“Not that I can think of. Food, possibly. There’s a lot of him.”
The table went quiet again. Sinclair bent down and dug around in her pocketbook, and came out with her purse. It was a fat leather thing, blue in color, fastened with a tab and a popper. She scooped up her driver’s license, from the table next to her cup, and she unsnapped her purse, and made ready to slide the license into its customary slot.
Then she stopped.
She said, “I have my license. It’s right here.”
She pincered her fingertips and pulled it out from behind a plastic window.
Two licenses, side by side. Everything the same. The Commonwealth of Virginia, the number, the name, the address, the date of birth, the signature.
Even the photograph was the same.
Two licenses.
Identical.
Chapter 17
The back part of Reacher’s brain checked doors and windows, and the front part checked facts and logic. Facts and logic won. But certainty was a dangerous illusion, so he said, “Maybe we should go inside.”
Neagley went first. Sinclair grabbed her pocketbook in one hand and her purse and her two licenses in the other and hustled after her. Reacher brought up the rear. They stepped through the double doors and walked through the breakfast room and up the stairs to the lobby. No one there. Sinclair said, “We should check my room.”
Reacher asked, “Where is it?”
“Top floor.”
The elevator shaft was empty. The birdcage was on an upper story.
Reacher said, “Wait one.”
He stepped over to the desk. The clerk who had checked them in was on duty. She was a stout old matron, and no doubt very competent. He asked her, “Ma’am, did a woman who resembles my friend here ask for a key? Did she show you ID?”
The clerk said, “Resembles?”
“Looks like.”
“No,” the woman said. “No one asked. No one came in. There was no woman. Just a man. He waited by the elevator. Possibly meeting a guest. But then I had to go in the office. I didn’t see him again.”
She pointed behind her, at an office door.
Reacher said, “What did the man look like?”
“He was small. He was wearing a raincoat.”
“Thank you,” Reacher said.
He stepped back to the others.
He said, “Let’s take the stairs.”
Neagley led the way, staying close to the wall, craning her neck, looking upward. The stairs wrapped around the elevator shaft. They could see into it through the filigreed wrought iron. Nothing was moving. Just chains and cables and an iron slab of a counterweight, all immobile. They made it to the second floor. Then the third. They looked up and saw the underside of the elevator car. The birdcage. It was waiting on the floor above. The top floor.
Reacher said, “If it moves, we’ll race it back to the bottom. We’ll get there first. It’s pretty slow.”
But it didn’t move. It just sat there. They walked up to where they could see into it. It was empty. Gate closed, waiting. They came around behind it, then alongside it, climbing all the way, and then finally they stepped out into the top-floor hallway.
Empty.
Sinclair pointed. Third room along. Next to Reacher’s own. Upgraded. Only the best for the United States government. The door was closed.
Neagley said, “I’ll go.”
She moved silently over the thick corridor carpet. The hinge side of the door was closest, and the knob side farthest. She ducked under the peephole’s field of view and flattened against the wall beyond the door. She reached out and tried the knob backhand. Long training. Always safer. Guns can shoot through doors.
She mouthed “Locked,” and mimed that she needed the key. Sinclair tucked her purse and her licenses up under her arm and scrabbled in her bag. She came out with a brass key on a pewter fob. Reacher took it from her and tossed it to Neagley, who caught it one-handed and put it in the lock, from the same position, backhand again, at a distance, out of the line of fire.
She turned the key.
The door sagged open an inch.
Silence.
No reaction.
Reacher stepped up and flattened against the wall on the hinge side, symmetrical with Neagley, equally safe, and he spread his fingers and pushed the door wide.
No reaction.
Neagley pivoted around the jamb and ducked inside. Reacher followed. Long training. Smallest first, biggest last. That way both parties got an unobstructed view. And the bigger party didn’t get accidentally shot in the back.
There was no one in the room.
Just a wide bed with a dozen green brocade pillows, and a lone wheeled suitcase with a lock, in the middle of the floor.
No one in the bathroom.
No one in the closet.
Sinclair came in and dumped her stuff on the bed. Her pocketbook, her purse, the two driver’s licenses. They spilled and fluttered. Reacher closed and locked the door. He checked the window.
Nothing to see.
Safe enough.