Free Jack and Joe: Hunt for Jack Reacher Series (The Hunt for Jack Reacher Series Book 6) by Diane Capri

razor scars. The cuts had been deep. The white scars crisscrossed over most of his forehead, both cheeks, and his chin. The scars glowed in the spotlight. His nose had been broken several times. It looked like a blob in the center of the latticed scars. His brows were gnarled and the eyes beneath them were the smallest things on his face.
    No way would I want to meet either of these two anywhere without a full clip in my gun.
    Again, I said, “Tell me what happened here tonight.”
    “Guy wanted one of the girls. She didn’t want him.” Alvin shrugged. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
    “Did you know him?”
    “He was probably just passing through. Got stuck here like everybody else. Drank too much.” He shrugged again. “It happens.”
    I believed him. The Lucky Bar was the kind of place where fights were common. He should have had medics on retainer.
    Alvin looked toward the bodies. “Some of these boys was soldiers. You call out to Bird, too? Get the MPs on the way?”
    “I did.”
    “Good.” Alvin lowered his chin again as if he knew how extremely unpleasant his face was to watch.
    “What about the woman?” My questions were partly to keep him occupied and partly to be sure he remained conscious. His blood loss was a problem. If the medics didn’t arrive soon, he could lose the arm, for sure. Or lose more than that.
    “Gloria. She hadn’t been workin’ here very long. She was always a quiet one since she was a girl.”
    “Gloria was a local woman?”
    “Until she married.”
    “I noticed your limp. Were you shot in the leg, too?”
    Alvin looked up at me again. He blinked his tiny eyelids. His eyes looked like raisins in a giant dough ball. “Naw. Old injury to my knee. Twenty years back. I got the knee replaced, but the bones and muscles don’t work right.”
    Junior glared at me like an angry Rottweiler. “And one of these days, we’ll find the asshole who did that, too.” His voice was curiously high-pitched for a big man. Steroids were probably responsible for that, too.
    “What do you mean?”
    “He was passin’ through. Ain’t never been back.” He stuck out his chin. His smallish hands flexed into fists on top of his massive thighs. “But the Army ain’t protectin’ him no more. Big, bad, cheap-shotting MP.” He sneered. “Won’t be neither so big or nor so bad once we find him. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
    Big, bad, MP? Twenty years ago? “Do you know his name?” The frissons running up and down my central nervous system foretold the answer.
    “Reacher. Jack Reacher.” He must’ve seen interest in my eyes because his eyes lit in return. “Oh, you know him. You know him?”
    I shook my head. “Never met the man.”
    But he wasn’t buying. “You see him,” he said, “you tell him to watch his back.”
    On the list of Army don’ts that got Reacher busted back, Major Clifton had included civilian complaints. Reacher was only at Fort Bird a short time and he’d managed to make more enemies than a terrorist. No surprise.
    Sirens wailed in the distance, moving toward The Lucky Bar , but they weren’t closing the gap fast enough. I stepped to the doorway and looked outside. Several people were still down on the pavement, but others were trying to render aid.
    I counted seven men and two women injured on the ground. Others seemed to be simply waiting on the ground because standing on the ice was impossible.
    I turned back and tilted my head toward the bodies inside the bar. “Will you sit here while I check on the others, Alvin? Can I trust you and Junior to do that?”
    Alvin nodded. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere. Got nowhere to go.”
    “Ain’t got much left here, neither,” Junior added.
    “You have any overhead lights?”
    Alvin pointed with his chin to a side wall near the bar. I walked a few steps and flipped the lights on.
    The Lucky Bar had looked a lot better in the dark.
    The place had been old and damaged before tonight’s melee