• Complain

Li CHajld - The Midnight Line

Here you can read online Li CHajld - The Midnight Line full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2017, publisher: Transworld, genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Li CHajld The Midnight Line

The Midnight Line: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "The Midnight Line" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

A Jack Reacher Novel #22 A bad day. For someone. Jack Reacher takes an aimless stroll past a pawn shop in a small Midwestern town. In the window he sees a West Point class ring from 2005. Its tiny. Its a woman cadets graduation present to herself. Why would she give it up? Reachers a West Pointer too, and he knows what she went through to get it. Reacher tracks the ring back to its owner, step by step, down a criminal trail leading west. Like Big Foot come out of the forest, he arrives in the deserted wilds of Wyoming. All he wants is to find the woman. If shes OK, hell walk away. If shes not hell stop at nothing. Hes still shaken by the recent horrors of Make Me, and now The Midnight Line sees him set on a raw and elemental quest for simple justice. Best advice: dont get in his way.

Li CHajld: author's other books


Who wrote The Midnight Line? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

The Midnight Line — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Midnight Line" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Lee Child

THE MIDNIGHT LINE

2017

So far in American history nearly two million Purple Hearts have been awarded. This book is respectfully dedicated to each and every recipient.

ONE

JACK REACHER AND Michelle Chang spent three days in Milwaukee. On the fourth morning she was gone. Reacher came back to the room with coffee and found a note on his pillow. He had seen such notes before. They all said the same thing. Either directly or indirectly. Changs note was indirect. And more elegant than most. Not in terms of presentation. It was a ballpoint scrawl on motel notepaper gone wavy with damp. But elegant in terms of expression. She had used a simile, to explain and flatter and apologize all at once. She had written, Youre like New York City. I love to visit, but I could never live there.

He did what he always did. He let her go. He understood. No apology required. He couldnt live anywhere. His whole life was a visit. Who could put up with that? He drank his coffee, and then hers, and took his toothbrush from the bathroom glass, and walked away, through a knot of streets, left and right, towards the bus depot. She would be in a taxi, he guessed. To the airport. She had a gold card and a cell phone.

At the depot he did what he always did. He bought a ticket for the first bus out, no matter where it was going. Which turned out to be an end-of-the-line place way north and west, on the shore of Lake Superior. Fundamentally the wrong direction. Colder, not warmer. But rules were rules, so he climbed aboard. He sat and watched out the window. Wisconsin flashed by, its hayfields baled and stubbly, its pastures worn, its trees dark and heavy. It was the end of summer.

It was the end of several things. She had asked the usual questions. Which were really statements in disguise. She could understand a year. Absolutely. A kid who grew up on bases overseas, and was then deployed to bases overseas, with nothing in between except four years at West Point, which wasnt exactly known as a leisure-heavy institution, then obviously such a guy was going to take a year to travel and see the sights before he settled down. Maybe two years. But not more. And not permanently. Face it. The pathology meter was twitching.

All said with concern, and no judgement. No big deal. Just a two-minute conversation. But the message was clear. As clear as such messages could be. Something about denial. He asked, denial of what? He didnt secretly think his life was a problem.

That proves it, she said.

So he got on the bus to the end-of-the-line place, and he would have ridden it all the way, because rules were rules, except he took a stroll at the second comfort stop, and he saw a ring in a pawn shop window.

The second comfort stop came late in the day, and it was on the sad side of a small town. Possibly a seat of county government. Or some minor part of it. Maybe the county police department was headquartered there. There was a jail in town. That was clear. Reacher could see bail bond offices, and a pawn shop. Full service, right there, side by side on a run-down street beyond the restroom block.

He was stiff from sitting. He scanned the street beyond the restroom block. He started walking towards it. No real reason. Just strolling. Just loosening up. As he got closer he counted the guitars in the pawn shop window. Seven. Sad stories, all of them. Like the songs on country radio. Dreams, unfulfilled. Lower down in the window were glass shelves loaded with smaller stuff. All kinds of jewellery. Including rings. Including class rings. All kinds of high schools. Except one of them wasnt. One of them was West Point 2005.

It was a handsome ring. It was a conventional shape, and a conventional style, with intricate gold filigree, and a black stone, maybe semi-precious, maybe glass, surrounded by an oval hoop that had West Point around the top, and 2005 around the bottom. Old-style letters. A classic approach. Either respect for bygone days, or a lack of imagination. West Pointers designed their own rings. Whatever they wanted. An old tradition. Or an old entitlement, perhaps, because West Point class rings had been the first class rings of all.

It was a very small ring.

Reacher wouldnt have gotten it on any of his fingers. Not even his left-hand pinky, not even past the nail. Certainly not past the first knuckle. It was tiny. It was a womans ring. Possibly a replica for a girlfriend or a fiance. That happened. Like a tribute or a souvenir.

But possibly not.

Reacher opened the pawn shop door. He stepped inside. A guy at the register looked up. He was a big bear of a man, scruffy and unkempt. Maybe in his middle thirties, dark, with plenty of fat over a big frame anyway. With some kind of cunning in his eyes. Certainly enough to perfect his response to his sudden six-five two-fifty visitor. Driven purely by instinct. The guy wasnt afraid. He had a loaded gun under the counter. Unless he was an idiot. Which he didnt look. All the same, the guy didnt want to risk sounding aggressive. But he didnt want to sound obsequious, either. A matter of pride.

So he said, Hows it going?

Not well, Reacher thought. To be honest. Chang would be back in Seattle by then. Back in her life.

But he said, Cant complain.

Can I help you?

Show me your class rings.

The guy threaded the tray backward off the shelf. He put it on the counter. The West Point ring had rolled over, like a tiny golf ball. Reacher picked it up. It was engraved inside. Which meant it wasnt a replica. Not for a fiance or a girlfriend. Replicas were never engraved. An old tradition. No one knew why.

Not a tribute, not a souvenir. It was the real deal. A cadets own ring, earned over four hard years. Worn with pride. Obviously. If you werent proud of the place, you didnt buy a ring. It wasnt compulsory.

The engraving said S.R.S. 2005.

The bus blew its horn three times. It was ready to go, but it was a passenger short. Reacher put the ring down and said, Thank you, and walked out of the store. He hustled back past the restroom block and leaned in the door of the bus and said to the driver, Im staying here.

No refunds.

Not looking for one.

You got a bag in the hold?

No bag.

Have a nice day.

The guy pulled a lever and the door sucked shut in Reachers face. The engine roared and the bus moved off without him. He turned away from the diesel smoke and walked back towards the pawn shop.

TWO

THE GUY IN the pawn shop was a little disgruntled to have to get the ring tray out again so soon after he had put it away. But he did, and he placed it in the same spot on the counter. The West Point ring had rolled over again. Reacher picked it up.

He said, Do you remember the woman who pawned this?

How would I? the guy said. I got a million things in here.

You got records?

You a cop?

No, Reacher said.

Everything in here is legal.

I dont care. All I want is the name of the woman who brought you this ring.

Why?

We went to the same school.

Where is that? Upstate?

East of here, Reacher said.

You cant be a classmate. Not from 2005. No offence.

None taken. I was from an earlier generation. But the place doesnt change much. Which means I know how hard she worked for this ring. So now Im wondering what kind of unlucky circumstance made her give it up.

The guy said, What kind of a school was it?

They teach you practical things.

Like a trade school?

More or less.

Maybe she died in an accident.

Maybe she did, Reacher said. Or not in an accident, he thought. There had been Iraq, and there had been Afghanistan. 2005 had been a tough year to graduate. He said, But I would like to know for sure.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Midnight Line»

Look at similar books to The Midnight Line. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «The Midnight Line»

Discussion, reviews of the book The Midnight Line and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.