“She’s not really into automobiles, is she?”
“I wouldn’t know. Why?”
“Because there are three Chevrolets in the book and only two in the lot. I think she put the Explorer down as a Chevy. It’s an old model. Kind of angular. Maybe she confused it with an old-model Blazer or something.”
He touched the gun muzzle to the word Ford.
“That’s the Crown Vic,” he said. “That’s them.”
“You think?” Alice said.
“I know. I can feel it.”
They had taken two rooms, not adjacent, but in the same wing. Rooms five and eight.
“O.K.,” he said again. “I’m going to take a look.”
He pointed to the night guy. “You stay here and keep quiet.”
Then he pointed to Alice. “You call the state police and start doing your thing with the federal judge, O.K.?”
“You need a key?” the night clerk asked. “No,” Reacher said. “I don’t need a key.” Then he walked out into the damp warmth of the night.
The right-hand TOW of cabins started with number one. There was a concrete walkway leading past each door. He moved quickly and quietly along it and his shoes left damp prints all the way. There was nothing to see except doors. They came at regular intervals. No windows. The windows would be at the back. These were standard-issue motel rooms, like he had seen a million times before, no doubt about it. Standard layout, with a door, a short hallway, closet on one side and bathroom on the other, the hallway opening out into a room occupying the full width of the unit, two beds, two chairs, a table, a credenza, air conditioner under the window, pastel pictures on the wall.
Cabin number five had a Do Not Disturb tag lying on the concrete a foot from the doorway. He stepped over it. If you’ve got a stolen kid, you keep her in the room farthest from the office. No-brainer. He walked on and stopped outside number eight. Put his ear to the crack of the door and listened. Heard nothing. He walked silently on, past number nine, past ten, to the end of the row. Walked around the bend of the U. The two cabin blocks were parallel, facing each other across a thirty-foot-wide rectangle of garden. It was desert horticulture, with low spiky plants growing out of raked gravel and crushed stone. There were small yellow lanterns here and there. Large rocks and boulders, carefully placed, a Japanese effect.
The crushed stone was noisy under his feet. He had to walk slow. He passed by ten’s window, then nine’s, then crouched low and eased against the wall. Crawled forward and positioned himself directly under eight’s window sill. The air conditioner was running loud. He couldn’t hear anything over it. He raised his head, slowly and carefully. Looked into the room.
Nothing doing. The room was completely empty. It was completely undisturbed. It might never have been occupied. It was just sitting there, still and sterile, cleaned and readied, the way motel rooms are. He felt a flash of panic. Maybe they made multiple bookings all over the place. Two or three similar places, to give themselves a choice. Thirty or forty bucks a night, why not? He stood up straight. Stopped worrying about the noise from the gravel. Ran past seven and six, straight to five’s window. Put himself right in front of it and looked in.
And saw a small dark man wearing two white towels dragging Ellie out of the bathroom. Bright light was spilling out behind him. He had both her wrists caught in one hand above her head. She was kicking and bucking violently in his grip. Reacher stared in for maybe a quarter of a second, long enough to sense the layout of the room and see a black 9-mm handgun with a silencer lying on the credenza. Then he took a breath and one long fluid step away and bent down and picked up a rock from the garden. It was bigger than a basketball and could have weighed a hundred pounds. He heaved it straight through the window. The screen disintegrated and glass shattered and he followed it headfirst into the room with the window frame caught around his shoulders like a wreath of victory.