Chapter 56

Reacher guards the porch while Chang and Westwood search the house, finding an angled storm-hatch inside a converted linen closet. Reacher braces a heavy sofa across it, sealing what they believe is the main shelter exit.

They deduce the shelter’s layout and search an outbuilding with double doors, finding an artfully arranged junk tangle concealing a flat hatch. They park a crew-cab truck with its front wheel over it, sealing the presumed second exit. Sorting the junk reveals welded mild-steel sections that are not fencing but cages, along with manacles, spiked collars, masks, and tools stained black—likely dried blood—confirming brutal captivity.

They breach the adjacent “suicide suite.” Inside, amid aprons and wiring, they find a tiled room reeking of death. A woman in a white dress is chained to the wall, beaten to death with a blood-crusted bat, facing lights and multiple cameras with stereo microphones—a stage for recordings. A printed request details a custom torture scenario for $100,000.

Back in the house’s computer room, Chang and Westwood power up racks of gear and uncover Mother’s Rest as a pay-per-view snuff-streaming platform. The catalog lists expensive, categorized killings, a custom-order service, and hundreds of videos over five years, including Thin Man All Ribs Broken First and Sad Couple With Something to Be Sad About, implicating the man from the train and tying to McCann and Exit.

They discuss how the con likely springs and decide to question the con men below. Returning to the outbuilding, they remove the truck, set up a gun-ready opening plan, and Westwood throws the hatch open. Instead of a tunnel, they find there is no hole.