‘So?’

  ‘So what are they really doing here? Maybe this is not about the women at all. Maybe this is about Petrosian. He’s presumably a smart, slippery guy. Maybe there’s nothing to pin on him. No evidence, no witnesses. So maybe Cozo is using Blake and Lamarr to get you to get Petrosian. They profiled you, right? Psychologically? They know how you think. They know how you’ll react. They know if they use Petrosian to threaten me, your very first thought will be to go get Petrosian. Then he’s off the street without a trial, which they probably couldn’t win anyway. And nothing is traceable back to the Bureau. Maybe they’re using you as an assassin. Like a guided missile or something. They wind you up, and off you go.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Or maybe it’s something else,’ she said. ‘This guy killing these women sounds pretty smart, too, right? No evidence anywhere? Sounds like it’s going to be a difficult case to prove. So maybe the idea is you eliminate him. There might not be enough proof to satisfy the courts, but there might be enough to satisfy you. In which case you fix him, on behalf of the women you knew. Job done, cheap and quick, nothing traceable back. They’re using you like a magic bullet. They fire it here in New York, and it hits home wherever and whenever.’

  Reacher was silent.

  ‘Maybe you were never a suspect at all,’ she said. ‘Maybe they weren’t looking for a killer. Maybe they were looking for somebody who would kill a killer.’

  There was silence in the room. Outside, the street sounds of early morning were starting up. It was dark grey dawn, and traffic was building.

  ‘Could be both things,’ Reacher said. ‘Petrosian and this other guy.’

  ‘They’re smart people,’ Jodie said.

  He nodded. ‘They sure as hell are.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. All I know is I can’t go base myself at Quantico and leave you here alone in the same city as Petrosian. I just can’t do that.’

  ‘But maybe they’re not serious. Would the FBI really do something like that?’

  ‘You’re going around in a circle. The answer is, we just don’t know. And that’s the whole point. That’s the effect they wanted. Just not knowing is enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘And if you don’t go?’

  ‘Then I stay here and guard you every minute of every day until we get fed up with it to the point where I go after Petrosian anyway, irrespective of whether they were kidding in the first place or not.’

  ‘And if you do go?’

  ‘Then they keep me on the ball with the threat against you. And in their opinion on the ball means what? Can I stop after I find the guy? Or do they make me go all the way and rub him out?’

  ‘Smart people,’ she said again.

  ‘Why didn’t they just ask me straight?’

  ‘They can’t just ask you. It would be a hundred per cent illegal. And you mustn’t do it, anyway.’

  ‘I can’t?’

  ‘No, not Petrosian or the killer. You mustn’t do either thing they want.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because then they own you, Reacher. Two vigilante homicides, with their knowledge? Right under their noses? The Bureau would own you, the whole rest of your life.’

  He leaned his hands on the window frame and stared at the street below.

  ‘You’re in a hell of a spot,’ she said. ‘We both are.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to think,’ he said. ‘I’ve got until eight o’clock.’

  She nodded. ‘Well, think carefully. Don’t do anything we’ll regret.’

  Jodie went back to work. The partnership track beckoned. Reacher sat alone in her apartment and thought hard for thirty minutes, and then he was on the phone for twenty. Blake had said maybe there are people who still owe you favours. Then at five minutes to eight he called the number Lamarr had given him. She answered, first ring.

  ‘I’m in,’ he said. ‘I’m not happy about it, but I’ll do it.’

  There was a brief pause. He imagined the crooked teeth, revealed in a smile.

  ‘Go home and pack a bag,’ she said. ‘I’ll pick you up in two hours exactly.’

  ‘No, I’m going to see Jodie. I’ll meet you at the airport.’

  ‘We’re not going by plane.’

  ‘We’re not?’

  ‘No, I never fly. We’re driving.’

  ‘To Virginia? How long will that take?’

  ‘Five, six hours.’

  ‘Six hours? In a car with you? Shit, I’m not doing that.’

  ‘You’re doing what you’re told, Reacher. Garrison, in two hours.’

  Jodie’s office was on the fortieth floor of a sixty-floor tower on Wall Street. The lobby had twenty-four-hour security and Reacher had a pass from Jodie’s firm that let him through, day or night. She was alone at her desk, reviewing morning information from the markets in London.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked her.

  ‘Tired,’ she said.

  ‘You should go back home.’

  ‘Right, like I’m really going to sleep.’

  He moved to the window and looked out at a sliver of lightening sky.

  ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

  She made no reply.

  ‘I decided what to do,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘Well, don’t tell me about it. I don’t need to know.’

  ‘It’ll work out. I promise.’

  She sat still for a second, and then she joined him at the window. Nuzzled into his chest and held him tight, her cheek against his shirt.

  ‘Take care,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll take care,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said again.

  She turned her face up and they kissed. He kept it going, long and hard, figuring the feeling was going to have to last him long into the foreseeable future.

  He drove faster than usual and was back at his house ten minutes before Lamarr’s two hours were up. He took his folding toothbrush from the bathroom and clipped it into his inside pocket. He bolted the basement door and turned the thermostat down. Turned all the faucets off hard and locked the front door. Unplugged the phone in the den and went outside through the kitchen.

  He walked to the end of the yard through the trees and looked down at the river. It was grey and sluggish, lined with morning mist like a quilt. On the opposite bank, the leaves were starting to turn, shading from tired green to brown and pale orange. The buildings of West Point were barely visible.

  The sun was coming over the ridge of his roof, but it was watery, with no warmth in it. He walked back to the house and skirted the garage and came out on his driveway. Hunched into his coat and walked out to the street. He didn’t look back at the house. Out of sight, out of mind. That was the way he wanted it. He crossed the shoulder and leaned on his mailbox, watching the road, waiting.

  SEVEN

  Lamarr arrived exactly on time in a new Buick Park Avenue with shined paint and Virginia plates. She was alone and looked small in it. She eased to a stop and pressed a button and the trunk lid opened. There was a chrome supercharged label on the lip. Reacher closed the trunk again and opened the passenger door and slid inside.

  ‘Where’s your bag?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t have a bag,’ he said.

  She looked blank for a second. Then she looked away from him like she was dealing with a social difficulty and eased away down the street. She paused at the first junction, unsure.

  ‘What’s the best way south?’ she asked.

  ‘On a plane,’ he said.

  She looked away again and made a left, away from the river. Then another, which set her heading north on Route 9.

  ‘I’ll pick up I-84 in Fishkill,’ she said. ‘Go west to the Thruway, south to the Palisades, pick up the Garden State.’

  He was silent. She glanced at him.

  ‘Whatever,’ he said.

  ‘Just making conversation.’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘You’re not being very co-operative.’

  He shrugged. ‘You told me you wanted my help with the Army. Not with the basic geography of the United States.’

  She raised her eyebrows and made a shape with her mouth like she was disappointed, but not surprised. He looked away and watched the scenery from his window. It was warm in the car. She had the heater on high. He leaned over and turned his side down by five degrees.

  ‘Too hot,’ he said.

  She made no comment. Just drove on in silence. I-84 took them across the Hudson River and through Newburgh. Then she turned south on the Thruway and squirmed back in her seat, like she was settling in for the trip.

  ‘You never fly?’ he asked.

  ‘I used to, years ago,’ she said. ‘But I can’t now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Phobia,’ she said simply. ‘I’m terrified, is all.’

  ‘You carrying your gun?’ he asked.

  She lifted a hand from the wheel and pulled back the flap of her jacket. He saw the straps of a shoulder holster, stiff and brown and shiny, curving next to her breast.

  ‘Would you use it?’

  ‘Of course, if I had to.’

  ‘Then you’re dumb to be scared of flying. Driving a car and getting in gunfights are a million times more likely to kill you.’

  She nodded. ‘I guess I understand that, statistically.’

  ‘So your fear is irrational,’ he said.

  ‘I guess,’ she said.

  There was silence. Just the hum of the motor.

  ‘The Bureau got many irrational agents?’ he asked.

  She made no reply. Just reddened slightly under the pallor. He sat in the silence, watching the road reel in ahead. Then he started to feel bad for riding her. She was under pressure, from more than one direction.

  ‘I’m sorry about your sister,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, I know you’re worried about her.’

  She kept her eyes on the road. ‘Blake tell you that? While I was making the coffee?’

  ‘He mentioned it.’

  ‘She’s my stepsister, actually,’ she said. ‘And any worrying I do about her situation is strictly professional, OK?’

  ‘Sounds like you don’t get along.’

  ‘Does it? Why should it? Should I care more just because I’m close to one of the potential victims?’

  ‘You expected me to. You expected me to be ready to avenge Amy Callan, just because I knew her and liked her.’

  She shook her head. ‘That was Blake. I would have expected you to care anyway, as a human being, except in your case I wouldn’t, actually, because you match the killer himself for profile.’

  ‘Your profile is wrong. Sooner you face up to that, sooner you’ll catch the guy.’

  ‘What do you know about profiling?’

  ‘Nothing at all. But I didn’t kill those women, and I wouldn’t have, either. Therefore you’re wasting your time looking for a guy like me, because I’m exactly the wrong type of a guy to be looking for. Stands to reason, right? Borne out by the facts.’

  ‘You like facts?’

  He nodded. ‘A lot better than I like bullshit.’

  ‘OK, try these facts,’ she said. ‘I just caught a killer in Colorado, without ever even being there. A woman was raped and murdered in her house, blows to the head with a blunt instrument, left posed on her back with her face covered by a cloth. A violent sexual crime, spontaneously committed, no forced entry, no damage or disruption to the house. The woman was smart and young and pretty. I reasoned the perpetrator was a local man, older, lived within walking distance, knew the victim, had been in the house many times before, was sexually attracted to the victim, but was either inadequate or repressed as to communicating it to her appropriately.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I issued that profile and the local police department made an arrest within an hour. The guy confessed immediately.’

  Reacher nodded. ‘He was a handyman. He killed her with his hammer.’

  For the first time in thirty minutes, her eyes left the road. She stared at him. ‘You can’t possibly know that. It hasn’t been in the paper here.’

  He shrugged. ‘Educated guess. The cloth over her face means she knew him and he knew her, and he was ashamed to leave her uncovered. Probably made him feel remorseful, maybe like she was watching him from beyond the grave or something. That kind of semi-functional thinking is indicative of a low IQ. The lack of forced entry and the lack of disruption to the house both mean he was familiar with the place. He’d been there many times before. Easy enough to figure.’

  ‘Why easy?’

  ‘Because what kind of a guy with a low IQ has been visiting with a smart and pretty girl many times before? Got to be a gardener or a handyman. Probably not a gardener, because they work outside and they tend to come at least in pairs. So I figured a handyman, probably tormented by how young and cute she was. One day he can’t stand it any more, he makes some kind of a clumsy advance, she’s embarrassed by it, she rejects it, maybe even laughs at it, he freaks out and rapes her and kills her. He’s a handyman, got his tools with him, he’s accustomed to using them, he’d use a hammer for a thing like that.’

  Lamarr was silent. Reddening again, under the pallor.

  ‘And you call that profiling?’ Reacher asked. ‘It’s just common sense.’

  ‘That was a very simple case,’ she said quietly.

  He laughed. ‘You guys get paid for this? You study it in college and all?’

  They entered New Jersey. The blacktop improved and the shoulder plantings got tidier, like they always do. Every state puts a lot of effort into the first mile of its highways, to make you feel you’re entering a better place from a worse one. Reacher wondered why they didn’t put the effort into the last mile instead. That way, you’d miss the place you were leaving.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Lamarr said.

  ‘So talk. Tell me about college.’

  ‘We’re not going to talk about college.’

  ‘Why not? Tell me about Profiling 101. You pass?’

  ‘We need to discuss the cases.’

  He smiled. ‘You did go to college, right?’

  She nodded. ‘Indiana State.’

  ‘Psychology major?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘So what was it? Criminology?’

  ‘Landscape gardening, if you must know. My professional training is from the FBI Academy at Quantico.’

  ‘Landscape gardening? No wonder the Bureau snapped you up in a big hurry.’

  ‘It was relevant. It teaches you to see the big picture, and to be patient.’

  ‘And how to grow things. That could be useful, killing time while your bullshit profiles are getting you nowhere.’

  She was silent again.

  ‘So are there many irrational phobic landscape gardeners at Quantico? Any bonsai enthusiasts scared of spiders? Orchid growers who won’t step on the cracks in the sidewalk?’

  Her pallor was whitening. ‘I hope you’re real proud of yourself, Reacher, making jokes while women are dying.’

  He went quiet and looked out of the window. She was driving fast. The road was wet and there were grey clouds ahead. They were chasing a rainstorm south.

  ‘So tell me about the cases,’ he said.

  She gripped the wheel and used the leverage to adjust her position in the seat.

  ‘You know the victim group,’ she said. ‘Very specific, right?’

  He nodded. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Locations are obviously random. He’s chasing particular victims, and he goes where he has to. Crime scenes have all been the victim’s residence, so far. Residences have been basically various. Single-family housing in all cases, but varying degrees of isolation.’

  ‘Nice places, though.’

  She glanced at him. He smiled. ‘The Army paid them all off, right? When they quit? Scandal avoidance, they call it. A big chunk of money like that, a chance to settle down after a few footloose years, they probably bought nice houses.’

  She nodded as she drove. ‘Yes, and all in neighbourhoods, so far.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ he said. ‘They want community. What about husbands and families?’

  ‘Callan was separated, no kids. Cooke had boyfriends, no kids. Stanley was a loner, no attachments.’

  ‘You look at Callan’s husband?’

  ‘Obviously. Any homicide, first thing we do is look at family. Any married woman, we look at the husband. But he was alibied, nothing suspicious. And then with Cooke, the pattern became clear. So we knew it wasn’t a husband or a boyfriend.’

  ‘No, I guess it wasn’t.’

  ‘First problem is how he gets in. No forced entry. He just walks in the door.’

  ‘You think there was surveillance first?’

  She shrugged. ‘Three victims is not a large number, so I’m wary of drawing conclusions. But yes, I think he must have been watching them. He needed them to be alone. He’s efficient and organized. I don’t think he would have left anything to chance. But don’t overestimate the surveillance. It would be pretty obvious pretty quickly that they were alone during the day.’

  ‘Any evidence of a stake-out? Cigarette butts and soda cans piled up under a nearby tree?’

  She shook her head. ‘This guy is leaving no evidence of anything.’

  ‘Neighbours see anything?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘And all three were done during the day?’

  ‘Different times, but all during daylight hours.’

  ‘None of the women worked?’

  ‘Like you don’t. Very few of you ex-Army people seem to work. It’s a snippet I’m going to file away.’

  He nodded and glanced at the weather. The roadway was streaming. The rain was a mile ahead.

  ‘Why don’t you people work?’ she asked.

  ‘Us people?’ he repeated. ‘In my case because I can’t find anything I want to do. I thought about landscape gardening, but I wanted a challenge, not something that would take me a second and a half to master.’