Текст книги "Jack and Kill"

Автор книги: Diane Capri

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 3 страниц)

“What did she say to him?” Kim asked.

Duffy said, “I don’t know. Maybe she’ll be able to tell us when we have a chance to question her.”

Reacher closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest.

Apparently, he wasn't in the mood for conversation. After a few contortions, he slouched further down onto the backseat.

“Is he sleeping?” Kim asked aloud.

“I would be,” Gaspar replied.

Twenty-one minutes later the car had stopped at the intersection of Valley View and Grand Parkway, waiting for the traffic signal. The boy must have dropped something; Jillian seemed to be searching on the floor or maybe between the seats.

The traffic light changed to green, allowing westbound traffic to proceed. But the little car didn’t move immediately.

Gaspar said, “This would have been the point where witnesses reported the first long horn blast from the F-150 immediately behind her car. Another long one, then two shorter blasts followed, Brady said.”

“We’ve got spotty sound from here on out,” Duffy said. She reached over to turn up the volume.

On the video, Jillian stopped searching for the toy and sat up abruptly. She slid the transmission into gear. Kim could see her lips moving as she spoke silently. Maybe she said, “Okay okay okay. Keep your shirt on. We're going.” Or something like that.

Jillian pulled the vehicle through the intersection making a right turn and curving narrowly moving into the far right lane, allowing the angry truck driver plenty of room to pass. Kim heard his revved engine amid traffic sounds from other cars in the intersection. Jillian’s Prius floated side to side in the truck’s wash as it sped past.

And that should have been the end of it. In a more civilized age, it would have been. But not this day. Because whether Jillian knew it or not, violence is still a process, not an event, and the day wasn’t finished yet.

Instead, Jillian continued her steady stream of nervous chatter, but whatever she said inside the car was inaudible through the available surveillance microphones and the image wasn’t the right angle for lip reading.

But the horns, the lost toy, Jillian’s agitation, and probably a hundred other things altogether flipped a switch of some sort and the boy began to squall while still safely belted into his car seat.

Jillian glanced over, maybe to comfort the child. In the split second she was distracted, she didn’t see the F-150 stop abruptly in front of her and the Prius slammed into what must have felt like hitting a brick building.

From the back seat, her passenger had no warning and no opportunity to brace himself. The impact threw him onto the floor in a jumble of boots and knees and elbows. Maybe his head took a resounding whack against the padded front seat.

Brook cried harder and Jillian panicked, yelling now, probably near hysteria, which fed the boy’s squalling and the cacophony inside the car must have reached decibels assaulting all ears.

The truck driver moved swiftly from inside the F-150’s cab to standing beside the Prius holding his shotgun by the barrel like a club or a baseball bat.

Kim and Gaspar watched Reacher struggle to extricate himself from his tortured position in the foot well. When the truck driver smashed Jillian’s window, Reacher must have heard the sound of breaking glass and felt the rush of cold air into the cabin.

Jillian screamed and the boy continued screeching and while Reacher was still struggling to get up off the floor. The truck driver’s angry tenor shouted, “What the hell is wrong with you, bitch?”

That was the point where the truck driver opened Jillian’s door and hauled her out and threw her hard against the car.

Gaspar pressed the pause button on the playback to give them a moment Reacher didn’t have at the time to think through the situation.

6.

By the time Reacher was able to assess the situation, chaos reigned. The Prius’s front end had smashed into the rear of the oversized F-150 and crunched like an accordion. The burly driver, outraged, unrelenting, held Jillian by the arm and shook her, screaming angry words Reacher, still in the back seat, couldn't quite hear, either. The boy continued his hysteria in the front seat and the little car’s horn, which had sounded constantly since the collision, blared as if its battery might last forever.

The truck driver raised the shotgun and brought the butt down on Jillian’s shoulder hard enough to knock her out of his grasp and drop her to the pavement.

In a flash, Reacher propelled from the back seat, over the wrinkled car hood, and when the burly guy raised his shotgun club again, Reacher grabbed the gun barrel, stopping the swing at the top of his arc and causing the burly guy’s weight to shift and pivot on his left foot.

Surprise caught the burly guy off guard for a moment, but a moment was all Reacher needed. Briefly, their eyes met and the truck driver’s bulged as if he was being squeezed by a bullwhip around the stomach.

That was when the burly driver made his final mistake. He faced Reacher full on and snarled a threat that seemed to faze Reacher not at all.

Out of the blue, Reacher head-butted him full in the face. Came off his back foot, thrust up the legs and whipped his head forward and smashed it into the guy’s nose, like hitting him in the face with a bowling ball.

His legs crumpled and he hit the floor like a puppet with the strings cut.

And his head cracked on the concrete’s jagged edge.

When the truck driver went down and stayed down, Reacher moved swiftly to Jillian’s side. He helped her to her feet, steadied her inside the Prius, then knelt to talk with her, watching her face carefully, maybe looking for the non-reactive pupils Kim saw hours later. They exchanged a few words the microphones didn’t catch, but it seemed like a brief and gentle disagreement.

Jillian waved toward the moving traffic. A few vehicles had slowed and some had stopped. A man held a cell phone to his ear. A woman dressed in nurse’s garb approached to help. Jillian glanced at Reacher once more and a long look communicating something unspoken passed between them.

More cars slowed, stopped, and people came to help.

Reacher stood, turned, and walked northward along Grand Boulevard’s gravel shoulder. In the final moments of the video, his image was grainy, indistinct. Perhaps another drone camera’s capture or maybe Duffy had cut the sound.

Reacher seemed to have a cell phone held to his ear. Then he dropped it onto the pavement and crushed it with the heel of his boot before he turned, stuck out his thumb, and waited for a ride.

The video ended. Silence reigned while the three agents mulled things over.

Duffy said, “I’m going to the restroom. I’ll be right back.” She picked up the video player and left the table.

Gaspar said, “I have to call Maria.” He left the table, too, and Kim heard, “Alexandre? How is she?” before he moved through the front door of The New Hope Family Diner in search of a better signal.

7.

Kim remained seated, trying to make sense of the puzzle picture and Reacher’s jumbled profile as Duffy’s video destroyed the working hypothesis she’d formed in her head.

Several things that had been mysteries a few hours ago were now solved. Duffy had done Reacher a favor three days ago when she warned Otto and Gaspar to stop digging for Reacher’s records. Reacher probably came to New Hope to return that favor.

He figured somehow that Jillian Timmer and Brook Armstrong were hiding here. Reacher discovered or deduced a connection between Jillian and New Hope, even if Duffy didn’t know what it was yet. Maybe she or Kim would find the connection, but it didn’t really matter now that the kidnapping was resolved and Reacher had obviously moved on.

Maybe Reacher had planned to kill the truck driver and maybe not. Either way would no doubt have been fine with Reacher.

The confounding point was his motivation. Was it possible that all he wanted was to release Jillian from the man’s hold and help Duffy return Brook to his family?

Gaspar returned to the table, smiling a little, Kim thought. “Maria doing better?”

“She’s got a ways to go, but thank God for Alexandre and Denise. They’re staying with her, helping with the kids until I can get back. I’ll tell you about it later. Where’s Duffy?”

Kim looked out into the parking lot and noticed that the black SUV with the tinted windows and government plates was gone.

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Thank you for reading my books. You're the reason I write! If you liked my books, you can help keep my work going by "liking" the books on Amazon and everywhere the option is offered, and by posting your honest reviews of the book to help other readers decide whether it's worth their reading time. I hope you will. You can find a complete list of my books with links to the book pages for reviews and other information here: Diane Capri Amazon Author Page

Sign up to be on our mailing list so we can let you know when new adventures are ready and make sure you don't miss opportunities for free books. We'll give you a free short story simply for subscribing to my blog. You can sign up for either list easily here: Sign me up!

If you want to read the stories Behind the Book you can find them on my website. http://www.DianeCapri.com

Readers know my books are heavily researched, edited, proofed and professionally formatted. If you find errors, please let us know and we'll fix them if we can. We’re committed to presenting the best possible reading experience and we appreciate your help. http://www.DianeCapri.com/contact/

While you're there, send me your questions. http://www.DianeCapri.com/contact/  I love to hear from you, and I answer whenever I can.

That said, the criminal activities herein depicted are pure fiction, as are the characters. Any events or real places mentioned are used fictitiously. As we all know, truth is stranger than fiction.

Thanks again for reading!

About the Author:

Diane Capri is a lawyer and multi-published author.

She’s a snowbird who divides her time between Florida and Michigan. An active member of Mystery Writers of America, Author’s Guild, International Thriller Writers, and Sisters in Crime, she loves to hear from readers and is hard at work on her next novel.

Please connect with her online:

http://DianeCapri.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/@DianeCapri

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DianeCapri

http://www.facebook.com/DianeCapriBooks

If you would like to be kept up to date with infrequent email including release dates for Diane Capri books, free offers, gifts, and general information, please sign up for our mailing list. We don't want to leave you out! Sign up here:

http://dianecapri.com/contact/

Also by DIANE CAPRI

(Click each title to buy or download a sample)

Hunt for Reacher Series:

Don't Know Jack

Jack in a Box (short story)

Judge Wilhelmina Carson Cases:

Carly’s Conspiracy

George’s Game

Harper’s Hell

Kate’s Killing

Attorney Jennifer Lane Cases:

Annabelle’s Attack

Darla's Deceit (short story)

Lee Child

 

THE REACHER REPORT:

March 2nd, 2012

....The other big news is Diane Capri—a friend of mine—wrote a book revisiting the events of KILLING FLOOR in Margrave, Georgia. She imagines an FBI team tasked to trace Reacher's current-day whereabouts. They begin by interviewing people who knew him—starting out with Roscoe and Finlay. Check out this review from Amazon: "Oh heck yes! I am in love with this book. I'm a huge Jack Reacher fan. If you don't know Jack (pun intended!) then get thee to the bookstore/wherever you buy your fix and pick up one of the many Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. Heck, pick up all of them. In particular, read Killing Floor. Then come back and read Don't Know Jack. This story picks up the other from the point of view of Kim and Gaspar, FBI agents assigned to build a file on Jack Reacher. The problem is, as anyone who knows Reacher can attest, he lives completely off the grid. No cell phone, no house, no car...he's not tied down. A pretty daunting task, then, wouldn't you say?

"First lines: "Just the facts. And not many of them, either. Jack Reacher's file was too stale and too thin to be credible. No human could be as invisible as Reacher appeared to be, whether he was currently above the ground or under it. Either the file had been sanitized, or Reacher was the most off-the-grid paranoid Kim Otto had ever heard of." Right away, I'm sensing who Kim Otto is and I'm delighted that I know something she doesn't. You see, I DO know Jack. And I know he's not paranoid. Not really. I know why he lives as he does, and I know what kind of man he is. I loved having that over Kim and Gaspar. If you haven't read any Reacher novels, then this will feel like a good, solid story in its own right. If you have...oh if you have, then you, too, will feel like you have a one-up on the FBI. It's a fun feeling!

"Kim and Gaspar are sent to Margrave by a mysterious boss who reminds me of Charlie, in Charlie's Angels. You never see him...you hear him. He never gives them all the facts. So they are left with a big pile of nothing. They end up embroiled in a murder case that seems connected to Reacher somehow, but they can't see how. Suffice to say the efforts to find the murderer, and Reacher, and not lose their own heads in the process, makes for an entertaining read.

"I love the way the author handled the entire story. The pacing is dead on (ok another pun intended), the story is full of twists and turns like a Reacher novel would be, but it's another viewpoint of a Reacher story. It's an outside-in approach to Reacher.

"You might be asking, do they find him? Do they finally meet the infamous Jack Reacher?

"Go...read...now...find out!"

Sounds great, right? It's available as an e-book only, and you can get it HERE. Check it out, and let me know what you think.

So that's it for now ... again, thanks for reading THE AFFAIR, and I hope you'll like A WANTED MAN just as much in September.

Lee Child

Table of Contents

Reviews

Additional Works

Copyright

Dedication

Author's Note

About the Author

Lee Child: The Reacher Report