Read 17 A Wanted Man for Free Online Page A

late.’
    King said, ‘Plan was Don drives the first half, and I drive the second half. Now I’m thinking we should split it into thirds. You could drive the middle third.’
    ‘Not Karen?’ Reacher said.
    No response from Delfuenso.
    ‘Karen doesn’t drive,’ King said.
    ‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m always happy to help.’
    ‘Safer that way.’
    ‘You haven’t seen my driving yet.’
    ‘It’s an empty road, straight and wide.’
    ‘OK,’ Reacher said again.
    ‘We’ll switch next time we stop for gas.’
    ‘Which will be when?’
    ‘Soon.’
    ‘Why?’ Reacher asked. ‘You’ve been driving for three hours but the tank is still three-quarters full. At that rate we could get halfway to New York before we need gas. Maybe more.’
    King paused a beat. Blinked. Said, ‘You’re an observant man, Mr Reacher.’
    Reacher said, ‘I try to be.’
    ‘This is my car,’ King said. ‘I think you can trust me to know its quirks and its foibles. The gas gauge is faulty. There’s a malfunction. All the action is in the first little bit. Then it falls off a cliff.’
    Reacher said nothing.
    King said, ‘Believe me, we’ll have to stop soon.’
    The two deputies securing the area behind the cocktail lounge had parked their cruisers at matching angles, pretty far from the red Mazda, as if the car was dangerous in itself. As if it was radioactive, or liable to explode. Goodman nosed his Crown Vic into the implied no-go triangle and stopped twenty feet from the target. Sorenson said, ‘No witnesses came forward here, I assume?’
    ‘Today isn’t my birthday,’ Goodman said. ‘It’s not all my Christmases rolled into one, either.’
    ‘Is this lounge abandoned too?’
    ‘No, but it closes at midnight. It’s a respectable place.’
    ‘Compared to what?’
    ‘The other lounges up here.’
    ‘What time would the red car have gotten here?’
    ‘Earliest? Not before twenty past midnight. Too late for witnesses.’
    ‘I’m guessing you never worked in a bar, did you?’ Sorenson asked.
    ‘No,’ Goodman said. ‘I never did. Why?’
    ‘Just because the customers go home at midnight, it doesn’t mean the staff does too. You can be sure some poor dumb waitress will have been here for a little while afterwards. Do you know the owner?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘So call him.’
    ‘Her,’ Goodman said. ‘Missy Smith. She’s been here for ever. She’s a well-known character. She won’t be pleased if I wake her up.’
    Sorenson said, ‘I won’t be pleased if you don’t.’
    So Goodman dialled his cell and stumped around near his own car while Sorenson went to take a look at the Mazda. It had North Carolina plates, and a little barcode strip on the rear window, and it looked neat and clean and fresh inside. She called in the plates and the VIN to her Omaha office, and she saw Sheriff Goodman writing on his palm with a ballpoint pen, with his phone trapped up between his ear and his shoulder. She saw him put his pen away and click off his call, and then he said to her, ‘Missy Smith left here at midnight exactly with the last of the customers.’
    But there was no triumph in his voice. No told-you-so tone.
    ‘And?’ Sorenson asked.
    ‘One of the waitresses stayed behind to clean up. Apparently there’s a rotational system. Every night one of them gets paid until half past midnight.’
    ‘And that’s her number you got on your hand?’
    ‘Yes, it is. Her cell phone.’
    ‘This Mazda is a rental car,’ Sorenson said. ‘Out of state plates, barcode for the return reader, valeted twice a week.’
    ‘Nearest car rental depot would be the Omaha airport. I could call it in.’
    ‘I already did. You should call the waitress.’
    So Goodman put his left palm in his headlight beam and dialled his cell with his right hand thumb.

TEN
    NOT FAR INTO Iowa the Interstate went down to two lanes and got long and lonely. Exits were many miles from each other. Each one was an event in its own right. Each one was