* * *
—
Jed Starmer finally admitted that he’d been right the first time. Riding a bike was a total pain in the ass.
It was a pain in the ass. The calves. The thighs. The back. The shoulders. The neck. In pretty much every part of his body. Jed had never been so uncomfortable in his entire life. All he could think was, People do this for fun? What the hell is wrong with them?
Everything had been fine while Jed was in the city of Jackson. The streets were level. There was plenty of traffic so the vehicles had to move slowly. The drivers seemed used to bikes weaving around them. And Jed had to pay attention to finding his way. He remembered that there was only one road to Winson. He didn’t have a map so he had to watch out extra carefully for signs. Twice he thought he was lost. But he kept on going and pretty soon the buildings grew smaller and farther apart. The trees became taller and closer together. The fields stretched out beyond them. Jed raised his head and looked around. He thought his new surroundings were nice.
At first.
More things changed than the view as Jed rode deeper into the countryside. There were fewer vehicles, but the ones that were around drove much faster. They passed closer to him. He nearly got knocked off the bike half a dozen times. The nervousness from his first lesson came flooding back. And he kept coming to uphill stretches of road. It felt like massive weights were attached to his wheels. Every push on the pedals was a hundred times harder than on the flat. The sun was dipping low but the air was still hot. Jed was sweating. He was thirsty. He was hungry. He hadn’t eaten for more than twelve hours. His head was feeling light. His legs were soft and rubbery. He was praying for a nice long downward slope. For a few minutes when gravity could do the work. When he could rest. When he could pick up a little speed and the wind would rush by and cool his body.
Jed slogged his way around another bend. Looked up. And found himself at the foot of the tallest mountain he had ever seen.
* * *
—
The road into Winson was long and straight and lined with trees. The soft afternoon sunshine filtered through the leaves and cast a web of dappled shadows all along the faded blacktop. It was the kind of image Reacher had seen in Sunday newspaper articles about places parents should take their kids for picnics on school vacations. It looked idyllic. There was nothing to indicate that a town lay ahead.
Or a prison.
Or the people who had murdered Angela St. Vrain and Sam Roth.
* * *
—
A couple of miles beyond the sign announcing the town boundary, the trees thinned and buildings began to appear. Mainly houses. Mainly single story ones, spread apart from one another but standing near to the street. Most of them had wooden sides with dirty white paint that was peeling in handfuls. Plenty had roofs that looked like they were one decent storm away from getting blown completely off.
“I read about this place last night in the hotel before I went to sleep,” Hannah said. “It has a crazy history. Originally it was a Native American settlement. The French drove them out in, like, 1720. The British took the place from the French. The Spanish moved in when the British quit after the Revolutionary War. They were supposed to be on our side but they didn’t want to hand the town over so we took it from them. It thrived while all the trade was centered on the river. There are rumors of a second town, like a shadow, at the bottom of the cliff. Stories of caves and liquor and whores and stolen gold and smuggled jewels. Even if any of that was true, it’s all gone now. Blown up, or flooded. Then the river trade faded and the railroads and industry took over. Paper mills, mainly, because of all the trees that grow here. Now the industry’s gone, too. Which is why there are so many old houses, I guess. And why so many of them are about to fall down.”
Hannah drove in silence for a while and as they came closer to the town they saw the standard of maintenance improved. The size of the homes increased. They grew closer together. The balance shifted to mainly two-story properties. Most were still white, but their paint was fresh and bright. Some were blue. Some were yellow. Many had shutters. Most had porches running their full width. Some had verandas with solid columns and ornate wooden railings. The sidewalks that passed them were wide, and there were tall, mature trees forming a border with the road.
In the town itself wood construction gave way to brick. There were still plenty of balconies and verandas but with spindly supports and ornate iron railings painted gloss black. It felt like a small-scale copy of New Orleans, Reacher thought. The roofs were mainly flat. The windows were larger, some were square, some had curved tops. There were lots of alleyways. There was parking down both sides of all the streets. Half the spaces were empty. Reacher saw a couple of cafés. A few bars. A small church, built of brick with clumsy stained glass. It looked like it had recently been rebuilt, but on a budget. There was a range of businesses. A pawnshop with guns and guitars hanging two deep in the window. An insurance agent. A tire bay. A handful of small bed-and-breakfasts. A fishmonger. A cellphone store. A body shop.