“You want lunch?”
“Here?”
“I’ve got a thing going with a diner. They’ve probably got vegetables.”
“Tuna salad will do it for me.”
He went inside and used the phone. Ordered three sandwiches and promised yet another twenty bucks for the tip. Came out and found Ellie and Carmen looking for him.
“I’m going to a new school soon,” Ellie said. “Just like you did.”
“You’ll do great,” he said. “You’re smart as a whip.”
Then Carmen let go of her daughter’s hand and stepped near him, a little shy and silent and awkward for a second. Then she smiled wide and put her arms around his chest and hugged him hard.
“Thanks,” was all she said.
He hugged her back. “I’m sorry it took so long.”
“Did my clue help?”
“Clue?” he said.
“I left a clue for you.”
“Where?”
“In the confession.”
He said nothing. She unwound herself from his embrace and took his arm and led him to where Ellie wouldn’t hear her.
“He made me say I was a whore.”
He nodded.
“But I pretended to be nervous and I got the words wrong. I said ‘street stroller.’ ”
He nodded again. “I remember.”
“But it’s really streetwalker, isn’t it? To be correct? That was the clue. You were supposed to think to yourself, it’s not stroller, it’s walker. Get it? It’s Walker. Meaning it’s Hack Walker doing all of this.”
He went very quiet.
“I missed that,” he said.
“So how did you know?”
“I guess I took the long way around.”
She just smiled again. Laced her arm into his and walked him back to the car, where Ellie was laughing with Alice.
“You going to be O.K.?” he asked her.
She nodded. “But I feel very guilty. People died.”
He shrugged. “Like Clay Allison said.”
“Thanks,” she said again.
“No hay de que, senora. ”
“Senorita, “she said.
Carmen and Ellie and Alice drifted inside to get washed up for lunch. He watched the door close behind them and just walked away. It seemed like the natural thing to do. He didn’t want anybody to try to keep him there. He jogged to the road and turned south. Walked a whole hot mile before he got a ride from a farm truck driven by a toothless old man who didn’t talk much. He got out at the I-10 interchange and waited on the west ramp for ninety minutes in the sun until an eighteen-wheeler slowed and stopped next to him. He walked around
the massive hood and looked up at the window. The window came down. He could hear music over the loud shudder of the diesel. It sounded like Buddy Holly. The driver leaned out. He was a guy of about fifty, fleshy, wearing a Dodgers T-shirt and about four days’ growth of beard.
“Los Angeles?” he called.
“Anywhere,” Reacher called back.