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The Jack Reacher Cases (The Man Who Stands Tall)

Dan Ames

Slogan Books, New York, NY

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Copyright © 2019 by Dan Ames

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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

THE MAN WHO STANDS TALL

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Also by Dan Ames

THE MAN WHO STANDS TALL

The Jack Reacher Cases - Book 10

by

Dan Ames

“…the wicked are ensnared

by the work of their hands.”

-Psalm 9:16

Chapter One

Julia Rafferty stood and looked out at the Atlantic Ocean, marveling at her naiveté.

The water was a stunning blue with shades of emerald and turquoise worthy of the highest-priced tourism photography shot for an advertisement promoting a remote island in the Caribbean.

However, she was not by any means on a remote island.

She hadn’t even left the continental United States.

No, she was standing on the sands of Delray Beach, Florida, looking east across the vast Atlantic, imagining the white cliffs of Dover or whatever landfall was the first to greet sailors heading for Europe. At this time of year, the Atlantic was remarkably calm and temperate. In fact, she’d heard recreational boaters would sometimes leave the east coast of Florida and motor over to the Bahamas, arriving in two hours or so.

Julia felt naïve because she had no idea the water here could be so warm and crystal clear. She’d always imagined the beaches on the Atlantic side of Florida as being cold and frankly, scary. So close to deep water and the creatures that inhabit the depths, like great white sharks. She had assumed the other side of the state – the Gulf coast side – was where you would find shallow, turquoise waters.

Of course, she knew it was the dead of summer. Mid-August in Florida was staggeringly hot and humid, the kind of heat that caused you to break into a deep sweat just walking down the block. It was like being wrapped in a warm, wet blanket while the sun acted like a microwave, making the blanket even hotter.

It’s why the place was half-empty after all. The snowbirds, as they were called, had all departed hot Florida for their original homes “up north.” Months back the freeways heading north had been clogged with minivans, motor homes and cars festooned with clothing racks from which the warm-weather seekers hung their Florida gear. They would soon be replaced with sweatshirts bearing college names like Michigan, Syracuse and NYU.

“Mom, look!” Julia’s son Todd held up the remains of a horseshoe crab. Julia could see flies buzzing around the rest of the carcass which was still resisting being dragged back into the ocean by the waves. Julia thought horseshoe crabs were creepy, so clearly dating back hundreds of thousands of years. Like aliens from a different planet.

Even though she was thinking mostly of germs and how gross the thing looked, she gave her son an enthusiastic thumbs-up while simultaneously remembering she had a tube of hand sanitizer in her beach bag.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Julia turned to see the already pinkish face of her husband Steven. He was of mostly Irish descent and his pale skin burned quickly. Some of his sunblock had washed off after a swim, so Julia smeared a dollop onto her palm and quickly gave the pink sections of her husband’s body a second coat.

“Spectacular. Who knew the water was like this?” she answered.

Steven’s business had brought them to Delray Beach for a week-long conference. He was a neurologist and frequently attended seminars where other doctors showcased new techniques and innovations within the field. Back home in Portland, Oregon, Steven Rafferty was frequently voted to the “Top Docs” list that came out every year. Julia was immensely proud of her husband and was glad he could take an afternoon off from medical discussions to join them on the beach.

Julia was always happy when the three of them were together, although sometimes at moments like these she felt a pang over them being a trio and not a quartet or a quintet, even.

There had been complications with Todd’s birth that had rendered her unable to continue having children. They had discussed adoption, especially after reading some of the issues that only children can have, but by then Steven’s practice had grown immensely and Julia had started to work again. Ultimately, adoption discussions trailed off and were never revived.

She worked occasionally as a research assistant primarily for fiction writers. It was fascinating work and allowed her to use parts of her mind that often weren’t required by motherhood. She enjoyed the pursuit of tracking down and verifying certain types of information. In fact, it was similar in some ways to what her sister Lauren did for a living. Lauren Pauling was a former FBI agent and private investigator and Julia’s only sibling. Lauren was also Todd’s godmother.

Julia saw her sister occasionally, once or twice a year and they chatted or texted regularly. But Lauren was a busy woman although she had told Julia that she’d just sold her private investigative firm for a bundle and was considering next steps. Julia had invited Lauren down to Florida but their schedules hadn’t worked out.

A cloud momentarily passed over the sun and the shade instantly cooled her skin. Julia felt the ocean breeze, a bit cooler now and glanced over toward their rental car parked along the A1A – a narrow strip of road that worked its way all along the coast. Julia felt the cool air and a slight chill ran down her spine as she made eye contact with a man sitting in the sand just in front of their rented minivan.

He was staring directly at her. It wasn’t something Julia was foreign to. Like her sister, Julia had blonde hair and stunning green eyes. Even though many would consider her an “older Mom,” Julia had quickly regained her curvaceous body after having Todd years ago, and that gorgeous body was now on full display in a teal bikini.

The man didn’t look away from Julia’s direct gaze and so she turned back to her husband.

The cloud passed and the sun came back out, washing the beach in hot sunlight once again.

“Want a beer?” Steven asked, holding up a chilled bottle of Corona with a fresh lime wedge jammed into its mouth.

“Don’t mind if I do,” she answered.

Chapter Two

“Before we begin, I just wanted to give a shout-out to the company’s founder and current consultant, Lauren Pauling.”

The man speaking was Karl Furlong, the new CEO of the firm Pauling had built from the ground up. It was the company’s first official “state of the union” and since Pauling was still technically a part of the firm, albeit in a casual, even token role, Furlong had invited her to sit in on the meeting.

Naturally, they were not in the offices Pauling had used while she headed the organization. Furlong and his team had promptly moved equipment and personnel from that location to the headquarters, a sprawling office complex taking up the 11th and 12th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper.

Among light applause, Pauling nodded to the group surrounding the giant black onyx conference table. Out of the twenty or so executives seated, Pauling and two others were the only women present. There were glass pitchers of water placed strategically at key points on the table, and everyone was gazing at a leather folio that had been placed in front of them, along with a pen and notepad.

Furlong turned the microphone over to the company’s new chief financial officer, who breezed through the current revenue streams and associated expenses. Pauling noted all of the arrows were pointing up, with one especially large spike from what appeared to be less than three months ago.

“Yes, despite not all of you being accounting professionals, I’m sure you can all see the jump in revenue at the beginning of the last quarter,” the company’s CFO said. “Here to explain that exciting development is Henry Torcher.”

The CFO sat down and a big man with broad shoulders and a large, block head stood at the head of the table. He looked like he could be the starting linebacker for the Chicago Bears if his career in corporate security didn’t take off. Although, that didn’t appear to be the case according to these numbers, Pauling thought.

“Yes, I’m here to tell you about some exciting news,” Torcher began. “You may have heard rumors about a new client and I’m here to confirm that we did in fact land the Zeta Corporation’s entire security account, from top to bottom. Estimated spend this year is nearly one hundred million dollars and their projections indicate that could grow ten to twenty percent per year for the next five years.”

More applause broke out and Pauling noted that some of the members around the table were less enthusiastic than others. Competitors of Torcher, perhaps?

“If you turn to the first appendix in your folio you’ll see some of the firm’s detailed needs for security and background issues,” Torcher continued. “Obviously, I’m not going to go over each item now, but you can review them at your own discretion as some of you will very quickly be pulled into some immediate projects right out of the gate.”

Pauling flipped to the appendix and scanned the security needs which were all fairly standard. However, when she reached the company’s information it was remarkably scant. Surely a company with this size of budget would have more information – unless Torcher had been so busy with landing the account he hadn’t put in as much effort at providing background than Pauling would have liked.

The meeting carried on for nearly an hour longer with short speeches from the legal department, human resources and public relations. Eventually, Furlong stepped to the head of the table and closed the meeting. As people were gathering their things, Pauling approached Torcher.

“Congratulations on that new account,” she said to him.

He turned and she was struck by the size of the man. He was as big as Jack Reacher, maybe even bigger. His head was enormous with a thick shock of silvery hair and a dark beard. His eyes were ice blue and she could feel their intensity.

“Thank you,” he said. “Just trying to continue your winning streak.” He flashed a smile and Pauling thought it seemed a little forced – or was she just a little peeved that the company was doing so well without her?

“What was the deal with the lack of background info on Zeta, if you don’t mind my asking? Let me guess – you were rushed into breaking the news?”

“Exactly,” he said with a laugh. “I had no idea I was even presenting this until about two hours ago, so I cobbled together what I could. I’d be happy to send you the full dossier we’ve got going on them, as well as our initial presentation.”

“That would be great,” Pauling said. She handed him her business card with the email she’d been given for the new firm.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said.

They shook hands again and his meaty paw totally enveloped her hand and did he give it a little extra squeeze?

Chapter Three

Sand was everywhere.

Julia marveled at its ability to infiltrate every nook and cranny of every single item they’d brought to the beach. Despite her best efforts to rinse their feet and beach sandals, along with vigorously shaking out the beach towels, Julia noted with dismay the scattered sand all around the kitchen floor.

Todd was already flopped in front of the television watching a baseball game and Steven was in the shower.

Their cottage was a rental, just two blocks from the beach. It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, along with an open kitchen and living room. It was small but neat, clean and perfect for the three of them to relax. Back home, they had a big, turn-of-the-century house built on one of Portland’s many bluffs. As much as she loved their Portland home, at times she thought it was simply too big for three people, even though she had a cleaning service come once a week.

Now, Julia was pleased to note how nice the smaller space fit them. Maybe once Todd was off to college she and Steven would downsize. Julia had no problem with that, although Steven might want to keep the big house in case Todd eventually married and had children, as a big house would serve them well for family get-togethers.

Julia again thought of her sister Lauren, and knew that the time for her sister to have a family of her own had probably passed. Adoption was always an option, but Julia knew that Lauren was still very driven professionally and might never choose to become a Mom, which Julia actually admired.

It took courage in this day and age for a woman to focus on other things. Peer pressure didn’t stop with being a teenager.

Julia found the vacuum stashed in a closet off the kitchen and used it to clean the sand from the floor, knowing it was a futile effort. She’d also purchased two dozen shrimp from a local market and was looking forward to making them for dinner.

She realized she’d left the small cooler with the rest of the beer in the car. Julia put the vacuum away, walked through the living room, past Todd watching his baseball game and went to the minivan.

Sunset had passed and it was now twilight – the air was considerably cooler and the ocean breeze felt fantastic. Julia thought maybe she and Steven would sit outside tonight after Todd went to bed. Enjoy an evening cocktail and take advantage of the cooler air.

She went to the back of the minivan and opened the rear door. The cooler had slid over to the side and somehow they had all missed it. The Corona would go great with the shrimp–

Julia felt a shadow pass over her at the same time she heard the sound of a foot shifting slightly on the parking lot’s sand-covered asphalt.

And then a hand with a cloth reeking of chemical smell clamped over her mouth. She struggled and lunged toward the cottage but arms held her in place and she tried to kick backward but she couldn’t make her legs move.

Quickly, the twilight sky turned to pitch-black.

Chapter Four

Pauling returned home to her loft-style apartment on Barrow Street in the heart of New York City.

Even though she’d made a commitment to Michael Tallon, she’d kept her home in Manhattan and he had kept his small ranch compound out west. The city was still home to her, even though she’d spent more and more time with Tallon at his place and that had begun to feel like home, too.

There was just something about her pad here in the Big Apple that Pauling felt like she would always keep it. It was where she’d moved after her time with the Bureau, a highly emotional and challenging time of her life. And when her private security firm had started to make some serious money, she’d made a down payment on Barrow Street and immediately begun the renovations that ultimately created the perfect space for her. And due to a case that had hit a little too close to home, the apartment now featured a state-of-the-art security system that provided more than enough comfort to her.

The thought of Tallon made her pick up the phone and give him a call.

“Hey,” he said.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“Just finished cleaning the boys after some time on the range.” The boys were his euphemistic term for his guns. Tallon was a crack shot, but she’d given him a run for his money on more than one occasion.

“How about you?” he asked.

She told him about the meeting. It was the reason she was in New York and Tallon wasn’t. It had meant to be a short trip and she had a return flight to Las Vegas booked for the day after tomorrow.

“So what, you don’t think this company is legit?” Tallon asked, reading between the lines of her description of the Zeta Corporation.

“No, I’m sure it is, I just thought it was unusual. Even with the short notice, there should have been more background. It’s not the way I would have done it.”

The minute she said it, she knew what Tallon was going to say.

“Is that what’s bothering you?”

That was the thing about being in a relationship, sometimes just the act of talking to someone provided a mirror – letting you see things deep down you already really knew.

“Maybe,” she admitted. “Maybe not.”

They talked a bit longer, said they loved each other and then Pauling disconnected the call.

She was looking forward to seeing him again, even though they’d only been apart less than a week. Still, it was good to let a relationship breathe, especially with a man like Michael Tallon.

He was a bit of a lone wolf, not to the extreme like Jack Reacher, but still, he needed space to enjoy some solitude and although he would never express that need, Pauling knew him well enough, and knew men well enough in general to understand the desire for space.

Hell, Pauling needed it, too.

All she had was her work, Tallon, and her sister Julia.

The thought of Julia gave Pauling pause and she felt an odd sensation that had her reaching for her phone again. They’d spoken a couple of weeks ago and Pauling knew that her sister was vacationing in Florida while her husband Steven attended a medical conference.

She sent Julia a text.

How’s Florida?

Several hours later, there still wasn’t a reply.

Chapter Five

Steven Rafferty emerged from the shower, his pale skin now turned freshly pink.

He was also sporting a mask of slight disappointment that his wife Julia wasn’t there. He’d secretly hoped after they both showered that perhaps there was time for a little fooling around – there was always something about the beach and sunshine that seemed to put his sex drive into a whole new gear. Ordinarily, he was fairly low-key sexually speaking, but something about vacation, the beach and the sun revved him up.

He could hear the baseball game on in the living room which would have been the perfect camouflage for he and Julia to get intimately reacquainted.

Oh well.

He put on a pair of linen shorts and a cotton peasant-style shirt and padded out to the kitchen. It was empty.

“Where’s Mom?” he asked Todd.

His son nodded toward the parking lot. “I think she was getting something from the van.”

Steven glanced at the television screen.

“Who’s playing?” he asked.

“Yankees and Red Sox.”

Steven wasn’t much of a baseball fan, so he peeked into the fridge and saw there was one beer left. He twisted off the cap and looked at the packages of shrimp they’d bought for dinner. Julia must have set them in the sink to thaw.

Maybe he’d take the initiative and start dinner.

He wasn’t sure how Julia had planned to cook the shrimp but he decided to sauté them, so he found a big frying pan, sliced off a chunk of butter and fed some garlic and onion into the butter, putting the heat at low.

Immediately, the small kitchen was rich with the aroma of food cooking. Nothing smelled better than butter, onion and garlic simmering on low.

He checked the shrimp, saw that they’d already been peeled and de-veined, which he preferred. Steven was hesitant to add the shrimp until he knew when Julia wanted to eat.

He turned the frying pan to the lowest setting, walked through the living room and out to the parking lot.

The first thing he noticed was that the rear hatch door of the minivan was still open. He walked to the back and looked inside. The small cooler they’d used at the beach was on its side, spilled ice was melting on the minivan’s carpet and three bottles of Corona beer had fallen out of the cooler.

He looked around the parking lot.

“Julia?” he called out.

There was no answer. He put the beers back into the small cooler and brushed the ice onto the parking lot.

He shut the minivan’s door and went back into the rental cottage, thinking maybe Julia had gone into Todd’s room to take a nap.

But Todd’s room was empty.

Steven felt his pulse quicken and the first vestiges of fear creep into his thought process.

He went back to the main bedroom and looked in the bathroom and closet. Maybe she’d come in through the cottage’s rear door when he wasn’t looking.

But she was definitely not in the cottage.

No sign of Julia.

Steven hurried back through the living room.

“Turn that off. Come outside and help me,” he told Todd.

Steven had grabbed his phone from the kitchen counter and tapped on Julia’s icon to speed dial. He heard her phone ring, and could tell it was coming from inside the cottage.

“Shit,” Steven muttered.

Todd was looking around.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

And then, after a beat, “Where’s Mom?”

Chapter Six

Since the house had no basement, the man known as Ezra had his men dump the unconscious woman on the floor of the wine cellar. Again, not really a cellar, but a small room with a carefully controlled climate and a heavy oaken door fitted with a lock controlled by a security code.

His new captive was a strikingly good-looking woman, despite her age. A wonderfully firm and curvy body, pretty face and great hair. Ezra surmised all this even though she had a piece of duct tape across her mouth and her hands were zip tied behind her back.

Ezra took a seat next to the woman and caught his reflection in the glass door of a wine cooler. He was diminutive but sharp-looking, and his dress slacks, black silk shirt and silver chain with a crucifix gave him a look of nonchalant elegance, he opined.

As good-looking as he was, he immediately knew the woman on the floor was the kind who wouldn’t give him the time of day. He was “ethnic” and she looked like she could be on the cover of the latest Lilly Pulitzer catalog.

The woman had on what the ladies call a “cover up” beneath which was a rather fetching bikini. Ezra noted the woman’s perfect ass – round, firm and inviting.

It was a shame he couldn’t keep this one for himself. My, the fun he could have with her, even though she was a bit older than his normal fare.

What was that line from the movie about the Grand Budapest Hotel? Something about how in your youth it’s all filet steak but as you get older you have to move on to the cheaper cuts.

Yes, that was it, Ezra knew.

He didn’t feel that way but he was a connoisseur of sort and there was nothing wrong with mixing things up now and then. Maybe taking a break from his usual bevy of late teens to early twenties lovers with a more mature, full-bodied vintage.

He smiled.

The woman stirred and opened her eyes.

Ezra’s crotch stirred at the sight – she had beautiful green eyes. Mesmerizing, in fact.

He knew a deal was a deal. And crossing the folks at the other end of this one was a very bad idea.

But wasn’t it that kind of danger that made life worth living?

For Ezra, it most definitely was.

Chapter Seven

It would not help to panic.

As a highly skilled and trained neurologist, Steven Rafferty was an expert in being the face of calm. Breaking bad news to patients, often the worst kind of news a human being could face, had given him plenty of experience in controlling his own emotions.

But this was different.

Still, he managed to keep his voice steady as he instructed Todd to join him in the minivan, leaving the rented cottage unlocked just in case Julia returned home.

Julia was an avid walker, and Steven entertained the possibility that his wife had merely wanted to take a stroll before dinner, something she occasionally did back in Portland. Odd, though, that she hadn’t said anything to anyone. Usually, she would have invited one or both of them to go with her.

Even worse, she almost always took her phone.

Try as he might, Steven couldn’t help but look at the details in a negative light. Julia was also a woman who paid great attention to detail, and would never have left the back door of the minivan open. If there was one thing that caused his panic to increase, it was that.

So he and Todd drove through the neighborhood, looking for any sign of her. Steven had Todd find a good photo of Julia on his phone and they even stopped strangers who were walking and asked if they’d seen the woman in the photo.

No one had.

As a completely last ditch effort, Steven and Todd parked the van and walked the beach, using the access point she most likely would have taken from the cottage.

There was no sign of her.

Dejected and now his panic turning to outright fear, Steven returned to the rental home hoping he would find his wife there, with a perfectly logical explanation of where she’d gone.

But the cottage was empty.

“What are we going to do?” Todd asked. “Call the police?”

Steven knew the cops usually demanded a 24-hour time period before initiating a search for a missing person.

“No,” Steven said. “But I am going to make a call.”

Chapter Eight

For Pauling, packing a suitcase had become second nature.

She’d lived out of one for many years as an FBI agent, and as the owner of a thriving security firm, Pauling had traveled extensively to meet with clients and check in with ongoing investigations.

For years, she never checked a bag.

She’d become an expert at making the most of a carry-on bag. It had been a necessity – time was always of the essence back then and waiting for the baggage handlers to unload the plane or even worse, tracking down lost luggage, simply wasn’t an option.

Things were different now.

Her flight back to Tallon’s home was tomorrow and she allowed herself the luxury of one of her bigger suitcases. The kind you have to check. It was such a luxury to not have to fret over space in a suitcase.

She smiled to herself.

Was this what being semi-retired was like?

If so, she kind of enjoyed it.

Pauling had tossed her phone on the bed next to the suitcase and it started ringing.

She saw that it was Steven Rafferty, her brother-in-law.

Odd for him to be calling, especially as she’d left her sister a message and still hadn’t received a response, which was unusual.

A flash of worry crossed her mind and she picked up the phone.

“Hey Steven,” she said.

“Lauren,” he said, “I’m trying not to panic but I can’t find Julia.”

When she heard her sister’s highly composed and reserved husband speak with a cracked voice, Pauling’s worst fears were realized.

Chapter Nine

In her mind, she was in bed with her husband. They’d gone to the beach, had a nice meal of shrimp and a few beers, maybe even fooled around a little bit because she knew the sunshine and fresh air had that effect on Steven, and then gone to bed.

Maybe she hadn’t slept well because she was groggy and her body was stiff and sore. That, too, was odd because she remembered being pleasantly surprised by the quality of the mattresses in the rental cottage.

Slowly, Julia emerged from semi-consciousness and instantly knew she was wrong.

About everything.

She wasn’t in bed with Steven.

She wasn’t even in a bed.

No, Julia knew she was on her side on a floor with her hands tied in front of her and her feet bound as well.

Her eyes snapped open.

She tried to open her mouth but couldn’t. The sticky swatch across her mouth was duct tape, she was sure. For a moment, panic set in and she started to hyperventilate.

Get it under control, she told herself.

Julia imagined her husband, used his constant sense of self-control to slow her breathing and then utilize the senses she did have.

At first, she wondered if it was some kind of a prank. Maybe it was a game like those escape rooms that were all the rage and someone was going to let her struggle for a few minutes and then the game would be over. The lights would turn on, her hands would be untied and Steven and Todd would come out and they’d all have a good laugh.

She closed her eyes and knew it wasn’t the case.

She’d been taken. By someone. For some reason.

Calm, she told herself. Panic is the enemy.

It was dark, but she could make out the walls. Very close quarters.

A closet?

The smell. It was devoid of any mildew-type odors so she knew she wasn’t in a basement. Also, there was no presence of the cleaners you can usually detect in a motel or hotel room, so she guessed it was probably a private residence.

What could she hear?

Nothing.

It was dead quiet.

Julia cringed at the word dead.

She didn’t want to think about it.

It had to be some kind of mistake. They had confused her with someone else. No one wanted a middle-aged mother for anything nefarious.

Julia wished she hadn’t left her phone in the cottage. Then again, they probably would have taken it away from her. She thought about that word: they. Who were they? Who had taken her? And why did she think of it in plural? How did she know it wasn’t just one person?

The answer, of course, was that she didn’t.

She didn’t know anything.

It was then that her mind turned to her son.

Todd would not be handling this well.

Suddenly, she became angry.

There was no way Julia would allow herself to become a victim. She thought of her sister Lauren, the strongest, toughest woman she knew.

Well, she could be that way, too.

Julia clenched her teeth together and vowed that whomever had taken her was about to find out they’d chosen the wrong woman.

Chapter Ten

“Start from the beginning,” Pauling said. She heard Steven on the other end of the line take a deep breath.

She listened as he explained their day at the beach, return to the cottage, how he’d gone into the shower and when he got out, she was gone.

“The van door was open? Had it been locked?” Pauling asked.

“Probably not,” Steven answered. “It’s a rental. The only thing we had in there was the small cooler, which was tipped over.”

Pauling knew her sister Julia was highly fastidious. No way she would have left the door open and a spilled cooler, even if it was a rental car.

“Did anything strange happen during the day? At the beach?”

There was a pause as Steven thought.

“No. Not that I know of.”

“How about before you left Oregon? Any threats against her? Or you?”

“No.”

Pauling knew it was easy to overreact in situations like this. Maybe a neighbor had asked Julia for help and she was still assisting that person. Julia was like that, always willing to think of others. Very compassionate.

“Run down the timeline again for me,” Pauling said.

She had a notepad in front of her and jotted down the times as Steven told them to her. It was also her way of getting him to run through the entire story a second time, to see if there were any inconsistencies.

It seemed perhaps a little cold, but Pauling was a seasoned law enforcement professional and she knew how it worked. She also knew that when a woman was harmed, the majority of the time the spouse, or someone close to her, was involved.

There were no inconsistencies in Steven’s story.

Not surprising as he was a very methodical man.

“So she’s been missing now for a little over five hours,” Pauling said.

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“Lauren, what should I do?” he asked. His voice was cracking.

“Call the police. Non-emergency line. Explain what happened.”

She looked at the suitcase on her bed.

“I’ll be on the first flight down I can find.”

Chapter Eleven

Tallon was disappointed when Pauling called him and said she wouldn’t be flying out as they’d planned.

He’d been looking forward to seeing her again and settling back into the groove as a couple.

He smiled. Listen to yourself, he said. You sound like a needy boyfriend on Dr. Phil.

Tallon had just about left for the grocery store to stock up on some of the fancier foods Pauling liked. Now, he would hold off and stick mostly to the grilled meats and vegetables diet he ate when left to his own devices.

There’s an issue with my sister, Pauling had said and left it at that.

Tallon wasn’t one to pry and he figured that if she’d wanted him to know more she would have told him. The only other detail she’d given was that her sister’s family was on vacation in Florida, so that’s where she was going.

Tallon had offered to help in any way but she’d declined.

Now, he reconsidered his schedule and decided to go ahead with a new workout regimen he’d considered. Mainly cutting a little bit of weight and extending his cardio sessions.

Which meant more, and longer, runs in the desert.

He looked out his window and saw the copper-colored sky that hovered over Death Valley.

Tallon smiled, thinking of the phrase he’d coined to describe his workouts in the legendary valley.

Chasing death.

Chapter Twelve

His drink of choice these days was a caipirinha which was a Brazilian concoction featuring cachaca, a liquor made from sugarcane. The drink was made by muddling sugar and lime with the cachaca.

It was sweet and very cooling and although Ezra was now sitting in a wine cellar, surrounded by various bottles of cabernet, merlot and chardonnay, the liquor seemed appropriate.

He raised his glass to the woman sitting on the floor.

“To your health,” he said and laughed.

The woman, whose name he still didn’t know, stared back at him with her cool green eyes.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“How could you possibly not know my name?” she asked. Her voice was deeper than he expected, almost with a little rasp to it, which made her even sexier. Ezra was already struggling to contain his inner urges, something he’d always had trouble with.

“I’m like a rancher who tries not to form tight bonds with his cattle,” he replied.

She said nothing.

“You are a cool one,” he continued. “I like that. I would love to see you not be cool and I know how to do that. You are like a dangerous dog who simply needs to be trained; however, I have promised not to give you any of the lessons you so obviously need.”

“You have an interesting accent. Where are you from?” she asked.

Her face was a mask of innocence but he had already seen her study his clothes, his expressions, the label of the wine bottles surrounding her. She was trying to gather as much information as she possibly could in hopes that it would somehow aid her in the quest for freedom.

For a brief moment he was tempted to tell her about the slums of Medellin, Colombia, that had been his home growing up. About the rat-infested streets, the air smelling like raw sewage, the people dying all around him from drugs.

How his apartment building had been erected with funds provided by Pablo Escobar, the only person to have actively worked to improve the slums. He’d been a hero to them all, even after he’d been shot down by the crooked cops.

Instead, he said, “Miami, of course. And you are not from Florida.”

“You don’t know my name – how do you know where I may or not be from?”

He laughed again. She was desperately trying to gain information without revealing anything about herself.

“You don’t have that Florida look,” he said. He used his fingers to make air quotes around the word look.

“And what is that?”

“Florida women, especially your age, typically have a hunger about them. It’s a mixture of desperation and the predatory approach it requires. Their looks are fading, like yours are, and they know time is running out. Sound familiar?”

Ezra laughed and saw that she was still keeping her cool.

He was impressed and drank the rest of his caipirinha.

Again, he had the urge to slowly remove her clothes and bend her over the chair, have his way with her. But as much fun as it would be, there would be a steep cost involved. Ignoring the orders of the organization who’d placed this order would come at a very high price.

One he was not currently willing to pay.

“It was nice to meet you,” he said. He set down his drink and leaned down to Julia, smelled her hair and ran his hand along her cheek.

And then he left.

Chapter Thirteen

Officer Paula Barbieri of the Delray Beach Police Department knocked on the door of the rental cottage just a few streets over from the beach. She’d gotten a call from dispatch that someone had phoned in a report of a missing woman.

It was nearing the end of her shift and she’d had a long day. These kinds of calls came in all the time and were almost always traced to excessive alcohol intake on the beach. Usually, it was a missing man who was later found passed out halfway down the beach, face down in the sand, his skin burned to the point of blisters.

Still, she would answer the call and see what was up.

She caught her reflection in the door and liked what she saw, which was nothing. Her uniform hid her body and her hair was tied back in a neat bun. When she was in street clothes, she got constant looks but in uniform she was as bland as could be, which is how she preferred it.

She rang the bell and after a moment the door opened to reveal a man a little over six feet tall, his hair neatly trimmed, wearing khaki shorts and a crisp white shirt. Behind him was a boy who was his spitting image.

“I’m Officer Barbieri – did you call about a missing woman?”

“I did, yes, please come in, Officer,” he said.

Barbieri walked in and glanced around the cottage. She knew these didn’t rent for cheap and this one was no exception. It was neat and clean and Barbieri noted there were no signs of a struggle.

She took out a notepad.

“Let’s start with your name and the name of the missing person,” she said.

Chapter Fourteen

The lights of Tokyo forty stories down spread out before him like a welcoming blanket of debauchery. He’d spent many, many nights down there, prowling the streets as his appetite grew.

His online nickname was Genghis, after his personal hero Genghis Kahn, the Mongol conqueror.

Eventually, the city and its local fare couldn’t provide him what he needed. He’d fully exhausted the nearby menu and needed more. More, in terms of quantity, quality and variety.

So he traveled.

Mostly to indigent countries where he found like-minded enclaves of men like himself, with vast financial resources used to procure hard-to-find items.

But he grew weary of travel and turned to the ultimate place of fantasies fulfilled.

The Dark Web.

There, he could let his imagination and torrid desires run free. Money, usually in the form of Bitcoin or even custom cryptocurrency impossible to trace by the authorities, allowed him the freedom to limitless access for all of his ever-burgeoning cravings.

Now, he logged onto his computer made secure by a private hosting site known to only individuals with similar persuasions. Once his identity protocols were satisfied, a process that took several minutes, he waited with anticipation for the screen to fill.

He reached over to his desktop where he had a glass of very rare scotch. He sipped from it and soon, the virtual storefront appeared.

The fifty-seven-year-old Japanese billionaire scanned over the products he was already familiar with and stopped at one of the newest arrivals.

An American.

Middle-aged.

With beautiful green eyes and a curvy body.

Her name was Julia.

Chapter Fifteen

The town was classic Midwest.

A main street that was so clean it looked like street sweepers were a daily occurrence.

Sunshine bounced off the old buildings, casting a golden light on the local breakfast café, the hardware store, the Laundromat, the mom and pop grocery store and the post office.

A few cars were parked here and there.

It was the kind of place where everyone waved to each other, or if you didn’t particularly care for the person in question, you at least nodded.

There were three churches. One elementary school. One bakery. One law firm. One dentist. One doctor.

The town had everything someone would need and nothing they didn’t.

Outside of the village hub, the lots initially enlarged and then gave way to farms, mostly. Wide fields full of crops like wheat, potatoes and maybe soybeans. Red barns were everywhere, most of them still in good shape; maybe a few ready for some interior decorator to come by and pay way too much for the “fantastic grain” of the boards.

One farm in particular was very well kept with a tall fence surrounding the perimeter and an arched gate reading MR Farm. There were several outbuildings and a white main house that had all of the hallmarks of having been built around the turn of the century. Inside, on the first floor was a kitchen, living room, dining room, library and staircase leading up to several bedrooms.

The group of five people were in the dining room, chairs pulled up to gaze at an array of laptops spread out across the tabletop.

Of the five, four were men and the lone woman had a sharp, pinched face. Her gray hair was tied back into a bun. Two of the men had on dirty blue jeans and plaid shirts with baseball caps. One man sported dress slacks with a sweater. The last man was bigger than the others, with a head of black hair swept back like he was a refuge from the 1950s. He wore a plain black T-shirt and his thick arms were corded with muscle.

“They’re about to ship her out,” he told the others.

“There’s already interest. Some early bids but they’re lowballs.” The woman was in charge of the money, the guys did the heavy lifting.

“That’s not what we’re concerned with, though,” the man in the sweater and glasses said.

“Money’s always a concern, you know that,” the woman snapped back.

An amused expression flashed across the face of the man in the black T-shirt. “Speaking of that,” he said, “what’s the story?”

All eyes turned to one of the men wearing the baseball caps. His was green and read “Nothing runs like a Deere.”

“She’s on her way to Florida. Hopefully, once she figures out there’s nothing there, she’ll contact Reacher.”

Chapter Sixteen

There was a direct flight from New York to West Palm Beach, a little less than an hour north of Delray Beach. Pauling had been able to catch the flight and now she picked up her rental car and took I-95 south to Atlantic Avenue.

The first thing she’d done upon landing was to text Steven and asked if there was any news on Julia.

There wasn’t.

Pauling had been to Florida many times, but almost always in the Miami office where she’d worked on cases mostly involving drugs. The only time it hadn’t been drug-related was an art theft where a janitor at a museum had slowly and painstakingly been replacing real art with forgeries.

On one case she’d had to come up to Palm Beach and taken a good look at the multimillion dollar homes among some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

Now, she took Atlantic Avenue east to the ocean where she turned slightly north for a few blocks and eventually found Steven and Todd at the rental cottage.

She rang the bell and Steven answered.

Pauling was not surprised by what she saw; a very composed man, even in the face of a situation like this.

“Lauren,” he said and embraced her.

“Hey, Aunt Lauren,” Todd said from behind his father. He’d grown at least a foot from the last time she’d seen him. He had his father’s lean build, but his mom’s eyes. She embraced him, too and then they all stepped back.

“Come in, come in, thank you for coming,” Steven said. His voice wavered a bit but she followed him into the cottage. It was classic Julia: beachy, clean and classic. Not super expensive, but not cheap, either.

They all sat down at the kitchen table and Pauling noted Steven’s computer and sheets of paper with his handwriting.

He must have seen her glance because he said, “I’ve been keeping track of a timeline and my interactions with the police. I don’t know what else to do.”

“I started a Facebook page with Mom’s picture asking for information,” Todd said.

“Good idea,” Pauling said, even though she was worried about the kind of kooks that might respond and what they might say to Todd. She would have to discuss that privately with Steven.

“What have the police told you?” she asked Steven.

“Nothing, really. Officer Barbieri has already put out an APB on Julia and we’ve started to put up some signs and hand out flyers with her picture. So far, nothing.”

Pauling had moved past the idea that Julia had just gone for a walk or something innocent. She had been gone for too long now and she knew time was crucial.

“Todd, can you excuse us?” she asked the boy.

“Okay.”

When he was gone, Pauling asked Steven, “Tell me everything that’s happened with Julia in the past year. And I mean everything.”

Chapter Seventeen

Tallon had his mail delivered to a PO Box for a variety of reasons.

Overall security being number one. Number two was practicality. His work forced him to leave home for long periods of time and it simply wouldn’t do to have things piling up outside his home.

Now, he pulled his SUV up to the post office, went in and retrieved his mail. He drove back home, and dumped it on the kitchen table. There were the usual bills and an occasional charity sending free address labels in hopes of guilting him into donating. He dumped the unopened envelope into the recycling bin.

Tallon sorted the bills and then faced the last item; a narrow, rectangular box.

There was no return address.

Strange, he thought.

He picked up a tactical knife and slit the tape between the flaps and opened the box.

Inside was a photo of a woman.

Lauren Pauling.

Underneath it were three words.

Going…going…gone.

Chapter Eighteen

As Pauling expected, Steven’s encapsulation of Julia’s life bore no surprises. They both led busy, fulfilling lives, most of it centered around their son. Any marital issues were both common and minor. Disagreements over finances, parenting styles, home renovations. They were garden-variety and none of them had gone to the extreme.

It was a fairly typical, successful marriage.

So why was her sister missing?

Most of the time when a woman went missing coincided with a life event. An unexpected pregnancy. An impending divorce. The discovery a spouse was cheating.

There was none of that, at least according to Steven. And unlike most suspects, Pauling knew him quite well over the years and could also tell when a person was being deceitful. She wasn’t seeing that in her brother-in-law.

Pauling also knew her sister well and dismissed the idea she was having an affair. It just wasn’t in her personality. She was far more direct. If there was a problem in her marriage, she would have confronted it head-on, not gone slinking around behind her husband’s back.

Which forced Pauling to consider the fact that this might be a random crime. Her years of experience in law enforcement told her this was a very rare occurrence.

Still, she couldn’t rule anything out until she knew more.

“What am I going to do, Lauren?” Steven asked. They were sitting together in the small living room of the rental cottage. Pauling had her phone and laptop on a wicker table next to her. Steven had his phone in his hand.

“When is Todd due back in school?” she asked.

“Monday.”

Pauling looked at her calendar.

“I think you should fly back to Portland tomorrow. Let me handle this.”

Steven shuddered. “The thought of going back without her…” He spread his hands as if to say it was something he couldn’t comprehend.

“You’re not abandoning her, Steven,” Pauling reasoned. “I’m here. You know my background, this is what I’ve done for a living for many years. If anything, you can go back home and ask your friends and neighbors if they saw or heard anything out of the ordinary.”

He nodded, but she could see his heart wasn’t in it. It was pretty common for the man in this situation to feel a responsibility to be the one who tracks down his missing wife. She understood he probably felt like he was shirking his duty.

“You work the case from your end in Portland, and I’ll work it from here,” she continued. “You know I sold my company, so I’ve got no restrictions on my time. You have Todd to think about and your job.”

Steven remained silent.

There was a knock on the door and Pauling answered.

“Hello,” said a strikingly beautiful police officer, with dark hair, wide expressive eyes and a uniform that didn’t completely hide a knockout body. Pauling glanced at her nameplate.

Barbieri.

“Hi, I’m Lauren Pauling. Julia’s sister.”

Barbieri nodded, looked her up and down, and glanced behind her at Steven.

“Just wanted to stop in and give you a quick update,” Barbieri said. “So far, no one has seen or heard anything. We’ve put the word out and have officers doing extra canvassing here along the beach, but so far, nothing new.”

“Damn it,” Steven said.

Pauling studied the woman.

“What about local crime? Have you talked to any of the usual suspects?”

“We’re a little short on manpower right now, ma’am, but we’re working on it.”

Pauling glanced back at Steven and said, “Steven, do you mind if I talk to the officer one-on-one?”

He stepped back into the cottage and Pauling walked with Barbieri back to her squad car.

“Look,” Pauling said. “I appreciate you coming out here. If you haven’t already backgrounded me you should know I spent over twenty years with the FBI and am a private investigator in New York.”

“Yeah, we saw that,” Barbieri said.

“Is there anyone here who can bring me up to speed quickly on the local situation?” Pauling asked. “Someone who knows the scene, might have some CIs I can talk to? I know you normally don’t like outside people getting involved, but this is my sister and I want to pull out all the stops. I promise to share any new information with you immediately. I absolutely will not go rogue, you have my word.”

Barbieri met her with a level gaze.

“Twenty years with the Bureau? You must have put up with your fair share of macho bullshit. Am I right?”

“Yeah. I just sold my firm in New York, so I’m here for the duration and I’ve got plenty of resources to move heaven and earth. I just need some boots on the ground.”

“It’s totally against policy,” Barbieri said. She glanced down the street as if she were making sure they weren’t being watched.

“Do you have a sister?” Pauling prompted.

“No. A brother.”

“What would you do?”

The Delray Beach cop shuffled her feet and then said, “You didn’t get this name from me.”

“Okay.”

She sighed.

“Wade Carver.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Mr. Carver?”

There are women. There are ladies. There are chicks, broads, dames, and every other slang word you can think of.

But the person standing before me was a woman.

And by that, I mean, a woman.

Older than me, for sure. Blonde-ish color hair, maybe with some highlights. A knockout, athletic body. Hypnotic green eyes. And a voice that sounded like a jazz singer from the thirties. Feminine, with just enough rasp and depth to make a man like me feel something tingly downstairs.

Jesus.

As a private investigator in south Florida, I see all kinds of females every day. College girls on the beach. Single, mature women looking for a husband. Divorcees out to catch up on all of the fun they had missed while they were married.

So, I’m a bit of a seasoned veteran in that department.

But this woman?

Wow.

“Yes,” I said to her question. It was all I could muster. I’d been looking at my schedule on the computer and was on the verge of closing up shop for the day and retiring to my balcony overlooking Delray Beach proper with a tall, cold alcoholic concoction.

Instead, I got to my feet and shook hands with her. It was a strong grip and up close, she was even more striking.

“I’m Lauren Pauling,” she said. “My sister is missing and I want to hire you to help me find her.”

Chapter Twenty

Steven Rafferty sat in the airplane seat, Todd to his right. In one hand, he had his cell phone, in the other, Julia’s. They were taxiing down the runway in Fort Lauderdale, on a flight to Portland that stopped in Atlanta where they would change planes.

He’d charged both phones this morning, after Lauren had downloaded all of the contents from Julia’s phone onto her iPad.

Steven used Julia’s passcode – the date of Todd’s birthday – to unlock the screen. He read through all of her text messages going back six months. He also plowed through her emails.

Nothing.

Steven also went through the call log.

All normal numbers matching up to people in her contacts. People he knew.

Finally, Steven opened the app Julia used to keep track of her mileage for tax purposes. It showed all of the trips she’d taken in her car for the past year. He spent the rest of the flight looking up the locations she’d gone (having purchased access to the plane’s Wi-Fi system).

Nothing.

His scientific mind desperately sought a simple, elegant solution to her disappearance.

But there wasn’t one.

His hand gripped his wife’s cell phone. He thought of all the times he’d seen it in her hand, could almost feel the warmth of her fingers from memory.

Steven wondered if he would ever see his wife again.

Chapter Twenty-One

They were on the move, Julia knew that.

At some point, she’d fallen asleep and been awakened by a needle prick into her arm. The stabbing pain brought her instantly awake and she’d fought briefly before passing out again.

Now, she was groggy, her mouth dry, and the left side of her body tingling from lack of oxygen. She rolled onto her back, felt the ground beneath her moving.

She was in a vehicle of some sort.

There was a blindfold across her eyes and she couldn’t see anything. Whatever vehicle she was in, it had a new car kind of smell.

That worried her.

If whoever had taken her had enough money to buy a brand-new car for whatever it was they had planned, it meant they were successful. Or, maybe they had rented a car, which might make it easier to get rid of evidence, but she wasn’t sure.

It also might mean they were intelligent and could be reasoned with.

The man in the wine cellar was like that. He seemed dangerous, but at least he could converse. She’d tried to get as much information as she could from him, but he’d been cagey.

Julia still needed information. All she could think about now was escape. Escape, and her family.

She didn’t want to remain passive and working with what she had to gather as much knowledge about her captors as possible was the only way she could fight back.

So even though her arms and legs were tied, she’d rolled to her left until she hit the side of the vehicle. She was attempting to determine how big the vehicle was. A car? A van? A truck?

Not far, just a roll and a half. Figure four feet or so. Bigger than a car, most likely. Maybe a big SUV.

She rolled to the right.

And bumped into a body.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jesus, she’d been a Feebie? And had her own security firm in New York?

I’m not going to lie – I was thoroughly smitten.

“Tell me again why you need me?”

Lauren Pauling, the beautiful green-eyed raspy-voiced woman of my dreams smiled politely. “I can read between the lines. Barbieri told me that you’ve been very effective a time or two finding missing women.”

“Really? She said something nice about me?”

That wasn’t the Paula Barbieri I knew. She’d been rejecting my advances for quite awhile.

“She did,” Pauling answered. “That’s what I need. Your local contacts, your informants, your knowledge of the usual suspects around here. If you’ll let me hire you, you can speed this process up. I need to find my sister as soon as possible. Barbieri made it sound like you’re a man who knows how to get things done. No bullshit.”

“But you’re not relying on me alone, right?” I asked. I’m not going to lie, I was flattered as hell. Barbieri was gorgeous, and now I had this older woman, Lauren Pauling, saying kind things about me.

“Of course not,” she said. “I’ve got other avenues to pursue while you’re hitting the streets.”

Seeing as how I’d just been looking at my calendar before this stunner of a woman walked in, I knew I was available but I also knew maybe I should play a little hard to get.

I’m only a man, of course.

So instead I said, “I can start right now.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Pauling left Wade Carver’s office with an odd feeling that she had found an unlikely ally. She was good at reading people and although she could definitely sense Carver’s interest in her beyond the professional aspect, she also felt he was the right man for the job. And, frankly, if she wasn’t committed to Michael Tallon, she might have been tempted by Carver. He was a powerfully built man with an interesting demeanor of quiet confidence.

She also sensed he knew how to get the job done and didn’t mind bending a few rules – or breaking a few heads – in the process.

That’s exactly what she needed.

They’d agreed on a fee and she had told him everything she could think of regarding Julia. With Carver working the local angle, Pauling had time to marshal her resources in New York, and with a little finagling, maybe even some help from the Bureau.

In the meantime, she knew her sister was out there.

And the twenty-four hour mark had passed.

Which made the likelihood of finding her unharmed growing smaller with every passing minute.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Tallon called Pauling and stared out the window at the mountains beyond. A slow burning sunset was on its way and the shadows were drawing near. He thought about building an outdoor fire tonight, maybe knock back a few beers since he was on his own.

“Hey,” Pauling answered.

“How’s it going? Any news?”

“Not yet,” Pauling said with a voice Tallon could tell carried some fatigue and maybe a little bit of frustration. Sadness, too. “I sent Steven and Todd back to Portland, hired a local PI and am now going to start trying to pull some strings for more help.”

“I’d really like to get on a plane and come help, Lauren,” he said. And he meant it. Even though Pauling was a pro in every sense of the word, she must be starting to worry.

“I do want you to come down, but I’d like to get a few things in place first. Maybe in a couple of days, okay?”

“Okay,” he said.

He paused and she picked up on it immediately.

“What?” she said.

“Look, I know you’ve got a ton on your mind but this letter came yesterday,” Tallon said. “Very weird. It was a photo of you with the words going, going, gone. No return address. Nothing else. I just wanted to let you know.”

Tallon heard her sigh.

“When it rains it pours, I guess.”

He waited and then said, “I’ll start looking into flights.”

“Thank you, Michael, I’m really starting to get worried.”

And for the first time since she’d told him the news, he was getting worried, too.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Let me tell you, seducing a woman is an art form.

Having said that, there are a few basic rules that apply to every single situation.

One, be confident.

Two, focus on her.

Three. Do not be a disappointment.

As sure as the hot Florida sun was going to start blasting down on Delray Beach with scorching rays that would send beachgoers into the cool water, I was going to seduce Lauren Pauling.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.

Therefore, I absolutely could not disappoint her.

Which meant I was going to find out who took her sister. Not only would I be doing my job, but I’d also be doing a good thing for a beautiful woman who looked like she was a straight shooter.

If a certain amount of gratitude could be transformed into perhaps a bit of a romantic feeling, well, that was whipped cream on top of the cherry, so to speak.

After locking up the office I immediately drove my Ford Maverick down to the complex of rental cottages where Pauling’s sister had been staying. I was very familiar with them. Not because of crime, but rather I’d dated a lifeguard who’d rented one for the season, and over the course of the summer she and I had taken the term “buddy system” to a whole new level in the bedroom.

The other reason I was familiar with this strip of rental cottages was that a fair amount of drug traffic took place along the A1A, the narrow road that hugged the beautiful sandy beaches of southeast Florida.

Currently, the reigning “owner” of the drug trade was a tiny Mexican man named Berto. I knew him well, in fact, had taken care of a problem for him when his money launderer disappeared. I found him, barely alive, and returned the money to Berto in order to buy the freedom of one of my snitches.

Throughout the process, we’d forged a grudging respect for one another and now, I pulled the Maverick into the circular driveway of his old Florida ranch home.

He was sitting on the front porch wearing blue jeans, a Western shirt and a cowboy hat. Inside, I knew he had some men but Berto loved his front porch and was a student of John Wayne films. He fancied himself a gunfighter, even though he was barely over five feet tall. Hence, he had no need to be surrounded by bodyguards all the time.

“Hiya cowboy,” I said to him. He smiled, revealing a row of perfectly white teeth.

“Senor Carver, as they say, take off a load.” He gestured to a rocking chair next to him.

He leaned back in his chair and yelled toward the house. “Marita! Dos cervezas!”

I could see why he liked the porch. Nice view. Gentle breeze. I don’t know how he did it with blue jeans in this kind of heat, but it didn’t appear to be bothering him.

A matronly woman in a flowery dress handed us each a Mexican beer. We caught up on general bullshit and then he asked me, “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Gunfighter?”

That was his nickname for me as word had gotten out about my proficiency with firearms and my willingness to use them.

“A woman was taken against her will at the Warm Breezes cottages. She’s a friend of mine and I want to know who took her.”

Berto rocked back and forth in his chair. The wood creaked and an osprey flew overhead, heading for the beach and some fish.

“I heard about this,” he finally said.

I sipped my beer and waited.

“Do you know that a lot of Americans hate Mexicans?” Berto said, his tone light and conversational.

“I do.”

“You know who else hates Mexicans?”

“Who?”

“Colombians. They despise us. And we despise them.”

The beer was ice cold and delicious. My plan was to let Berto keep talking.

“I heard a story about a job that was out on the street,” he continued. “Grabbing a woman. Taking her somewhere. The money was good, I heard.”

I was savoring the beer and so far my silence was earning me some good information, so I kept at it.

“There was a cave, though. Am I saying that right?”

“Caveat.”

“The caveat was she could not be touched. Or harmed. You hurt her. You die. Scared people off.”

My beer was empty already so I said, “But that wouldn’t scare a Colombian, would it?”

“Of course, not. They are animals. Scared of nothing.”

I set the empty bottle onto the wooden porch and rocked the chair back.

“Any certain Colombian with a name?”

Berto spit it out like snake poison.

“Ezra.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Rough hands grabbed her by the shoulder and Julia felt herself being hoisted to her feet. She stood, dizzy and disoriented, and then hands grabbed her by each arm and pulled her forward.

She tried to keep up, but felt like she could be stepping into air or off the edge of a cliff at any moment.

Suddenly, she was in the air and then her feet slammed into solid ground and her knees buckled.

She fell, turning her face to the side and her right shoulder took most of the force.

“Goddamnit!” a voice shouted out. “No damage!”

Next to her, Julia heard another voice cry out and knew it was the person who’d been held captive in the back of the vehicle with her.

And then they were moving.

Even though her blindfold was wide and tight, she somehow sensed it was nighttime as they were hurried forward.

“Steps,” one of the men’s voice said to her and she tentatively lifted her foot. She was pulled up and again tried to keep up with the forced movement. Julia heard a door open and she took a deep breath of the air as best she could. Maybe it would give her a clue of where she was.

But there was nothing other than cold, crisp air.

The temperature surprised her and she quickly realized she wasn’t in Florida anymore. Wherever they’d taken her, it was definitely north.

She was led forward and her feet could tell it was carpet of some kind and then another door opened and she was pushed inside. A door shut behind her and her blindfold was yanked off.

A man stood before her.

He was middle-aged, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a lined face with a slightly bulbous nose. He was wearing dirty jeans, a dirty T-shirt and a John Deere baseball cap.

“Go take a piss if you have to,” he said, gesturing toward a small door at the back of the room.

Julia squinted, disoriented, but took the chance.

“Leave the door open or I’ll kick your ass,” the man barked.

She sat on the toilet, grateful to relieve her aching bladder. As she sat on the toilet, she thought about her sister. Lauren would be involved now. Steven would have reached out to her and she would be working to find her.

Julia didn’t have much hope for the police or anyone else.

But if there was one person who could track her down and free her before things went really bad, it would be Lauren.

Julia finished, flushed the toilet, then went to the sink and washed her hands. Since she was thirsty, too, she scooped water into her mouth.

When she came back out, she got a look at another captive.

A woman. Much younger than her, probably early twenties. Pale, skinny, with blonde hair and dark circles under her eyes.

She brushed past Julia and went to the bathroom.

The man walked over, put his hands on Julia’s shoulders and spun her around, tying her hands behind her back again.

When the skinny woman came back out, he did the same with her.

“I’ll be right back,” the man said. He closed the door and Julia heard him put a key in the lock and a deadbolt slammed into place.

Locked in.

Julia turned to the woman who was staring at the ground.

“Hi,” Julia said to her.

The young woman burst into tears.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

In Delray Beach, if you’ve got a Colombian running around snatching white women off the street, and Berto knows who you are, then you can only belong to one family.

The Rojas family from Medellín is somewhat legendary along the Palm Coast.

They were a terror for a long time, murdering with impunity. Severed heads washing up on the beach tended to attract sharks, but simultaneously repelled tourism dollars.

And there’s nothing Florida hates more than losing tourist dollars.

So, something had to be done with the Rojas criminal enterprise.

Enter a task force, some undercover work, and maybe a few overzealous cops willing to bend a few probable cause rules. Soon, the Rojases were on the run.

All except for a certain Emilia Rojas.

She was the youngest daughter of Emile Rojas, the de facto head of the crime family. He was public enemy number one about five years ago and when the heat turned up, he took most of the money and fled to parts unknown.

By then, Emilia had met a local Florida boy and had no intention of leaving.

She also had no intention of making an honest living.

So, she cobbled together what was left of the Rojas network, and kept producing enough illegal income to cover her costs, with maybe a little left over.

I’d never heard of Ezra Rojas, but the fact that this first name started with an E and his last name was Rojas, I had a pretty good inkling he was related to Emile and Emilia. Maybe a son, brother, or cousin.

Who knew?

And more importantly, who cared?

Not me, because I knew exactly where the Rojas family operated their business. It was no secret, everyone knew it, in fact.

Pompano Beach was south of Delray, a crowded place full of tourist traps, apartment buildings, and a section of neighborhood intersected with canals.

The Rojas enterprise was situated in several homes along those canals, and confirmed rumors indicated they had a small fleet of boats used for drug trafficking and body disposal. No better way to get rid of a body than to head out into the Gulf Stream, dump it, and by the time it reached Europe nothing was left but a smear in the water.

Between the neighborhood with the canals and the sandy beach featured on every Pompano postcard was an establishment called Papas. It was a moderately priced bar and grill that served Colombian food and drinks, and was where the undercover cops had eventually busted Emile Rojas.

The family still used the place, maybe even owned it.

I parked the Maverick in one of the few parking spaces available, and walked up the weather-beaten wooden stairwell to the elevated entrance. I pushed through a pair of doors and saw the blue-green expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. To my right was a U-shaped bar, to my left, the entrance to a casual dining room. Both rooms were half-empty and the whole place smelled like the ocean. Today, that wasn’t a bad thing but when red tide was in effect, I would imagine that quashed a lot of healthy appetites.

I headed for the bar.

“Give me a Corona,” I said. My little joke as Berto had told me the Colombians hated Mexicans.

When the bartender brought it to me, I slid a crisp new one-hundred dollar bill toward him.

He glanced at it.

“I need to talk to Ezra,” I said. “I owe him and I’m here to pay up. Can you let him know? I’m in a bit of a hurry, though, and it would be in his best interest to take advantage of my current fiscal situation. Comprende?”

The guy slid the bill deftly off the bar and didn’t answer me. He had a thick neck and a little scar behind his ear.

Outside, I saw a windsurfer try to tackle a big wave. He flew up, lost it, and cartwheeled into the ocean.

I checked my watch.

Ezra had better be available soon. I didn’t want to keep my new girlfriend, Lauren Pauling, waiting long.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Pauling looked at the spreadsheet she’d created on her laptop.

All of the information she’d put together on Julia’s disappearance was there, along with the resources she’d called into play.

For the past four hours, she’d engaged in multiple conference calls with her former FBI colleagues, former employees of her security firm and the various specialty contractors she’d worked with over the years.

She had the FBI scouring their databases and networks for any possible tips or leads on abductions in the greater Delray Beach area. They were sending her information on any known offenders in the region. They had also sent her a list of recently paroled convicts with a history of violence toward women.

The list was extensive.

She’d turned to the people she’d hired and trusted at her old firm to do a bit more sensitive work. Pauling had asked them to dig for everything they could find on Steven Rafferty. Pauling didn’t think her brother-in-law was behind Julia’s disappearance, but in her mind she rationalized it by saying perhaps there was something going on with one of his associates. Maybe a former patient who wanted to exact revenge on the doctor. Or a jealous colleague. Or maybe an old friend who wasn’t a friend anymore.

Pauling had asked another former employee to do the same thing on Julia. Even though she thought she was fairly close with her sister, you never really knew another human being. Cynical, she knew. But deep down she believed it to be the case.

Finally, Pauling had asked one of her tech gurus (okay, hacker) to scour the web for anything he could find about Julia. His name was Fang and she had no idea if that was his real name or a hacker handle.

But he was a genius on the web. And by “web” she meant the dark web – the secret, dirtiest and nastiest parts of the Internet not available to the public. These were websites that could only be accessed by a complex series of numbers and letters, known only to people who shared the same interests.

This was the chosen method for pedophiles to share child pornography, but the dark web was used by all forms of criminals these days and with the advent of cryptocurrency it was rapidly expanding.

Pauling had taken a hotel room only a block from the rental cottage and now, she stood and stretched. Her window and balcony had a view of the ocean and she couldn’t help but think of her sister, just a day ago on the beach with her family enjoying the sun and surf, with no idea of what was going to happen.

Pauling remembered when she and Julia were kids and being the older sister, how she’d made a game out of scaring her little sister. Jumping out from behind closed doors and shouting boo! They’d just been kids, still in elementary school probably, but Pauling had kept it up for awhile, until her Mom had found out and scolded her.

Suddenly, Pauling felt incredibly guilty for those times.

Now, she knew it was her turn to be afraid.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I made several assumptions while drinking my beer.

One, if Ezra Rojas were indisposed, say, out of the country, the bartender wouldn’t have taken my hundred dollar bill. Again, it’s an assumption. No guarantee. Maybe he would’ve taken the money, said Rojas would be in touch and then never come up with the goods.

I doubted it, though. Sometimes nonverbal messages are sent very clearly and I’m confident enough to state that I do a fairly good job of it. In other words, the bartender should have taken a good look at me and recognized that I probably wasn’t the best person in the world to rip off.

Second of all, if the wait was going to be a long one, the bartender probably would have told me that, too. Especially as I had made a crystal clear point by saying I was in a hurry and Ezra had to move fast if he wanted the money I owed him.

So by the bartender taking the money, not telling me when Rojas may or may not be in touch, I concluded that the man made frequent, even nightly appearances at the watering hole loved by his family.

Finally, I decided to act on my assumptions.

I asked the bartender where the restrooms were and left my seat at the bar, turned down the hallway to the restrooms then exited the building via a side door. I circled back to the parking lot, got into the Maverick, and repositioned the car between the entrance to the lot and the front door of the restaurant.

For what I had in mind, meeting Rojas outdoors was the key.

Using the browser on my phone, I Googled Ezra Rojas, hoping to find a photo of him. On the third page of the search results, I found a news story from a drug bust that had taken place nearly ten years earlier.

It had his booking photo.

He had fine features, almost feminine in nature, and a look of entitlement, although I think he was going for a tough-guy look.

It didn’t work.

Satisfied I would recognize him on sight, I spent the next half hour watching tourists shuffle into or out of the bar, walking with exaggerated sloppiness due to their cheap flip flops or an entire day drinking on the beach.

Perhaps a combination of both.

A lot of them were sunburned pink, flustered and probably dehydrated.

But damned if it didn’t look like they’d had a good time.

Just when my thoughts turned to the bartender and how he might be wondering what the hell I was doing in the bathroom so long, a tricked out Cadillac Escalade pulled into the lot.

There was an empty handicapped parking space right next to the front door and instinct told me the flashy ride was going to park there. I quickly opened the Maverick door and walked up to the passenger side of the Escalade just as it parked.

The bulk of the vehicle blocked me from anyone’s view in the restaurant.

There was no way Ezra Rojas went anywhere without his bodyguard, so I knew that was the first order of business. I also figured the bodyguard had come to Papas hundreds of times with his boss and that his situational awareness was very low.

I was right.

He flung the door open and stepped out, his face looking down at his phone.

Jesus, how embarrassing and unprofessional. What kind of bodyguard had his face buried in an iPhone?

Making him pay the price for his incompetence made me happy.

I stepped in and threw a straight right with just enough arc to maximize impact. It hit him in the temple and his phone clattered to the pavement, followed by his face. I shut the Escalade’s door hard to try to cover up any sound but I figured Ezra had heard, too.

I quickly circled back behind the Escalade and got a very pleasant surprise.

Ezra was also looking at his phone.

He’d already turned away from the vehicle and was starting to climb the stairs to the restaurant.

“Ezra,” I said. “Wait up.”

He turned and I threw the exact same punch I’d used to knock out his bouncer. This one had the same effect. It landed square on his temple and he dropped his phone and started to fall, but I caught him, instead.

“Wow, you’ve had a lot to drink!” I said as a pasty white woman with a floppy beach hat emerged from the bar. “Let’s get you home.”

I half-carried Rojas to the back of the Maverick and popped the trunk. Before putting him inside, I patted him down and found a ridiculous silver-plated .45 in the back of his jeans. Tough to do a speed draw when you’re staring at your phone, probably checking to see if he had any new Instagram followers.

I’d already removed everything from the trunk that could be used as either an escape tool or weapon and dropped my new Colombian friend inside and slammed the trunk shut.

Since I was curious now after confiscating Ezra’s firearm, I walked over to the bodyguard to see what he carried. He hadn’t moved and after a quick frisk, I found an even more ridiculous gun – a Desert Eagle .50 caliber.

Talk about overcompensation.

I opened the Escalade’s side door and joisted the bodyguard inside. I also did a quick search of the cup holder, storage compartment and glove compartment for any information regarding Lauren Pauling’s sister, but there was nothing.

After shutting the door and locking the vehicle with Ezra’s keys, I found the bodyguard’s phone and pocketed that, as I had with Ezra’s.

Next, I went back to the Maverick, got inside and stashed both phones and both guns in my glove compartment. I pulled back out onto the A1A.

I was tempted to call Pauling, but it was just a tad too soon.

I needed to do some preliminary work with Ezra.

And I needed privacy.

So no one could hear him scream.

Chapter Thirty

“Who are you?” the girl asked Julia.

“Julia. My name is Julia.”

The girl nodded. Her lip trembled and her eyes were wet. Snot dribbled from her nose.

“I’m Sarah.”

She began weeping at the sound of her own name.

“It’s going to be okay,” Julia said and immediately felt stupid.

Worse, she felt like a liar.

She certainly didn’t think it was going to be okay. Nothing was going to be okay, unless they escaped or Lauren found them.

The girl caught her breath.

“How did they get you?” she asked.

Julia felt a shadow pass over her heart. Why hadn’t she been paying attention? Why didn’t she fight? Because she had felt safe. She cursed herself for the hundredth time for not paying more attention when she’d gone out to the parking lot at the rental cottage. Stupid!

“I was getting something from my car,” she answered matter-of-factly. “They grabbed me, put a cloth over my mouth with some kind of poison and that’s all I remember.”

Sarah gave a bitter laugh. “I wish that’s what happened. I’m such an idiot. I answered an ad for a model and sent in my photos. They said they liked what they saw and wanted to do some test shots.”

Sarah’s hands were shaking even though they were bound together. “When I went there – some random office somewhere, they did the same thing with the cloth. And now my life is over. All because I had this ridiculous idea I could be a model. What a goddamned joke. They’re going to kill us.”

Her voice had become shrill and the door suddenly opened.

“You’re making too much noise, bitches,” the man said.

He grabbed Sarah by the arm.

“You’re up,” he said with a grin.

Chapter Thirty-One

Pauling drove into a residential neighborhood that bore no resemblance to Wade Carver. She pictured him living in some kind of overgrown man cave, with maybe a wet bar and guns on display. Probably a boxing ring, too.

This area of Delray Beach was west of the ocean, past I-95, halfway to where the roads dead-ended with the Everglades.

Carver had called her and said he’d found the man she was looking for but wouldn’t give her more details. He’d said it was better for both of them to meet in person.

Her navigation had her arrive at a single-story classic Florida ranch. There was a circular driveway in the center of the lot and a separate entrance to the right. She parked, and before she could approach the front door, Carver appeared. He had on jeans and a stained T-shirt.

He slid into the front passenger seat of her rental car.

“Good to see you, Lauren,” he said. “You look better every time I see you.”

She studied him and noticed that his T-shirt wasn’t dirty.

It was splattered with blood.

He noticed her recognition.

“His name is Ezra Rojas,” Carver said. “Part of a Colombian crime family who used to be a big deal around here, not so much anymore.”

“Can I see him?”

“Probably not a good idea,” he said. “To expedite things, I did some things the cops – Barbieri – wouldn’t appreciate. The kind they’d lock me up for. Might be better if you didn’t know more than you need to. And that you didn’t see more than you need to.”

“Does he know where my sister is?”

“He was hired anonymously to take her and there were strict instructions not to harm her.”

“Okay.”

“He simply delivered her for transport.”

“Transport? To where?”

Carver shook his head. “They didn’t tell him. But he bribed one of the men who came and got her. Seems they delivered her to a place called Mann’s River. It’s a little town in Kansas, I guess.”

“Kansas? Why the hell would they take her to Kansas?”

Carver spread his hands and Pauling saw the streaks of blood all up and down Carver’s muscular arms. The man was built for this kind of work, Pauling could tell. “Believe me, Ezra Rojas doesn’t know.”

Pauling made some rapid calculations.

“Are you giving this information to Barbieri?”

“Yes, but I’m going to give her a load of bullshit about how I found out.”

Pauling nodded.

“What about him?” she lifted her chin toward the house.

Carver sighed.

“It’s not looking good for Mr. Rojas.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Pauling could tell that Carver wanted to say more – and probably do more – but she had to move, and move quickly. Besides, he needed to wash his hands, so to speak, of the situation in his house.

She had barely left his driveway when she dialed Tallon’s number and heard the phone ringing through the rental car’s Bluetooth system.

“Hey, any news?” he asked.

“Yeah, you need to meet me in a place called Mann’s River, Kansas. It’s where they took Julia. I don’t know if she’s still here, if it was just a stop along a longer journey, but it’s the only lead I have right now. How soon can you get there?”

She heard him tapping on a keyboard.

“There’s a direct flight from Vegas to Topeka. I can be there late tonight, but I have to hurry.”

“Do it. I’ll reimburse you for the flight.”

They disconnected and Pauling got her dark web guy, Fang, on the phone.

“How’s it going with the search?” she asked.

“Promising,” he said.

“How so?”

“I used a back door system and blasted her name in all its variations through a collection of the biggest servers in the world. And as you can imagine, I got a lot of hits.” Pauling heard him take in a breath and she knew he was chain-smoking cigarettes. She’d met him once. He was scrawny and pale with patches of facial hair. She thought he looked like a struggling painter from the 1800s. “But once I narrowed them down and followed subsequent traffic looking for commonalities, I came to a highly restricted chat room.”

“A chat room? What kind of chat room?”

He cleared his throat. “Uh…”

“Spit it out.”

“Snuff films.”

Pauling pulled over to the side of the road. She felt like she’d been punched in the solar plexus. A car honked at her so she crept up and turned into a parking lot.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she said.

“No, I’m afraid not. But my programs are still looking for a way in.”

“You’re not in?”

“No. To put it simply, I’m able to see some of what’s going on in there, but I can’t interact with anyone until I break down the codes. I’m still working on it. Like I said, they’ve got a ton of safeguards and false directives, so my servers just have to process them all. Once they do, I think I can get in.”

Pauling thought about what she was hearing.

“Are you able to get any kind of geographical location?”

“No, not really. Quite a bit of activity is in the U.S., but there also seems to be a fair amount going to Asia and parts of Europe.”

“Anything from a place called Mann’s River?”

“No, not yet.”

Pauling thought about how to continue. She heard Fang sort of gasp like he’d just thought of something.

“That’s really weird, though.”

“What is?”

“Where’d you get the name Mann’s River?” he asked.

“It might be the place my sister’s abductors took her. I’m trying to get on the first flight out there. Why? What’s weird?”

“It’s probably nothing. A coincidence.”

“What is?”

“The initials of the town.”

“M and R? What’s weird about it?”

“Didn’t I tell you the name of the chat room?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“It’s called Mother’s Rest.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

The flight took off from Fort Lauderdale, connected in Atlanta, and from there, to Topeka. Pauling had decided not to call the local cops. What could she possibly tell them? That a man she’d hired had beat the crap out of an informant and that’s how she’d gotten the unconfirmed information?

They would laugh her out of the police station.

So, she rented a car and drove to Mann’s River. It was as boring a drive as she’d ever encountered, just mile after mile of flat land and wheat fields. And blue sky.

She’d used the airplane’s onboard Wi-Fi to do her research, though, and now, her mind turned over the information.

Mother’s Rest, as she learned from multiple law enforcement databases, had been the site of a criminal enterprise in which people with terminal illnesses thought they were buying euthanasia.

A safe and painless way to end lives that had become unbearable.

Instead, once they’d come to Mother’s Rest and put themselves in other hands, they were then held captive. And their deaths, or murders to be more accurate, were sold on the Internet to the highest bidder.

And they weren’t just garden-variety murders. Whatever sick and disgusting fantasy someone had in terms of killing another human being, the monsters at Mother’s Rest would make it happen.

All with a very hefty price tag.

Pauling read with disgust how authorities had found people beaten to death with baseball bats, or raped, or tortured, all from anonymous buyers on the dark web. The bodies had been disposed of in a nearby area used as a pig farm.

Business had been booming, until Jack Reacher showed up.

The name Mother’s Rest had resonated with Pauling and now she knew why – Jack Reacher had been involved. He and a private investigator named Michelle Chang along with a reporter, had been at the heart of the investigation, although as usual, Reacher had disappeared afterward.

Alarm bells were going off everywhere in Pauling’s mind. Reacher had been instrumental in bringing down the crazy business of Mother’s Rest. She knew Reacher very well. And now, her sister had been kidnapped and taken to a place called Mann’s River – same initials as Mother’s Rest? Plus, her hacker had discovered Julia’s name in a chat room named Mother’s Rest.

Pauling didn’t know why they’d taken Julia.

But she knew it involved her.

And most likely Jack Reacher.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The man in Tokyo looked at what he’d typed out:

I want her naked, hung from the ceiling with her arms and legs spread. And then I want her gutted like a deer. Slowly.

He hit the Submit button and then was presented with a payment link.

The cost: $1,250,000.00. In American dollars.

The man smirked at the amount. His monthly income from his family’s import/export business was ten times that, for which he did nothing.

It was amazing how cheap a beautiful American woman’s life could be.

And how cheap it was to end it in the exact way he wished.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Tallon was already in Mann’s River.

He, too, had rented a car and was now cruising the small town. He had no idea what he was looking for, but the more he saw, the more he would be able to help Pauling.

He turned onto Main Street and noted the single row of buildings were all turn of the century and that much probably hadn’t changed since then. In fact, he figured he could find a vintage postcard of the downtown and the only thing different would be the models of cars parked out front.

The second-to-last building housed a diner.

Tallon parked his rental SUV in front and went inside. There were three people at the counter all of whom turned to see who had come in. When they saw it was a stranger, they all swiveled back to face the kitchen without saying hello.

Okay, so much for that friendly Midwestern vibe he’d been expecting, Tallon thought.

He took a seat in a booth and the waitress came over. She was a skinny thing, probably mid-twenties or so with terrible skin and teeth to match. Tallon figured there must not be a dermatologist or a dentist in town.

Apparently, too far to drive, too.

Tallon ordered coffee and checked his phone. Pauling would be there in less than a half hour.

The waitress brought his coffee, or so he thought.

Because when he looked up from his phone expecting to see the skinny young waitress, he was surprised to see the three men from the counter standing before him.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Showtime,” the man said.

Julia had never wanted to kick someone in the face as much as she did at that moment. The man had a thick, pig face and he wore a black T-shirt with dirty jeans. Julia was appalled that this scumbag held any power over her.

She wanted to fight, but knew she couldn’t.

He grabbed Julia and yanked her to her feet, then pulled her into the hallway.

No blindfold.

Julia’s heart sank. She knew what that meant. They no longer cared about what she saw. And there could only be one reason for that.

She was going to die.

Julia suddenly knew it in her heart with certainty.

Lauren wasn’t coming. The police weren’t coming. She was going to die at the hands of some filthy, disgusting men after they’d done who knows what to her.

She thought of Steven and Todd.

Julia choked down a sob as the man led her down a flight of stairs and they came into a tiny living room with a kitchen off to the side. It was empty, with no signs of human habitation.

Nothing more than a storage room, she thought.

There was a side door next to the kitchen and the man took her through it, into a garage. A white panel van was parked inside. The man went to the back, opened the doors, and pushed her inside, handcuffing her to a steel bar.

The doors slammed shut and Julia was enclosed in darkness.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Just wanted to welcome you to town,” the lead man said. He had on a dirty baseball cap and a T-shirt that may have fit him at one time but was now at least a size too small. His gut was pushing forward like an alien baby was ready to burst out.

“Why, thank you,” Tallon said, immediately understanding there was nothing welcoming about this little conversation. “Please, pull up a seat. Coffee’s on me.”

No one made a move to join him.

“You passing through?” the leader said.

The two men behind him were mostly taking up space, although quite a bit of space. They were big and thick. Not muscular. Farm boys, probably. Country strong.

“That depends,” Tallon responded.

“On what?”

“How good my coffee is.”

The waitress stepped around the cluster of men and put Tallon’s coffee on the table.

They watched him.

He took his time giving the coffee a little stir with the spoon she’d put next to the cup. He slowly raised the coffee to his mouth and took a sip. He rolled the coffee around on his tongue as if it were a fine wine from Chateau Rothschild.

“My, that’s very good. I believe I’ll stay for awhile.”

One of the men in the back gave a little snort.

The leader spoke up again. “What do you do for a living?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing. You’ve got a lot of questions – are you a cop? Because you sure don’t look like one.”

“We’re from the Welcome Wagon,” one of the men in back said.

Tallon’s phone buzzed and he glanced down. Pauling was waiting for him outside.

He drank the rest of his coffee in two gulps that scalded his throat.

“Good to meet you, boys,” Tallon said. He threw down a few bills to cover the coffee. “Gotta run, though.”

He pushed his way through the group, getting a whiff of body odor and farm animals.

“We’ll see you soon,” the leader said.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Tallon slid into the car seat next to Pauling. She was on the phone.

He could tell she was under strain. Her face was a touch pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

“Do a property search of anyone and everyone who may or may not be related to these people,” she said into the phone, her voice firm.

Tallon watched as she read from a list of names on the iPad sitting in her lap.

“As absolutely fast as you can,” she added, then disconnected the call.

Pauling leaned over and kissed him.

“Thank you for getting on a plane so fast,” she said.

“No problem,” he said. “What was that about?”

She filled him in on the story behind Mother’s Rest, and Reacher’s involvement.

“So you think someone is getting revenge on Reacher by taking your sister?”

“Exactly. They’re hoping I run to Reacher and bring him here, so they can kill him.”

“Did you try to reach him?”

“Of course not. No one knows where he is and I have no way to contact him.”

Pauling was parked on Main Street, just a few doors down from the diner. They watched as the three men who’d confronted Tallon stepped out onto the sidewalk and climbed into their respective vehicles, all trucks.

The leader’s truck was red, with rust spots all over its body and mismatched wheels.

“Follow that red one,” Tallon said.

Pauling put the car into gear.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Julia felt the van come to a stop and then she heard large metal doors grating open. The van moved again and then stopped.

The sound came again and she knew they’d driven into some kind of structure with a big sliding door.

The van doors opened and the man pulled her out of the vehicle.

The building was part of a farm and it looked like it had been some type of old brick building, maybe something that had seen agricultural use involving wheat.

She was prodded forward and in the center of the space was an enclosed structure. The walls were different, much newer, and she could see a network of cables running to and from the area.

It looked like a television studio.

The man went to the inner structure’s door and knocked. The door opened and Julia was pushed inside. They led her down a hallway. To the left, was an opening and she glanced inside.

She gasped.

There was a camera pointed at a wall.

Chained to the wall was Sarah.

She was naked and covered in blood. Every inch of her body had been flayed with precise cuts. Her skin hung from her body in hundreds of little flaps.

Her eyes were open but unseeing.

She was dead.

The man looked back at Julia, saw what she was looking at.

“Death from a thousand cuts,” he said. “Some dude in Russia paid top dollar for that. Took forever for her to die, which surprised us all. But he got his money’s worth.”

He pulled Julia and she stumbled forward.

From out of a room came a group of people, one of them an older woman with a pinched face. The other was a large man wearing a dark shirt that was too tight, designed to show off his huge chest and arms, packed with muscle.

“Julia Pauling. Sister of Jack Reacher’s girlfriend,” he said.

The old woman laughed. “Too bad your sister couldn’t convince her old flame to come and save you. She must have not been that good in the sack with him. We would have given him a good ol’ Mother’s Rest welcome.”

The big man laughed and glanced at the man who’d brought Julia in the van.

“String her up, customer’s waitin’.”

Chapter Forty

Pauling’s phone buzzed and she glanced down at it. It was an address.

She read it out loud to Tallon who used his phone’s navigation app and punched in the address. It was less than a mile ahead, just outside town.

“It’s just up there,” he said. “You know what would be perfect?”

“What?”

“If this guy stops there.”

“Why?”

“He’s our way in.”

Less than a minute later, the rusty pickup truck stopped in front of a large farm and drove over to the biggest outbuilding – some kind of old structure made of brick.

Pauling goosed the rental car and drove up quickly behind him on the dirt road, obscured by the dust the pickup truck had kicked up.

Before Pauling’s rental car had come to a complete stop, Tallon was out, and headed straight for the pickup truck’s driver.

Chapter Forty-One

There was never a chance to run.

Julia tried to lash out but three men held her in place as her restraints were transferred to new ones and her arms were raised over her head.

Seconds later, she was hanging from her arms and her legs were spread, then fastened in place.

When they took off her clothes, she began to scream.

The men laughed.

And the camera’s dark light went to bright red.

Chapter Forty-Two

Tallon caught the wrist of the man driving the pickup truck. When he’d emerged from his vehicle, he’d taken one look at Tallon and reached behind him.

Problem was, he was a big man with a big belt of fat that wound its way around his waist, and culminated in a big belly nurtured with countless beers and pizza, no doubt.

So the act of reaching behind him for a gun took a lot longer than normal.

Which was okay, because Tallon was incredibly fast.

He didn’t need that much time at all.

He caught the hand, bent it back, and broke the big man’s wrist. It made a wonderful sound to Tallon’s ears – like cracking open a pheasant before slapping it on the grill.

The man cried out in pain and Tallon reached back and fished out the gun – a 9 mm automatic.

Tallon held it up as if he was examining it with great interest. The man’s eyes followed Tallon and then very casually Tallon clubbed him on the side of the head. It was a short, vicious blow and the big sack of shit dropped to the ground like a steer that was ready for slaughter.

Tallon scooped up the baseball cap and put it on his own head, then gestured to Pauling.

She was already out of the car and joined him.

Together, they walked up to the building’s entrance.

Chapter Forty-Three

A man in black stepped out from behind the camera. He had a mask over his face.

In his hand was a large knife with a bone handle. But Julia could tell by the size and shape of the man that it was the one who’d mocked Lauren and Jack Reacher, whoever the hell that was.

“Please, don’t do this,” she said.

The blade looked to be of Damascus steel and Julia saw its shape.

She knew what a skinning knife looked like as Steven had bought one for a doctor friend who was a big game hunter.

“My husband is wealthy, he’ll pay you whatever you want,” she said.

Julia looked at the camera, saw the red light and knew she was being filmed.

“Fuck you!” she screamed at both the camera and the man with the knife.

He slowly approached her and raised the knife, putting the point in the center of her chest, just below the sternum.

Chapter Forty-Four

Tallon bent his head so anyone looking through the small window in the door or through the security camera mounted above would only be able to see the cap and not his face.

He put his hand on the steel door and listened.

Inside, a bolt unlocked.

He opened the door and Pauling, who’d hung back out of view, now stepped up beside him.

Together, they entered the building.

Chapter Forty-Five

Julia cried and saw Steven and Todd in her mind. She prayed to God for them and felt the knife tip puncture her skin. She thrashed and heaved against her restraints but it did no good. They’d secured her professionally and she thought of Sarah, the dead girl in the room just down the hall. They’d killed her and filmed her.

Now it was Julia’s turn.

She stopped struggling and began to cry.

Her chest heaved and the knife tip pierced her skin.

And then a loud bang shattered the air and Julia’s eyes snapped open.

The man was no longer in front of her.

The noise had been a gunshot and the man was now on the floor, with blood pouring from his head.

More gunshots rang out and Julia saw her sister in front of her – her eyes bright, her mouth pulled tight.

Lauren picked up the knife and sliced Julia’s restraints.

She fell into her sister’s arms.

“It’s going to be okay,” Lauren said.

Another man who’d come in with Lauren appeared next to her.

“It’s done,” he said.

He walked over to the camera and put the muzzle of his gun against the lens and fired directly into it.

The camera exploded into pieces and he knocked it over, where it clattered onto the floor.

The red light faded to black.

Chapter Forty-Six

THREE WEEKS LATER

Steven served them grilled chicken stuffed with goat cheese and basil. Seated around the table were Julia, Pauling, Todd and Tallon. Julia looked good, although he hadn’t known her before the abduction.

Pauling had recovered and looked like her normal, beautiful self.

The Rafferty house in Portland was back to relative normal and Tallon was having a good time.

He pulled a bottle of champagne from the ice bucket and popped the cork.

He filled the glasses except for Todd’s.

“Here’s to family,” he said.

They clinked glasses and drank.

Tallon looked at Pauling. She was extremely happy and so was Julia.

The feds had eventually made their way to Mann’s River, thanks to Pauling’s tip. They’d confiscated all of the films and learned that the video setup had been going on for years, begun some time after the first Mother’s Rest had been shut down.

In that time, they’d killed at least a dozen people. Ten women and two men.

And raked in over ten million dollars.

It had been set up by the son of one of the original creators of the murder business in Mother’s Rest. Who’d been killed by Jack Reacher.

Tallon sat back down and looked around the table, then put his hand on Lauren’s.

At that moment, her phone buzzed.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Pauling got up from the table and stepped out onto the front porch. She had never felt happier and more secure. Her beautiful sister was back with her family and she was with Michael Tallon.

All was right.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she said. “And my sister thanks you, too.” In fact, Julia had expressed her profuse gratitude to everyone including herself, Tallon and Wade Carver.

“You’re right, you probably can’t thank me enough, but you sure can try,” Wade Carver responded. “But you have to do it in person. Here in Florida. At my place, by the pool with some gin and tonics. In a bikini.”

She’d already called him and filled him in on the fate of her sister, and to tell him that without his quick work with Ezra Rojas, they never would have found Julia. She thought she had been fairly clear about the fact their business relationship was now concluded and there probably wasn’t going to be anything beyond that.

But Wade Carver didn’t seem like the kind of man who gave up easily.

Pauling smiled at his continued efforts to make their relationship personal. He was an interesting man. Good-looking in a rough-around-the-edges kind of way. And dangerous. She liked that about him. Almost as dangerous as Reacher.

And, in a way, just as good-looking.

She was about to politely decline his invitation, but something stopped her.

“Never say never,” she finally said.

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Also by Dan Ames

The JACK REACHER Cases #1 (A Hard Man To Forget)

The JACK REACHER Cases #2 (The Right Man For Revenge)

The JACK REACHER Cases #3 (A Man Made For Killing)

The JACK REACHER Cases #4 (The Last Man To Murder)

The JACK REACHER Cases #5 (The Man With No Mercy)

The JACK REACHER Cases #6 (A Man Out For Blood)

The Jack Reacher Cases #7 (A Man Beyond The Law)

The JACK REACHER Cases #8 (The Man Who Walks Away)

The JACK REACHER Cases (The Man Who Strikes Fear)

The JACK REACHER Cases (The Man Who Stands Tall)

The JACK REACHER Cases (The Man Who Works Alone)

DEAD WOOD (John Rockne Mystery #1)

HARD ROCK (John Rockne Mystery #2)

COLD JADE (John Rockne Mystery #3)

LONG SHOT (John Rockne Mystery #4)

EASY PREY (John Rockne Mystery #5)

BODY BLOW (John Rockne Mystery #6)

MOLLY (Wade Carver Thriller #1)

SUGAR (Wade Carver Thriller #2)

ANGEL (Wade Carver Thriller #3)

THE KILLING LEAGUE (Wallace Mack Thriller #1)

THE MURDER STORE (Wallace Mack Thriller #2)

FINDERS KILLERS (Wallace Mack Thriller #3)

DEATH BY SARCASM (Mary Cooper Mystery #1)

MURDER WITH SARCASTIC INTENT (Mary Cooper Mystery #2)

GROSS SARCASTIC HOMICIDE (Mary Cooper Mystery #3)

KILLER GROOVE (Rockne & Cooper Mystery #1)

BEER MONEY (Burr Ashland Mystery #1)

THE CIRCUIT RIDER (Circuit Rider #1)

KILLER’S DRAW (Circuit Rider #2)

TO FIND A MOUNTAIN (A WWII Thriller)

STANDALONE THRILLERS:

THE RECRUITER

KILLING THE RAT

HEAD SHOT

THE BUTCHER

BOX SETS:

AMES TO KILL

GROSSE POINTE PULP

GROSSE POINTE PULP 2

TOTAL SARCASM

WALLACE MACK THRILLER COLLECTION

SHORT STORIES:

THE GARBAGE COLLECTOR

BULLET RIVER

SCHOOL GIRL

HANGING CURVE

SCALE OF JUSTICE