The Midnight Line by Lee Child Page B

More satisfying to fill that first. The nearer one is easier. Like a reward.”
    â€œSo what do you get on the right-hand peg?”
    â€œNumbers six through ten, in reverse order. Number ten will get bought first. Then nine, then eight, and so on. What were my numbers?”
    â€œThey weren’t sequential,” the tech said. “There was a two-digit gap. You gave me a seven and a four, essentially. Or a four and a seven. I don’t know which came off the peg first.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Nakamura said. “I should have marked the order.”
    â€œDon’t worry. Let’s make another assumption. Let’s say the convenience store guy gets his satisfaction a different way than you. Maybe he fills the pegs left, right, left, right. Perhaps he likes that better.”
    â€œThen numbers four and seven couldn’t be together on the same peg.”
    â€œSo let’s make another assumption, based on the fact that you have the smallest hands in the world, and the convenience store guy is reasonably dexterous, working as he does with knives and what-not, so perhaps he hung them two at a time.”
    â€œYes,” she said. “That would put three and four on the right, immediately behind seven and eight. If I bought seven and four, then Scorpio bought eight. His phone number is one higher than mine.”
    â€œAnd listen to what my buddy at the phone company found,” her friend said. He shuffled his mouse and his screen lit up. He clicked on an email, and then on an audio file, and jagged green bandwidth spiked on the screen, and Scorpio said, “Billy, this is Arthur. We got some weird shit going on.”
    Reacher got a ride from two kids pulling out of a gas station on the southern edge of town. A boy and a girl. Grad students, probably, or undergrads with great ID. They said they were headed to Fort Collins, across the state line. Shopping, they said, but not for what. Their car was a tidy little sedan. Unlikely to attract a trooper’s attention. Safe enough, for the return leg of their journey.
    They said they knew the bottle rocket billboard. And sure enough, after forty minutes on a gentle two-lane road, there it was, on the right shoulder, caught square in the high beams. It was bright yellow, half urgent, and half quaint. The students pulled over, and Reacher got out. The students drove away, and Reacher stood alone in the silence. The firework store itself was dark and closed up tight. Beyond it fifty yards south was a ramshackle building with a light in a small square upstairs window. The flea market, presumably. The former post office.
    Reacher walked toward it.
    Nakamura carried her laptop to her lieutenant’s office, and played him the voicemail. Use a deer rifle from behind a tree. Your privileges are suspended till I hear back from you .
    â€œHe’s ordering a homicide,” she said.
    Her lieutenant said, “His lawyer will say talk is cheap. And he’ll point out we don’t have a warrant. Not for the new number.”
    Nakamura said nothing.
    Her lieutenant said, “Anything else?”
    â€œScorpio mentioned privileges. I don’t know what that means.”
    â€œA business relationship of some kind, I suppose. Discount, priority, or access.”
    â€œTo what? Soap powder?”
    â€œSurveillance should tell us.”
    â€œWe’ve never seen anything that looks like privileged access to something. Never. Nothing goes in or out.”
    â€œBilly might not agree. Whoever Billy is.”
    â€œBigfoot is going to walk right into trouble. We should call someone.”
    Her lieutenant said, “Play the voicemail again.”
    She did. He’s got to go, because he’s a random loose end. Easier for you to deal with out there than it would be for me here. So get it done .
    â€œHe’s ordering a homicide,” she said again.
    Her lieutenant said, “Can we ID Billy from his phone