04 - Running Blind by Lee Child

Author:Lee Child
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Women
ISBN: 9780515143508
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Published: 2007-08-26T23:00:00+00:00

"He's batting about nine hundred," Blake said. "That makes him smart enough for me."

"No shipping labels anywhere?" Harper asked.

Blake shook his head. "All torn off."

"Figures," she said.

"Does it?" Reacher asked her. "So here, why should he remember to tear off the label but forget to reseal the box?"

"Maybe he got interrupted here," she said.

"How? This isn't exactly Times Square."

"So what are you saying? You're downgrading how smart he is? How smart he is seemed awful important to you before. You were going to use how damn smart he is to prove us all wrong."

Reacher looked at her and nodded. "Yes, you are all wrong." Then he turned to Blake. "We really need to talk about this guy's motive."

"Later," Blake said.

"No, now. It's important."

"Later," Blake said again. "You haven't heard the really good news yet."

"Which is what?"

"The other little matter you came up with."

Silence inside the vehicle.

"Shit," Reacher said. "One of the other women got a delivery, right?"

Blake shook his head.

"Wrong," he said. "All seven of them got a delivery."

"You're going to Portland, Oregon," Blake said. "You and Harper."

"Why?" Reacher asked.

"So you can visit with your old friend Rita Scimeca. The lady lieutenant you told us about? Got raped down in Georgia? She lives near Portland. Small village, east of the city. She's one of the eleven on your list. You can get down there and check out her basement. She says there's a brand-new washing machine in there. In a box."

"Did she open it?" Reacher asked.

Blake shook his head. "No, Portland agents checked with her on the telephone. They told her not to touch it. Somebody's on the way over right now."

"If the guy's still in the area, Portland could be his next call. It's close enough."

"Correct," Blake said. "That's why there's somebody on the way over."

Reacher nodded. "So now you're guarding them? What's that thing about barn doors and horses bolting?"

Blake shrugged. "Hey, only seven left alive, makes the manpower much more feasible."

It was a cop's sick humor in a car full of cops of one kind or another, but still it fell a little flat. Blake colored slightly and looked away.

"Losing Alison gets to me, much as anybody," he said. "Like family, right?"

"Especially to her sister, I guess," Reacher said.

"Tell me about it," Blake said. "She was burned as hell when the news came in. Practically hyperventilating. Never seen her so agitated."

"You should take her off the case." Blake shook his head. "I need her."

"You need something, that's for damn sure."

"Tell me about it."

Going to the small village east of Portland measured about three hundred and sixty miles on the map Blake showed them. They took the car the local agent had used to bring them in from the airport. It still had Alison Lamarr's address handwritten on the top sheet of the pad attached to the windshield. Reacher stared at it for a second. Then he tore it off and balled it up and tossed it into the rear footwell. Found a pen in the glove box and wrote directions on the next sheet: 90W-395S-84W-35S-26W.

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