The Sentinel Audiobook Excerpt Transcript

Music first Richard decided he knew there was no shortage of venues in Nashville, but he wanted a particular kind of place somewhere worn with some history, where blind blake could have played back in the day, Howlin wolf, even certainly nowhere new or gentrified or gussied up the Only question was how to find a place like that the lights were still on in the bus depot and a handful of people were still working or waiting or just keeping themselves off the street. Some of them were bound to be local. Maybe all of them were reacher could have asked for directions, but he didn’t go in. He preferred to navigate by instinct. He knew cities he could read.

Their shape and flow like a sailor can sense the direction of the coming waves. His gut told him to go north, so he set off across a broad triangular intersection and onto a vacant lot strewn with rubble. The heavy odor of diesel and cigarettes faded behind him and his shadow grew longer in front as he walked. It led the way to rows of narrow, parallel streets lined with similar brick buildings stained with soot. It felt industrial but decayed and hollow Richard didn’t know what kinds of businesses had thrived in Nashville’s past, but whatever had been made or sold or stored.

It had clearly happened around there and it clearly wasn’t happening anymore. The structures were all that remained and not for much longer, Reacher thought either. The money would flow in and shore them up or they’d collapse. Reacher stepped off the crumbling sidewalk and continued down the center of the street. He figured he’d give it another two blocks three at the most.

If he hadn’t found anything good by then he’d strike out to the right toward the river, he passed a place that sold part-worn tires to a warehouse that a charity was using to store donated furniture. Then, as he crossed the next street, he picked up the rumble of bass, guitar, and the thunder of drums. The sound was coming from a building in the center of the block. It didn’t look promising. There were no windows, no signage, just a thin strip of yellow light escaping from beneath a single wooden door.

Reacher didn’t like places with too few potential exits, so he was inclined to keep walking but as he drew level, the door opened two guys, maybe in their late twenties with sleeveless t-shirts and a smattering of anemic. Tattoos stumbled out onto the sidewalk reach removed to avoid them and, at the same moment, a guitar began to wail from inside reacher paused. The riff was good, it built and swelled and soared, and just as it seemed to be done and its final note was dying away, a woman’s voice took over. It was mournful, desperate, agonizing, like a conduit to a world of the deepest imaginable, sorrow Reacher couldn’t resist. He stepped across the threshold, the air inside smelled of beer and sweat, and the space was much shallower front to back than Richard expected.

It was also wider effectively creating two separate areas with a dead zone down the middle, the right-hand side was for the music lovers. There were a couple dozen that night, some standing, some dancing some doing a bit of both the stage was beyond them against the far wall, taking up the full depth of the room, it was low, built out of beer crates with some kind of wooden sheeting nailed Across the top, there was a modest speaker stack at each side and a pair of metal bars hanging from the ceiling to hold the lights. The singer was front and center. She seemed tiny to reach her five feet tall at the most and as thin as a needle. Her hair was in a perfect blonde bob that shone so brightly.

Reacher wondered if it was a wig. The guitar player was to her left nearest the door. The bassist mirrored him on her right. They both had wild curly, hair and high sharp cheekbones and looked so alike. They could have been twins, certainly brothers.