Gone: The Jack Reacher Experiment Book 9 by Jude Hardin

Author:Jude Hardin [Hardin, Jude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

11

Wahlman steered into the parking lot, climbed out of his car and looked around. It was pretty obvious why the store had gone out of business. The surrounding neighborhood had been leveled. Nothing but dirt and weeds and garbage—everything from two liter soda bottles to rusted washing machines—where rows of houses had once been. There was a big sign at the edge of the desolate expanse, a billboard with a land developer’s name on it and a picture of the wonderful new neighborhood that was supposed to be coming soon.

RIVERFRONT LOTS!

EASY COMMUTES!

GREAT SCHOOLS!

But the sign was faded, and it had bullet holes in it, and Wahlman guessed that the deal had fallen through at some point, and that the shiny new dwellings were never going to be built.

The outside of the store was a mess. More garbage—whiskey bottles and insulin syringes and empty cans of spray paint and wadded-up bags from fast food joints. Sheets of plywood had been bolted over the windows and doors, and posters that said DEMOLITION ZONE and KEEP AWAY had been tacked up sporadically along the sidewalk. The posters were as faded as the billboard, which made Wahlman wonder if anyone was even keeping an eye on the place anymore. And except for its proximity to the river, it was about as far from being a yacht club as a place could possibly be.

Wahlman checked his cell phone. Still no signal. He started back toward his car, stopped and turned around when someone behind him shouted, “Hey.”

Three guys stood at the far corner of the store, about a hundred feet from where Wahlman was standing. They were all about the same size. Average height, with physiques that probably hadn’t been achieved entirely by natural means. The one on the left had a shaved head and a handlebar mustache, and the one on the right had long hair pulled back in a ponytail, and the one in the middle wore a sleeveless t-shirt with a candy bar logo stamped on the front.

They started walking Wahlman’s way, stopped about ten feet in front of him.

“You’re trespassing,” Handlebar Mustache said.

“I was just leaving,” Wahlman said.

“You a cop?”

“No.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I was looking for the Falls City Yellowwood Yacht Club.”

Ponytail laughed.

“Does this look like a yacht club to you?” he said.

“It looks like a dump,” Wahlman said.

“That’s exactly what it is,” Handlebar Mustache said. “And there’s a fee for using it.”

“How much?”

“How much you got?”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” Wahlman said.

“You trying to be funny?”

“That’s how much the three of you are going to save on medical expenses if you turn around and walk the other way,” Wahlman said.

“Hand over the wallet,” Ponytail said.

“You didn’t say please,” Wahlman said.

Handlebar Mustache took a step forward.

“Give it up,” he said.

Wahlman didn’t hand over his wallet.

“You guys have probably heard about robberies that have gone wrong,” he said. “This is going to be one of those. Only it’s not going to go wrong for me. It’s going to go wrong for you.”

Candy Bar had been silent until now.

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