuenso's car. It had passed through their roadblock more than an hour ago. It had not attracted their attention because it had four people in it.
TWENTY-ONE
SORENSON HUNCHED AWAY from Goodman and switched her phone to her other hand and said, 'Four people?'
The State Police captain in Iowa said, 'It's a kind of shadowy picture, but we can see them fairly clearly. Two in the front, and two in the back. And my sergeant remembers the driver.'
'Can I talk to your sergeant?'
'Can I shut down this roadblock?'
'After I talk to your sergeant.'
'OK, wait one.'
Sorenson heard scratchy sounds in her ear, and the filtered rattle of an idling truck engine. She turned back to Goodman and said, 'We were even more wrong than we knew. There are four of them in the car.' Then she heard a cell phone change hands and a rusty voice said, 'Ma'am?'
She asked, 'Who was in the car?'