Border Lines (Reachers Book 2) Read online

  “I'll have to call up.”

  “I'd sure appreciate it.” Adams turned his back on the sergeant and sighed impatiently. He had a knack of being all politeness to people while at the same time expressing his discontentment. He rolled his eyes at Mark, as if to say what a joke this place is. And Mark looked at the officers moving past him, looking at him in amusement, and he couldn't help but agree with his boss.

  “Take the stairs, the lift is out,” the sergeant finally said.

  “Wouldn't take it if you claimed it was working,” Adams grumbled as he walked away. “You know they told us putting judges in charge of the police would cut down on all the legislation and yet here we are, still caught up in bureaucratic crap. I outrank her. Did you know that?”

  Mark didn't. They headed up the stairs, sticking to the right to allow others to pass. Everyone seemed to be staring.

  “And yet here we are, asking her permission to hand over her files – files she's probably not even picked up. It's all bullshit, they'll paint it yellow and call it a canary but it's still bullshit. You keep your mouth shut, kid, I'll do the talking.”

  It was one thing to have a woman you admired sign your life away without even looking you in the eye, but to be in the same room, less than a year later, and for her to not even remember – it was more than Mark could handle. He'd given that place everything, everything he ever had and they took it from him, tore it up, and tossed it in the gutter to smoulder with Adams' cigarette butts.

  Judge April Trent was in her sixties. She paid about as much attention to the cases brought before her as she did to the dust covered legal books on the shelf in her office. She was a Londoner extradited to work the highest ranks of a crappy station and she'd given up trying to prove her worth. It was her job to pass sentences and she was under strict orders that the work camps needed more hands and their local jail cells were full. She created a stream of supply and if that meant innocent men and women were sent to die in the middle of a field, well she wasn't going to let it keep her up at night.

  “PCU wants the files for a dead tart?” At least she'd heard of PCU, but she clearly hadn't even read the murder reports. “What the hell would you want with a case like that?”

  “I'm afraid that's classified.”

  She didn't like authority, especially not from men. She squared her shoulders, ready to fight. “And what if I don't give it to you?”

  “Judge, this is your station and we've come here out of courtesy and politeness, but we've got seniority here and if I have to overrule you I'm afraid that's what I'm going to do. I'll try not to muddy your name in London 'cos I'm a friendly guy, but you know what talk is like.” Adams beamed at her.

  The judge ground her false teeth, but she wasn't stupid and she wasn't about to cling to a case they'd never even look at just to piss off a London agent. She shrugged.

  “All cases on the border are passed to our border detectives. You tell them you can have all the files you need.”

  “Thank you for your time, Judge.” Adams gestured that Mark follow him.

  In all his time in the station Mark had never had the privilege of going up through the building unless he was delivering a message. He'd only ever been to homicide once and it was so long ago he barely remembered it.

  Adams located the office himself. He knocked on the door but didn't wait for an answer. At least a dozen border crimes a day were reported and they all passed through the small office. They were sorted into ones that would be investigated and ones that would be filed. Then the investigated ones would be sorted again. Anything that could be easily solved was dealt with. Everything else was shelved.

  Inside the office a man and woman were laughing. Their smiles dropped when they saw they had visitors. Mark couldn't place them in the police station but it was obvious, by the way they looked at him, that they knew who he was.

  “Afternoon detectives. I'm Agent Adams, this is Agent Bellamy. Your judge has said you're the good folks who can help us.” He picked up the name card on the desk. “Detectives Hatfield and Ruth.”

  “What do you want?” Ruth said, straightening his tie.

  His partner suppressed an ugly smirk.

  “We're after the files you have on Keira Joy, Lisa Stevens, Chelsea Cooper, Clare Trent, and Hope Allison if you wouldn't mind.”

  “Who?” Hatfield asked.

  “Dead girls, all happening in the past two months, strangled?” Adams tried to jog their memories and failed.

  “You couldn't have missed them,” Mark stated.

  “Well maybe I was too busy not murdering my partner,” Ruth snapped.

  The comment stung.

  “They were prostitutes,” Adams offered. “All killed on the border lines. S'aven side.”

  Hatfield pointed to a pile at the back of the room. Clare Trent's was on the top. He rifled through the others until he found each file he needed.

  “You're not investigating these currently I take it,” Adams said.

  Ruth scoffed. “We've got bigger things to look into.”

  “Bigger than a serial killer.”

  “We've got the hijack case,” Hatfield boasted.

  “Hijack case?”

  “You know the medical trucks being hijacked and looted. There have been five. All their supplies stolen before they get to the border. I think that's a bit more important than a few dead hookers.”

  Adams didn't agree. “I think cracking a case like that would see you transferred out of here. Good luck with it. We'll catch your serial killer. Watch out for the headlines in the paper.” He gave them a wink and left.

  With their files on the backseat they drove across the border, back into London. But the burden of S'aven still hung like a noose around Mark's neck. He was angry. The station, the other cops, Rachel – everything in his old life had betrayed him. And what had he done? What had he really done to deserve any of this?

  He smacked the dashboard before he could contain himself.

  “Hey,” Adams grumbled. “I get she's not in prime condition but what's my car ever done to you?”

  “Sorry,” Mark said, folding in on himself and just wishing it would all go away.

  They drove in silence for a while. Adams was a talker; he'd talk just to fill the void but he avoided feelings in the same way as he avoided salad. Since Mark had been working with him they had never really sat down and spoken about what was going on. He pulled Mark out of a work camp, gave him a job and roof over his head and he'd never indicated why. Mark couldn't hold back any longer.

  “Gary wasn't dirty and I didn't kill him.”

  He just wanted Adams to know that first. He wanted someone to believe him.

  “I hear he was cleaner as a corpse swimming in the river than he ever was alive,” Adams corrected. “And in everyone else's eyes you killed him. I got you out of the work camp, I didn't get you a pardon. Mark, you're one of the good guys. I could see that the first day I approached you. But you've got to realise by now that being good counts for shit. Look at me, standing up for what I think is right and look where it gets me. There's only one thing in this world that you can do and that's be the type of man you can live with. Fuck anybody else.”

  Mark bowed his head. “Why'd you bring me on-board? I would have talked to you, I didn't need the incentive.”

  Adams tapped at the steering wheel. “I'll tell you a story. A year or two ago there was this man going around slicing up city workers, not killing them you understand, just cutting on them. He swore blind he was a Reacher, getting them to slice their own faces open. He was bat–shit crazy, but I swear to you this guy was no more a Reacher than I'm a catwalk model. He just believed it, so much so he passed some of the tests too. In the end I caught him pointing a gun at this girl's head while she cut into her own cheek to save her life. There was nothing paranormal about it.

  “Anyway this guy had nothing to do with PCU, he wasn't a Reacher. I should have passed him over, but I didn't. I had him sent to the Institute. D
o you know why?”

  Mark shook his head.

  “Because he was cutting up people. He was a bad guy, out of his mind and he needed to be dealt with. And the Institute would deal with him, until they realised he wasn't a Reacher, but by then his carcass would be useless. Now, at that same time there was a woman, she was nearly seventy and she was a Reacher, never hurt a soul in her life. I should have brought her in. Do you know what I did? I told her to leave town.”

  Adams pulled up the car.

  “This work is about making the right decisions, not just the decisions you're told to make. You've seen the truth and you've been on the wrong side of it too. You're someone I can work with. And you've seen my office, I need all the help I can get. Besides if I screw up who the hell is going to believe you, right?” He started to laugh.

  8

  The monitor on the medicom blinked a series of figures at Rachel. She'd heard about medicoms when she worked at St Mary's. They were revolutionising medicine, monitoring patients, and distributing perfect doses of medication at opportune times. Hooked up to a patient, in theory, it could care and restore better than any doctor. Rachel inspected the machine in fascination. A part of her had thought they were just make–believe. She shook her head at the cost of such a thing and yet how could anyone truly put a price on such an incredible piece of technology?

  John sat in the chair opposite, staring at the closed door and totally disinterested in the mechanical miracles keeping Darcy alive.

  “The doctor said he's going to be okay,” Rachel said idly. She'd grown accustomed to John's long silences. He didn't do small talk. If there was nothing to say he would keep his mouth shut. And sometimes he'd keep his mouth shut even if he did have something to say. At first it was unnerving, but over the months Rachel had started to enjoy just having him around, keeping an eye on the world.

  She swiped through the figures on the medicom screen. “He's thin, does he fast?”

  “I wouldn't know,” John replied.

  Rachel sat down opposite him. From what Charlie had told her, both he and John were as good as sons to Darcy, albeit prodigal ones. Charlie and Darcy were close, even when they were fighting. But clearly John and Darcy had a different relationship.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” she asked.

  John sighed. “About four years. Christmas time.” He shook his head in disapproval. John didn't do festivities.

  “And before that?”

  “I don't know, a few more years.”

  “How often does Charlie see him?”

  “He likes to check in every year, more if he can.” John's eyes fixed on the man in the bed.

  Rachel couldn't read him. The urge to reach out and touch his skin – dip into his subconscious and understand – was overwhelming. But she resisted. John wasn't a book she could just pick up and read whenever she wanted.

  “You guys have a fight?”

  He shook his head and for a few moments she thought that would be the end – another mystery she was just going to have to live with. But he surprised her.

  “They think you're all fallen angels. Darcy and his followers. The whole Catholic movement. Darcy thinks you're part of some garrison cast out of heaven.”

  She knew that already. You can't be a Reacher in a convent without noticing how they treated you like some holy relic.

  “Yeah, but you don't believe that?”

  “Charlie thinks it's the biggest load of bull.”

  “So why don't you go with him when he visits Darcy, he took care of you both right?”

  “His God welcomes angels, not me.”

  Rachel opened her mouth to try and think of something to say. But she was beaten to it.

  Darcy outstretched his hand and caught John. His eyes stayed close, but slowly his lips moved.

  “You are welcomed my boy. He welcomes you. He loves you. As do I.”

  Rachel went to the monitor. There was no change in Darcy's stats. She checked his eyes, but he was unconscious.

  “Did he really talk?” she said and paused when she looked at John. He was staring at the floor, a frown fixed into his face. She'd never seen him look shocked before.

  The door opened. Charlie hobbled inside. He saw John and froze.

  “Tell me he isn't…”

  “No, don't worry, he's doing okay,” Rachel said. “What about you?”

  “Dealt with,” Charlie replied. “So has Riva enlightened anyone as to what the job is?”

  “She's kept her distance since we got here. Charlie, I don't trust her.”

  “Nor do I,” Charlie said. “But Darcy brought us in and he wouldn't have done it if he didn't have a reason. Don't suppose there's any chance of us waking him up is there?”

  John glanced away, his body tensing at the suggestion.

  “No, he hasn't come around,” Rachel lied.

  “The last time he contacted us it was because he wanted to save you,” Charlie told her. “Now I know Riva might not be our favourite person—”

  “You mean because she kidnapped me, or because she killed my sister?” Rachel folded her arms.

  “I'm just saying, what if there's more to this than we think? We'll hear her out okay?” He phrased it like a question, but it was clearly an order.

  “Do we get a choice?”

  “Do you need one?” he said. “Listen, we've got to work together. I need you on our side. We're just going to listen to what she has to say. Are you with me?”

  She shrugged. “Fine, I'm with you, but I'm not going to be nice to her.”

  “Great, it'll be like having two Johns.”

  9

  Charlie didn't know enough about Riva. He'd liked her back when they were working for her husband – or he liked her more than he liked Pinky Morris anyway. After they left her cradling Pinky's corpse, Charlie hadn't given her much thought. He certainly never expected her to be commanding a room as though she'd been giving orders all her life. She was clever, so clever she had bided her time throughout her marriage being the doting wife. Was this her plan all along? To outlive Pinky Morris and take over his empire? Charlie caught sight of the skilled men patrolling the grounds. There was nothing of Pinky Morris in this work force. This was all Riva and that meant he had grossly underestimated her.

  She stood by her fireplace, totally at ease with the entire situation, which was more than could be said for the rest of them. Riva was alone, surrounded by her enemies and yet it was the three of them that sat awkwardly in the redecorated lounge. She'd set up the meeting in there on purpose, to remind them of what had happened.

  “So,” Charlie said when it appeared no one else was going to speak. “What's the job?”

  “Are you sure you want to know? If you don't take it, I'll have to have you killed.” She was smiling, but he didn't doubt her seriousness.

  “Trouble is we're in two minds at the moment. John is paranoid as anything, Rachel doesn't trust you, and my curiosity has gotten us all in trouble before.”

  She checked her nails, drawing them in with her silence.

  “How dangerous is it?” Rachel asked.

  Riva looked up. “That depends on how good you are. There will be an element of danger. Less if you do the job discreetly. Honestly, I don't know how you will do it. I want something done and I don't care about the bits in between. As long as I get the result I want.”

  “Why us?” Charlie asked. “We can't be your favourite people at the moment.”

  She laughed. “Ever with the ego, Charlie. Believe me you are not even high on my list of problems. But I saw how you worked and I've been told what you have done in the past. Darcy assured me you could help. If it's all true, then I know I can trust you and you'll get the job done.”

  Charlie dared a glance at Rachel and John. Neither looked particularly enthusiastic about her proposal, but this was his call. His role was to pick up the jobs. Even with the addition of Rachel, this was still a show he started. They trusted him to make the right decision
and he trusted his gut. He stared at Riva; she was calm, controlled, but eager. If they turned her down she wasn't sure where she would go, but she had her pride and she wouldn't beg for their help. There was a gleam in her eyes, she could be dangerous too and just as ruthless as her late husband.

  “That's a lot of hope you're putting on the people who wrecked your life.”

  Again she laughed. Still chuckling to herself she made her way to her armchair and sat back – a queen in her kingdom.

  “You've been out of S'aven for a while haven't you? The men out there are just a small fraction of my soldiers. Every business, every government body, they all hire my men. I own S'aven now. This town is mine.”

  Charlie sat back. She wasn't bluffing or bragging. This was a fact and none of them understood what that meant for the world they had known.

  “If you're so powerful why would you need the likes of us?”

  “I'm legitimate, Charlie. As absurd as it sounds, all of my power is legal, ethical, and built upon the trust of the people around me. While my husband did what he did, I did the opposite. S'aven respects me and I want it to stay like that.”

  “So what's the job?”

  “Are you taking it?”

  He didn't look at the others when he nodded.

  “I provide security for all of S'aven and this town is finally working well. Businesses are protected. We've even stopped three terrorist attacks. The government has been watching me. Someone let slip that they have reviewed the border control and it is not working. I was asked to submit a proposal, a plan for a new border control run by my men. There's a committee that votes on border issues, if they are unanimous I will be given the contract without any need for campaigning.”

  Her plan was brilliant and Charlie felt a little bit in awe of her gall. “So where do we come in?”

  “The vote has to be unanimous. There are twelve members of the board, I have secured nine supporters. But there are three men who are going to vote against me. I need you to make them vote in my favour.”