He sat on the floor beside her, held the light a couple of inches under his chin. Harsh and dramatic shadows accented every line on his face, every wrinkle, every hairy pore. And there, on his left cheek where Vaughan had slashed him with the broken toilet tank lid, was a winding series of crude stitches, a ghastly S-shaped disfigurement that looked like something that had crawled out from under a rock.
“It was not my intention to scar you for life,” Vaughan said. “I was going for your throat. I was trying to kill you.”
“I thought I told you to be quiet. I can tape a rag in your mouth if that’s what you want.”
Sozinho spoke from the right side of his mouth-the only side that was working properly at the moment-which made it seem almost as though he was trying to convey sarcasm. Also, he was having difficulty pronouncing certain consonants, which caused a phrase like I can tape a rag to come out as I can take a nag. Garbled and nonsensical, although Vaughan knew what he meant because of the context.
“I understand they’re doing great things with plastic surgery these days,” she said. “Maybe you can use some of the money you’ve made from killing people to have your face fixed.”
“You don’t understand. They’ll never be able to make it like it was. I’m ruined. One of my main assets was my ordinariness, my ability to walk the streets unnoticed. Now, because of this, I will be instantly recognized everywhere I go.”
“Then I did good,” Vaughan said.
Sozinho glared at her with a hatred that was palpable. He sat there in silence for a few seconds, and then he propped the flashlight against one corner of the bed, aiming it upward so that a cone of light reflected off the white ceiling. While he was doing that, his cell phone rang. He got up and walked over to the table, looked at the caller ID but didn’t answer. It rang again a minute or so later. Same thing. He didn’t take the call.
“You know, I hardly ever use a gun for my work,” he said. “I prefer the intimacy of a nice sharp blade.”
“Is this where I get to hear your speech about how much you’re going to enjoy killing me?”
“Yes. This is exactly where you get to hear my speech about that. I’ve been rehearsing it in my mind, just for you.”
“Save it. I’m not afraid to die. And I’ll go happy now, knowing that I did something-inadvertent as it was-to take one more scumbag out of circulation.”
Sozinho got up and walked over to the bed. Vaughan couldn’t see what he was doing, but a few seconds later she heard the sound of cloth being ripped apart.
“I warned you,” he said.
“But I thought we were having such a nice conversation.”
He knelt down beside her and forced a strip of the cotton pillowcase fabric into her mouth, tore off a piece of duct tape and pressed it over her lips in an arc spanning earlobe to earlobe. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pill bottle and rattled it over her face.
“Narcotic pain tablets,” he said. “I bet you wish you could have one, but you can’t. I might have shared if you’d behaved yourself a little better. Now I’m going to keep them all for myself. I took one in the bathroom a few minutes ago, and I’m feeling better already. How about you? Is that foot hurting you? That’s nothing compared to what’s coming. As soon as the man in the black leather jacket gives me the go-ahead, I’m going to inflict more pain on you than you ever thought possible. You’ll be begging me to let you die, but I won’t. Not until every last nerve has been tapped.”
The cell phone rang again. Sozinho got up and walked to the table and looked at it. A contorted smile curled up on the right side of his mouth as he lifted the device and clicked on to answer the call. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there and listened for a few seconds, and then he walked back over and knelt down and peeled the duct tape off and pulled the rag out and held the phone up to Vaughan’s lips.
She figured there was only one person Sozinho would allow her to talk to.
“Don’t come,” she shouted. “It’s a trap.”
Sozinho clicked off before anything else could be said.
Vaughan never actually heard Jack Reacher’s voice, so she wasn’t a hundred percent certain that it was him on the other end. But if it was, she hoped that he would heed her warning and stay far, far away from Colorado.
She hoped that he would stay away, but somewhere deep in her heart she knew that he wouldn’t.
15
Retro’s shift was almost over. He could have filed his written reports for the day, and he could have relayed any pertinent information about Vaughan’s abduction to the oncoming patrol officer, and then he could have gone on home.
But that wasn’t what he wanted to do.
He wanted to find Vaughan.
Not that he thought he could do it singlehandedly. He had to be back on the job at seven the next morning, and he couldn’t work around the clock, but he wanted to see what Mira came up with for the sketch artist before he called it a day.
He took a sip of his coffee, glanced over and saw her walk back out from behind the partition holding a brown paper bag in one hand and a denim jacket in the other.
“Here’s your sandwich,” she said, placing the bag on the table beside Retro’s coffee mug.
“Thanks,” Retro said. “Ready to go?”
“Yes. I have to be home by nine, though. My babysitter has school tomorrow.”
Retro nodded. He slid out of the booth, grabbed the brown paper bag. It was warm, and some grease had soaked through to the bottom. He wondered if it would make it to the parking lot without falling apart.
Mira shrugged into her jacket and started walking toward the exit.
Retro followed.
“I’ll be out in just a minute,” he said, stopping at the front counter.
“Okay.”
Mira walked on outside. Retro got the attention of another waitress and asked for a plastic bag for his sandwich.
“We’re out of the small ones,” she said.
“That’s all right. Whatever you have.”
She brought him a big white thing with handles that could have held dinner for ten. He thanked her and dropped the greasy paper bag into the huge plastic bag, shouldered his way through the door and walked around the side of the building to the parking area.
Mira was standing beside the cruiser, on the passenger’s side, looking at the identifier painted on the front fender.
Unit Two.
“Is this the car you’ve been driving all day?” she said.
“It’s the car I’ve been driving all year.”
Mira walked around the engine compartment and looked at the fender on the other side.
“But I thought you were in Unit One this morning,” she said.
“I wasn’t. Unit One is Officer Vaughan’s car.”
“Oh. Well, I’m pretty sure I saw it going that way,” she said, pointing west.
“When?”
“Probably about fifteen minutes after Officer Vaughan walked out of the restaurant this morning.”
That changed everything. Retro opened the passenger’s door for Mira, and then he ran around to the driver’s side and climbed in and started the car and sped toward the station.
16
Vaughan knew exactly where she was now. She couldn’t believe that Sozinho had agreed to stay here, although it was obvious why the man in the black leather jacket had chosen the location.
It was the last place anyone would ever think of looking.