The blond guy glanced at Jed’s ticket. “Route 1454? Cool. Same as me.”

“Thank you for finding it.” Jed took the ticket. His hand was shaking. “Can’t believe I dropped it.”

“No problem. Weird shit happens sometimes. So, you going to Dallas, too?”

Jed shook his head. “Got a transfer there.”

“Going farther?”

Jed nodded. “Jackson, Mississippi.”

“That’s a long way. You visiting family?”

“I don’t have any family.”

“Really? None?”

Jed thought about an honest answer. He didn’t want to lie. But neither did he want to get into the specifics. Not with a stranger. Not then. So he said, “Nope. Just me.”

“No parents?”

“Never knew my dad. My mom – cancer.”

“That’s harsh, man. No brothers or sisters? Uncles or aunts?”

“Nope.”

“So who’s meeting you when you get wherever you’re going?”

“No one. Why?”

“Just seems like you got dealt a tough hand, man, if you’re all alone in the world. I’m sorry about that.”

Jed shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“Tell you what – let’s ride together. At least as far as Texas. Keep each other company.”

Jed shrugged again. “OK. If you want.”

“This your first time riding the ’hound?”

Jed nodded.

The blond guy put his arm around Jed’s shoulder, pulled him close, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I’m going to ask you something. It’s real important, so listen up. Your bag? The little backpack thing you got going on? You got anything valuable in there? Laptop? Tablet? Nintendo?”

“No. I don’t have anything like that.”

“That’s good. Real good. The road’s not a safe place. But all the same, never let your bag out of your sight. Don’t leave it anywhere. Don’t let the driver put it in the hold. And keep an arm through the straps when you sleep. You got me?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Now I need to siphon the python. You go ahead. Through the doors, turn left. All the way to the end. Pier sixteen. Get us a pair of seats. Midway between the wheels, if you can. That’s the most comfortable. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Jed found the correct bus, climbed in, showed the driver his ticket, and made his way down the aisle. More than half the seats were already taken. Everyone on board was older than Jed. Some by three or four years. Some by sixty or seventy. Some people were traveling alone. Some were in pairs. Some were in groups. Many of them had headphones on. Some had pillows. A few were wrapped in blankets. Most had things to occupy themselves with, like books or phones or computers. Jed suddenly felt horribly unprepared. He wanted to turn around. Jump off the bus. Run back to his foster home. Pretend that he had never tried to leave. Forget everything his birth mother had told him. But instead he forced himself into the first empty pair of seats he came to. He shuffled across to the window. Hauled his bag onto his lap. Hugged it to his chest. And focused on the thrum of the engine. The hiss of the ventilation. The murmur of the conversations going on all around him. The smell of disinfectant and other people’s food. He told himself that everything was going to be OK. Just as long as he could pull himself together before the blond guy showed up. He didn’t need to be any more embarrassed than he already was.

Two minutes before departure time the door at the front of the bus hissed shut. Jed started to rise up in his seat. He was about to call out to the driver. To tell him a passenger was missing. That they had to wait. But he didn’t make a sound. He stopped moving. Slid back down. And shifted his bag to the space next to him. Dallas was more than thirty-six hours away. He didn’t even know the blond guy’s name. He wasn’t some kind of lifelong companion. He was grateful to have gotten his ticket back. But he didn’t need a day and a half of questions and opinions and dumb-ass advice being shoved down his throat before he switched to the next bus. He was happy to be on his own.

Until 10:00 a.m. on Friday, anyway.

Whether he would be alone after that was a whole other question.

The lock’s mechanism clicked and whirred. Reacher’s door swung open. A quadrant of light unfurled across the garish carpet. Two men crept inside. Both mid-twenties. Both holding guns. One eased the door back into place in its frame. They stood still for a moment. Then they started toward the bed. It was only semi-visible. The glow filtering through the thin drapes was pale. But the shape beneath the covers was tall. It was broad. It was what they were expecting.

The men separated, one either side of the mattress. They continued to the head of the bed. It was a warm night but the comforter was pulled all the way up over the pillows. The guy nearer the window shrugged, then prodded what he estimated would be Reacher’s shoulder with the muzzle of his gun.

He got no response.

He poked again. Harder. He said, “Hey. Wake up.”

The ceiling light flicked on. The guys spun around. They saw Reacher at the other end of the room. He opened the door and stepped outside. Then he darted to the side and pressed his back against the external wall.

The guys ran after Reacher. The first one’s leading foot touched the ground outside and Reacher smashed him in the face with his forearm. The guy’s nose shattered. His neck snapped back. He collapsed through the doorway, piled into his buddy’s chest, and knocked him down. Reacher scooped up the guy’s gun and followed him inside.

The first guy wasn’t moving. The second had rolled onto his side and was scrabbling to retrieve his gun from where he dropped it when he fell. Reacher stamped on his hand. The guy screamed and curled up into a ball. Reacher grabbed the first guy by the arm, pulled him into the room, and closed the door.

There was a bang on the wall. A man’s voice yelled, “Hey. Room 12. Keep it down.”

Reacher waited for the second guy to go quiet then said, “Get up. Sit in the chair if you want. We can be civilized about this.”

The guy scuttled back on his heels and his butt and his good hand until his shoulders were touching the wall.

Reacher said, “I met a couple of your friends today. Here, in town. In an alley. Where are they now?”

The guy didn’t respond.

Reacher said, “Why did one of them kill a woman this morning? Push her under a bus?”

The guy didn’t answer.

Reacher stepped in close and stamped on the guy’s other hand. He screamed again, louder, and rolled onto his other side.

There was another bang on the wall. A man’s voice yelled, “Room 12. Be quiet. Last warning.”

Reacher waited for the guy to uncurl himself a little then said, “Who do you work for?”

The guy shook his head.

Reacher stamped on the guy’s right knee. He screamed, long and loud.

Reacher said, “I can go on all night. Can you? The other two. Where are they?”

The guy said, “They left town.”

“Where are they going?”

“Home. Winson, Mississippi.”

“Why did you stay?”

“We were told to find you.”

“Why?”

“Find out what you know.”

“About?”

The light filtering through the drapes switched from dull gray to pulsing red and blue. Reacher peered out of the window. There were two police cars in the parking lot. One outside his room. One at the far end. An officer was already on foot, heading for the office. To talk to the clerk. To check on numbers and dispositions. And to get a passkey. None of those things would take long. Reacher figured he had sixty seconds at best. He hauled the first guy up onto his feet and turned him so that his back was to the door. He punched the side of the guy’s head and let him fall to the floor again. He grabbed the second guy. Pulled him away from the wall. Smashed the back of his head into the floor. Pinched one of his earlobes to make sure he was unconscious. Dragged him forward until his feet were almost touching the first guy’s. They were lying like the hands of a clock at close to 3:00 p.m. He wiped his prints off the first guy’s gun and tossed it onto the floor. Went into the bathroom. Opened the window. And climbed out.