Reckoning Road: A Get Jack Reacher Short Story Read Online Free

doors. I stepped out and helped the paramedic with the gurney and lifted it up and out of the van and rested it on its wheels on the pavement.
    The paramedic who had spoken with me earlier said, “If you head east, you’ll reach the interstate. Step off of the road and follow alongside it. That should keep you out of sight, and the cops won’t see you. If that’s what you want.”
    I said, “What if I want to talk to these sheriff’s deputies?”
    The paramedic said, “You can wait here if you want. You’ll have to stay in the parking lot. But if I were you, I’d get going. Whatever they want with you will probably inconvenience you at the least, and at the worst—well, let’s just say the cops are pretty bored out here. So when they see a nobody from nowhere coming into their jurisdiction and getting involved with a US marshal who ends up in the emergency room, they’ll be inclined to detain you for the max allotted time.
    “Look, I’m not a cop. I’m only doing my job. You should get going while the going is worth getting. Forget about this place.”
    The paramedic turned his attention back to John Martin and his partner, and they headed toward the emergency room’s uninteresting entrance and rolled Martin in.
    I stood in the night air and watched them leave. It was late August, and the fall hadn’t yet come on, but the summer was wafting away, and it showed. The temperature was still warm, but it was mellowed by a nice coolness. With the exception of the car accident and the impending danger, it was one of the nicest nights in my recent memory.
    I looked toward the main strip of Cedar Corner and traced the closed daytime businesses with my eyes as they led into the places with later hours of operation. The first building I saw was a bank, then a Protestant church, then a pharmacy, then a dry goods store that looked like it was cut straight out of an Old West movie set, and then there began stores that catered to a more nightly crowd. I saw a coffee shop, a bar, and a fast food place I’d never heard of, which was across from the McDonald’s.
    Corporate America competing with small businesses, right here in the perfect example of a small town with small business. The McDonald’s parking lot had some cars in it, and the fast food place that I’d never heard of didn’t.
    The straight street winded slightly to the left, and I saw a motel with a blinking red sign and across from the motel’s parking lot was a diner. Must’ve been the one that Martin had mentioned because it was the only thing that really classified as a diner. There was a dwindling car count in the parking lot, and a short staircase led up to the front door. Windows stretched from one corner to the other and then wrapped completely around the building.
    I couldn’t read the sign from where I was, but I was sure it was some locally owned thing. And like most of the places I’d been to in America, it probably had a name like Lloyd’s Diner or Clint’s Greasy Spoon.
    I headed toward the diner’s lights without even thinking twice about the coffee shop. Which was unusual because I loved coffee. Diners had coffee, like coffee shops, but one thing I’d discovered was that coffee shops often had more expensive blends I’d never heard of. Even though they were priced high, I liked to try them. I was a man who craved new adventures and liked trying new things. I had found that the coffee shops that were small chains or even single units seemed to have a knack for importing some of the best coffee beans in the world. Coffee beans that had been roasted, experimented with, and tested until the perfect blends were discovered. And if other people in other countries had discovered coffee, and then centuries later the farmers of those far off places had tested it and experimented until they discovered the best flavors and qualities, then who was I to reject their efforts? The least I could do was try. Besides, I was a consumer living in a