Foreign and Domestic: A Get Reacher Novel (36 page)

She needed to think about her future with a man who had chosen duty to his country over duty to his family. Even though she could understand why, she wasn’t sure if this life was right for her any longer. She needed to think about a lot of things, and only time would give her the answers.

But for now, Raggie was safe, and it was obvious they had a new family member in Max the shepadoodle.

She had tried to call her husband, but they weren’t allowing him phone calls right now. He was currently being detained with no formal charges. They were holding him as a person of interest until they decided whether to charge him. Either way, she figured she was going to need the time apart.

Rowley was a fiercely loyal man—incredibly so—and it was likely he would tell them most of the truth. But she didn’t think he would tell them about Cord and Lucas’s involvement. He’d tell them they were acting on his orders. Cord would be fine. He would retire with a full pension. He’d be promoted for sure.

None of this mattered to Claire Rowley at the moment, however. All she wanted was to spend time with her daughter. She walked into the extra bedroom and made eye contact with Max as he lifted his head and looked at her. She lifted the covers and scooted in next to Raggie, who didn’t acknowledge that her mother was getting in next to her but was aware of it.

Even though Raggie was exhausted from her ordeal, it’d be a while before she was able to sleep deeply in the way that most people did, in that vulnerable way made possible by complete trust in the outside world. Her fears would keep her always partially alert for a long time to come. But she knew that she’d eventually move past it. Eventually, she’d sleep like a normal person. Just as she had gotten over a shark attack and learned to embrace it as a strength, telling her friends, “Hey, I survived a shark attack. What’ve you done?”

But for now, she would sleep with one eye open.

TWO RECORD-BREAKING HOT AUTUMN DAYS LATER,
Jack Cameron was standing sixty-one yards from a turnpike under the shade of a big Liriodendron tulipifera, also known as tulip poplar and most commonly as Indiana’s state tree. That’s where he was— smack dab in the middle of Indiana’s farm country. He was far from Kelly Li and Special Agent Cord, regrettable in a way because he wanted nothing more than to see Li again, but this way was his way.

The last thing he wanted was to be subject to endless questions and examinations. That was Li’s thing. The life of a special agent was fraught with danger, both to your life and to your reputation. Neither of these things appealed to Cameron. So he had left.

The tulip tree was far from the biggest he’d ever seen. It had good, sturdy branches that started about twenty feet from the base. Bright red and yellow leaves filled the top where once they’d been green. They provided plenty of shade from the bright morning sunlight.

Cameron had seen many interstates, and Indiana’s was no different. Some parts were better maintained than other parts. Federal highway money went here and went there, and such was life.

He sat under the tree, foot in hand. His feet hurt, and he was considering taking his shoes off for a while. That’s when he remembered the tracking device in his sole. He pulled it out and stared at it. Surely, the battery was dead by now, but he didn’t like even the smallest chance of being traceable. So he tossed the hi-tech nail off into the grass.

Jack Cameron thought about resting under the tree for at least a half an hour or so, but a man on the road with nowhere to go was just about as much a victim of chance as one could be. And just then, a new opportunity revealed itself. He saw a green Jeep Wrangler pull slowly out of the nearby woods. The passengers must’ve been mud riding because the thing was caked in dried dirt and fresh mud. The gears shifted, and the tires climbed over the bumpy terrain until the vehicle was on more stable ground.

The Jeep started to head back to the highway, and then it stopped and reversed and headed in Cameron’s direction. It drove slowly and carefully and pulled out in front of him. It was a soft top, and the person seated on the passenger side unzipped the window. She was a young girl, maybe twenty-two or so with golden blond hair just like what he’d imagine a farmer’s daughter might have.

She looked down at him and with a thick farm girl accent, she said, “You lost?”

Cameron said, “No, ma’am. I’m just getting some shade. Been walking all mornin’.”

Cameron couldn’t see into the vehicle, but he heard another female voice, only it sounded older. More of a grown woman’s voice.

She said, “Where ya headed?”

He decided to stand up in front of ladies. So he got up off of the tree roots he’d been sitting on and brushed the dirt off of his rear end. He said, “I’m passing through. Going nowhere in particular.”

He looked into the Jeep and saw a much older replica of the young girl. It must’ve been her mother or possibly a young grandmother. She was in her sixties, at least, but younger than sixty-five, he guessed. Cameron smiled at the thought of a grandmother taking her granddaughter out for a mud ride to bond.

The younger one said, “You wanna ride? We’re headed into town. We can drop you there.”

Cameron said, “Sure.”

The girl opened the door and hopped out. She flipped the seat forward and climbed into the backseat. Cameron ducked his head down and climbed into the front passenger seat and closed the door hard.

The Jeep returned to the road, and they were on their way.

IN A SMALL TOWN
called Green Station, Indiana, Cameron sat in a small diner. He’d just finished up his breakfast with the grandmother and granddaughter who had picked him up two hours earlier. He had bought them breakfast to thank them for the ride. To the ladies, it was a lunch since they had already eaten breakfast, but to him, it was a late breakfast.

Cameron polished off a plate full of eggs, sunny side up, and drank coffee. It was a regular Indiana fall day outside, which was to say it was like a summer day in New York. It was beautiful. The sun glimmered off of everything—chrome trim on vehicles, local shops’ exterior metal doors, and a huge sign across the street.

Cameron thought about his mother’s files on Jack Reacher. He thought about one thing in particular. He thought about the name of Jack’s old unit, the 110
th
Special Unit.

He had paid the check, and the grandmother and granddaughter had said goodbye to him. They wished him luck in his wandering. He remained sitting at the booth in the diner. He sat there for another forty-five minutes.

Using a pen, he’d borrowed from the waitress, he sketched on a napkin. Cameron wasn’t an artist. He didn’t have an artistic bone in his body. Nothing about his drawing would’ve been considered art or in any way be seen as outstanding by some snooty college professor at Harvard or wherever. And it wouldn’t get any praise from a junior college professor, either. It wouldn’t even have gotten a reaction from an art school dropout. But he was pretty damn impressed with his work.

It was a just a sketch, but the basic idea was there. It was an illustration of the United States Army Military Police insignia. He had drawn it from memory.

The design was basic—a pair of gold pistols crossing barrels, more like swords than pistols. The pistols were outdated now, but back in the day, they were considered an advance in military weapons because the parts were standardized and interchangeable. Underneath the design, Cameron had written ‘110
th
’ and the words ‘Special Unit.’

He sat back and stared across the street at the big, reflective sign which stood out above the front of a tattoo parlor. He rolled up his right sleeve and stared at his shoulder. After a few seconds, he let the sleeve roll back down over his bicep.

A tattoo of the US Army Police pistols and the words ‘110
th
’ Special Unit.’ It wasn’t a tattoo he had earned by being in the unit, but tattoos were for the wearer. To some people, they served as a reminder, but to Cameron, a tattoo would be a direction as well. It would serve as a North Star.

He drained his coffee, scooted out the booth, and stood up. He left the diner, taking his napkin with him, and walked over to the tattoo parlor.

He went in and saw a couple of guys talking. They were covered in tattoos. A bell dinged at the sound of his entry, but they ignored him.

After a couple of minutes of waiting—and after overcoming chickening out, twice—a beautiful young girl walked out from a corner like maybe she had been in the back office. She had a regular hair, as in it looked normal. Normal style. Normal length. It was shoulder length and brown with some long bangs cut just above her eyes. They covered her eyebrows, which may or may not have even been there. She could’ve shaved them off completely. Cameron wasn’t sure.

The rest of her wasn’t normal. Tattoos covered here everywhere but her face. Her face was stunning in that kind of plain Jane way. She wore square glasses, white in color. She had no facial tattoos or piercings, nothing that would be pretty common on someone who had chosen to blanket herself in tattoos.

She smiled at Cameron and said, “Can I help you?”

He said, “I’m thinking of a tattoo.”

She looked him over and said, “First one?”

“Yes.”

“What you got in mind?”

He opened his hand and unfolded the napkin, handed it to her.

She grabbed it and said, “Okay. Standard Army thing. We don’t get a lot of that. Nearest base is a hundred miles from here. You military?”

He said, “No.”

She said, “Isn’t that taboo or something? Guys getting patches or tattoos of units when they never fought in a war?”

“It’s not for my service. It’s a reminder of my old man.”

She nodded and said, “I see. You want a more detailed and better version of this, right?”

He nodded.

She said, “Let’s see what we can do.”

She led Cameron beyond the front desk and back to her station in the parlor. He sat down, and she started to pull out sketches of her past designs. There were really elaborate tattoos. Some good, some great, and some exceptional. She was a true artist.

After twenty minutes of sifting through her work and getting to know each other, she said, “What do you think?”

“I think you’re talented. No question.”

“So? You want the tattoo?”

Cameron thought for a second—and said nothing.

About the Author

Scott Blade grew up in Mississippi, where things are very much not what they seem.

If you liked this book, please go to Scott’s website and sign up to receive exclusive previews and content.

www.scottblade.com

If you enjoyed this book, please leave a four or five-star review. You can also email Scott Blade @
[email protected]
or
[email protected]
.

Also check out the first book in the Jack Cameron series,
Gone Forever,
and then the second book,
Winter Territory
. As well as
Reckoning Road
, a Jack Cameron Story.

And coming soon
Nothing Left
Book 4!

Reacher on!

Scott Blade

NOTHING LEFT

A Jack Cameron Thriller

Scott Blade

*Note: unedited version.

“
Plans go to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. Protect and serve. Never off duty.”

—Jack Reacher,
61 Hours
.

Chapter 1

TWO DEAD COPS
slumped over the front bench and to the right of a white Ford unmarked police cruiser like they had toppled over like dominos. They were shot in the heads, shoulders, and chest straight through the driver side of the front windshield and I was the only person around in the gloom.

The reason that I knew this was a police car was the array of antennas along the trunk lid. And they both had that cop look about them. They were in street clothes, but definitely cops.

My name is Jack Cameron and I’ve walked from one state to the next, never stopping for long. I started drifting in order to find my father—a guy named Reacher, but I’ve since altered my quest just a little. Because, like my father, I have discovered that I’m an addict, not a drug or alcohol addict. I’m addicted to two things: coffee and wandering. And my addictions have no cure that I’m aware of.

Day-by-day I learn more and more about the father that I never met because day-by-day I become more and more like him. It started before I was born. It started before he was born with some sort of genetic evolution that endowed us with traits that some people might call advantages. I don’t know. Sometimes they feel like curses.

Like right now.

Because the next thing that happened was that another police cruiser, one that looked as though it had once been a state-of-the-art machine, blazed and bounced as it sped toward me from out of the darkness. The sirens howled, the tires screeched, and the brakes squealed as the thing came skidding to a stop ten feet from me. The rear of the car skidded clear across the lanes of an abandoned two-lane highway.

The sirens halted, but the blue and red lights flashed, lighting up the low hilly land around me. The night sky brightened and the beams from the light faded into lazy clouds.

I stayed where I was. I didn’t raise my hands. Why should I? I hadn’t killed the cops. I had only just found them.

The driver side door burst open, a female cop jumped out, and pulled a department-issued Glock on me. She steadied her arms over the top of her car door. They were firm. She aimed dead center of my chest. She had been well-trained. She pulled up, presumably to a distress call from the two dead cops, or not, and she had seen me—a giant hitchhiker with dirty black clothes and a look that can only be called “horror movie slasher”. The kind of movie where the killer never dies and keeps coming back after being shot with shotgun slugs, 9mm Parabellums, or whatever else they throw at him. So I couldn’t blame her for thinking that I was responsible for her dead colleagues. But the truth was that 51 seconds ago I was 155 yards away, walking along the highway in complete darkness. Forty-three minutes before that I was to the west near a junction when the driver that I had been riding with let me out and the reason, the best that I could guess, was because she had regretted picking me up in the first place. She’d been a nice enough lady. On the road you don’t question a driver that is willing to pick you up, but I hadn’t felt like conversing. Apparently, she had. So I let her talk for over an hour, but when I hadn’t said that much, or responded, or even nodded; I suppose that she had had enough of me.

She pulled her Lincoln Navigator over to the shoulder of a more modern highway and dropped me off. I stood on the shoulder of that road and stared at the road ahead. There were two routes: left and right. She had gone right. And I had gone left. Whenever I could never decide on which direction to travel, I simply decided to go left. No reason to deliberate about it all day, just pick left. I really don’t know how I came up with that policy. It just seemed natural. When you don’t know the road ahead, left is as good as right.

Fifty/fifty.

Twenty-four hours before that I was in a place called Moscow. The one in Kansas, not Russia. I had heard about the name while passing through the state and I became curious about the town. Why the name Moscow? Honestly, I had no idea and still didn’t. The people there were friendly enough, but no one gave me a straight answer to this question. The town had only had 300 people living in it. Very small.

The policewoman said, “Hands up!”

As my mother had taught me:
you obey the law
and
respect women
. So I raised my hands. She watched and followed my arms as they went up with her eyes, a long route. Her eyes flicked back down at where my face was, but I doubted that she could see much detail on me because I stood in the darkness, except every few seconds when a hint of blue light blipped across my face from the police light bar.

She said, “Keep them up!”

A calm, yet firm voice. A seasoned cop voice. A voice that I knew well. Not the woman’s actual sound, but the type of voice. The type of attitude that came with it.

She said, “Turn around!”

I turned around.

She said, “Don’t move!”

I faced the direction of the silent state cop car with the two dead cops inside. I looked at their bodies. I saw that the bullets were clearly not fired by a professional because their heads and chest weren’t the only thing that was hit. There were bullets all over the place—the front hood, the backseat, and the rear windshield. The shooting had been an act of passion and nothing else.

The policewoman walked up behind me, slow and steady. I sensed that she had stopped behind me outside of my reach.

Then she said, “Very slowly, place your hands behind your back.”

I did as she said, within one and a half seconds she had locked one of my wrists in a handcuff and then the other. I heard and felt the
clicks
from the handcuff as the cold metal rounded over my skin. I glanced back at her from over my shoulder.

I said, “I didn’t do this. I just found them only a few moments ago.”

She said, “Right. Now turn around.”

I turned around and gazed down at her. She squinted her eyes, but not in a way that said she couldn’t see me. It was more like she couldn’t believe her eyes. So she took one hand off of the Glock, covered her mouth, and just held the gun one-handed, pointing at my center mass. Then she reached down and grabbed a small flashlight out of her police belt.

She lifted it up and clicked the light on. The beam was bright, white, and shot straight at my chest and then moved up to my face. I fell blind behind its powerful, little beam.

The police officer stepped forward and lowered the Glock to her side. She looked at me in a strange way—strange for this situation. Strange for any situation where a stranger is pointing a Glock at you. She looked at me like she recognized me, but I had never met her in my life.

She asked, “Reacher? Jack Reacher?”