“Abigail what?”
“Reacher,” she said. “These are my grandparents, Jack and Joanna.”
“Where’s Shevick?”
“He was the last tenant. He moved out.”
“Where did he go?”
“He didn’t leave a forwarding address. He gave the impression he was having serious financial problems. I think basically he skipped in the night. He ran away.”
“You sure?”
“I know who lives here, mister. This is a two-bedroom house. One for my grandparents, and one for me, when I’m here. For guests, when I’m not. There are no squatters. I think I would have noticed.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Aaron Shevick.”
“No.”
“I met him,” Maria Shevick said. “When we first saw the house.”
“What did he look like?”
“I remember him as being tall and powerfully built.”
“That’s the guy,” the voice said. “How long has he been gone?”
“About a year.”
No response. The footsteps moved on, to the living room door. The voice said, “You’ve been here a year and you don’t have a TV yet?”
“We’re retired,” Maria said. “These things are expensive.”
The voice said, “Huh.”
Reacher heard a quiet, scratchy click. Then the footsteps retreated. Back down the hallway. To the front door. To the front step. To the narrow concrete path. Reacher heard the car start up, and then he heard it drive away. The soft hiss and squelch of a big sedan.
Silence came back.
He put the knife in its place in the drawer, and he stepped out of the kitchen.
“Nice work, everyone,” he said.
Aaron looked shaky. Maria looked pale.
“They took a photograph,” Abby said. “Like a parting shot.”
Reacher nodded. The quiet, scratchy click. A cell phone, imitating a camera.
“A photograph of what?” he said.
“The three of us. Partly for their report. Partly for their just-in-case database. But mostly to intimidate. It’s what they do. People feel vulnerable.”
Reacher nodded again. He remembered the luminous guy in the bar. Raising his phone. The little snitch of a sound. If I was a real client, I wouldn’t have liked it.
The Shevicks stepped into the kitchen, to make more coffee. Reacher and Abby went to the living room, to wait for it.
Abby said, “Intimidation is not the only issue with that photograph.”
“What else?” Reacher said.
“They’ll text the picture. Among themselves. That’s what they do. In case someone can fill in another part of the puzzle. Sooner or later everyone will get the text. The guy on the door at work will get it. He knows I’m not Abigail Reacher. He knows I’m Abby Gibson. So do a lot of other guys on a lot of other doors, because I’ve worked a lot of other places. They’ll start asking questions. They already don’t like me.”
“Do they know where you live?”
“I’m sure they could make my boss tell them.”
“When will they send the text?”
“I’m sure they already have.”
“Is there someplace else you could stay?”
She nodded.
“I have a friend,” she said. “East of Center Street. Albanian territory, happily.”
“Can you work there?”
“I have before.”
Reacher said, “I sincerely apologize for the disruption.”
“I’m thinking of it as an experiment,” she said. “Someone once told me that every day a woman should do something that scared her.”
“She could join the army.”
“You need to be based east of Center anyway. We can stick together. At least tonight.”
“Will that be OK with your friend?”
“I hope so,” she said. “Will the Shevicks be OK tonight?”
Reacher nodded.
“People believe their own eyes,” he said. “In this case their own eyes were the luminous guy’s in the bar. He met me. His phone took my picture. I am Aaron Shevick. It’s set in stone. In their minds Shevick is a big tall guy from a younger generation. You could tell by the things they said. They accused him of being Shevick’s dad, or his father-in-law, but they never accused him of being Shevick himself. So they’ll be OK. As far as those guys are concerned, they’re just an old couple named Reacher.”
Then Maria called through to say the coffee was ready.
* * *
—
The manager of the grimy pawn shop across the narrow street from the taxi dispatcher and the bail bond office came out the door and dodged a truck and ducked into the taxi place. He ignored the weary guy on the radio and pushed on through to the back. To Gregory’s outer office. Gregory’s right-hand man looked up and asked him what he wanted. He said something had happened. Quicker to walk it across the street than put it in a text.
“Put what in a text?” the right-hand man asked.
“This morning I got an alert and a photograph about a man named Shevick. A big ugly son of a bitch.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Is Shevick a common name in America?”
“Why?”
“I had a client named Shevick this morning. But a small old woman.”
“Possibly related. Possibly an elderly aunt or cousin.”
The guy nodded.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “But then I got another alert, and another photograph. The same old woman is in it. But her name is different. In the new alert they’re calling her Joanna Reacher. But this morning for me she signed Maria Shevick.”
Chapter 19
Reacher and Abby left the Shevicks in their kitchen and headed out to the Toyota. Reacher was already packed. His toothbrush was in his pocket. But Abby wanted to drop by her place to pick up some stuff. Which was reasonable. In turn Reacher decided he wanted to drop by the public law project to get an answer to a question. Both destinations were in Ukrainian territory. But it would be safe enough, he thought. Possibly. On the downside, there were two photographs out there, plus potentially the Toyota’s description and license plate. On the upside, it was broad daylight, and they would be in and out real fast.