Free Make Me by Lee Child Page B

circumstances, even after they were operational again. Which might be a supplementary hour all by itself.
    Then he walked back and got in the Ford, and Chang drove on. From time to time he turned around and checked the view. The parked truck stayed visible for a long time, dwindling to a tiny dull pinprick in the far distance, and then it fell below the northern horizon and was lost to sight.
    —
    It took nearly three more hours to get to the highway, and then the distance markers promised another two to Oklahoma City. The drive was uneventful, until a point about ninety minutes out, when all kinds of chiming and beeping started coming from the phone in Chang’s pocket. Voice mails and text messages and e-mails, all patiently stored and now downloading.
    Cell service was back.

Chapter 15
    Chang drove one-handed and juggled her phone, but Reacher said, “We should pull off the road. Before the tourist lady gets in a wreck for real. We should get a cup of coffee.”
    Chang said, “I don’t understand how you drink so much coffee.”
    “Law of gravity,” Reacher said. “If you tip it up, it comes right out. You can’t help but drink it.”
    “Your heart must be thumping all the time.”
    “Better than the alternative.”
    A mile later they saw a sign and took an exit that led to a standard linear array of pit-stop facilities, including a gas station, and bathrooms, and an old-fashioned plain stone building in a federal style somewhat disfigured by bright neon signs for modern chain store coffee and food. They parked and got out and stretched. It was the middle of the afternoon, and still warm. They used the bathrooms and met in the coffee shop. Reacher got his usual medium cup of hot black, and Chang got iced, with milk. They found a corner table, and Chang put her phone down. It was a thin touch-screen thing about the size of a paperback book. She swiped and dabbed and scrolled, first through the phone options, and then the text messages, and then the e-mail.

    She said, “Nothing from Keever.”
    “Try calling him again.”
    “We both know he won’t answer.”
    “Stranger things have happened. Once I had three police departments and the National Guard looking for a guy, and all of a sudden he showed up, fresh back from a vacation out of state.”
    “We know Keever isn’t on vacation.”
    “Try him anyway.”
    Which she did, after a long reluctant pause, first on his home number, and then on his cell number.
    There was no reply on either.
    Reacher said, “Try the Los Angeles number again. From the piece of paper with the two hundred deaths.”
    Chang nodded, keen to move on. She dialed, and held the phone to her ear.
    This time the call was answered.
    She said, a little surprised, “Good afternoon, sir. May I know who I’m speaking with?”
    Which question must have been answered in the obvious manner, the same way Reacher had, with a previous inquiry: Who’s asking?
    She said, “My name is Michelle Chang. I’m a private detective, based in Seattle. Previously I was with the FBI. Now I work with a man named Keever. I think he might have called you. Your number was found in his motel room.”
    Reacher had no idea what was asked next, all the way out there in Los Angeles, but he pretty soon realized it must have been an inquiry as to how to spell Keever, because Chang said, “K-e-e-v-e-r.”
    A long pause, and then a reply, almost certainly negative, because Chang said, “Can you be certain of that?”
    And then there was a long conversation, mostly one-sided, definitely biased toward the LA guy doing all the talking, which Reacher couldn’t hear, and Chang’s facial expressions could have launched a thousand competing scenarios, so he got no real guidance from her. He had a sense the guy worked hard on one thing after another, episodically. And in great detail. Maybe he was an actor. Or a movie person. The context was unclear. In the end Reacher gave up trying to construct a plausible narrative, and