Afterward Hutton lay in Reacher’s arms and used her fingertips to trace a long slow inventory of the body she had known so well. It had changed in fourteen years. He had said You haven’t changed a bit and she had said You either, but she knew both of them had been generous. Nobody stays the same. The Reacher she had known in the desert had been younger and baked lean by the heat, as fluid and graceful as a greyhound. Now he was heavier, with knotted muscles as hard as old mahogany. The scars she remembered had smoothed out and faded and were replaced by newer marks. There were lines in his forehead. Lines around his eyes. But his nose was still straight and unbroken. His front teeth were still there, like trophies. She slid her hand down to his and felt his knuckles. They were large and hard, like walnut shells matted with scar tissue. Still a fighter, she thought. Still trading his hands for his nose and his teeth. She moved up to his chest. He had a hole there, left of center. Ruptured muscle, a crater big enough for the tip of her finger. A gunshot wound. Old, but new to her. Probably a.38.

“New York,” Reacher said. “Years ago. Everyone asks.”

“Everyone?”

“Who sees it.”

Hutton snuggled in closer. “How many people see it?”

He smiled. “You know, on beaches, stuff like that.”

“And in bed?”

“Locker rooms,” he said.

“And in bed,” she said again.

“I’m not a monk,” he said.

“Did it hurt?”

“I don’t remember. I was out for three weeks.”

“It’s right over your heart.”

“It was a little revolver. Probably a weak load. He should have tried a head shot. That would have been better.”

“For him. Not for you.”

“I’m a lucky man. Always have been, always will be.”

“Maybe. But you should take better care.”

“I try my best.”

Chenko and Vladimir stayed together and took the north side of town. They kept well away from the motor court. The cops had that situation buttoned up, presumably. So their first stop was the sports bar. They went in and walked around. It was dark inside and not very busy. Maybe thirty guys. None of them matched the sketch. None of them was Reacher. Vladimir stayed near the door and Chenko checked the men’s room. One stall had a closed door. Chenko waited until the toilet flushed and the guy came out. It wasn’t Reacher. It was just a guy. So Chenko rejoined Vladimir and they got back in the car. Started quartering the streets, slowly, patiently, covering three sides of every block and pausing at the turns to scan the sidewalks on the fourth.

Hutton propped herself on an elbow and looked down at Reacher’s face. His eyes were still the same. Set a little deeper, maybe, and a little more hooded. But they still shone blue like ice chips under an Arctic sun. Like a color map of twin snowmelt lakes in a high mountain landscape. But their expression had changed. Fourteen years ago they had been rimmed red by the desert sandstorms and clouded with some kind of bitter cynicism. They had been army eyes. Cop eyes. She remembered the way they would swing slow and lazy across a room like deadly tracers curling in toward a target. Now they were clearer. Younger. More innocent. He was fourteen years older, but his gaze was like a child’s again.

“You just had your hair cut,” she said.

“This morning,” he said. “For you.”

“For me?”

“Yesterday I looked like a wild man. They told me you were coming. I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of a bum.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Some kind, I guess.”

“What kind?”

“The voluntary kind.”

“We should eat,” she said.

“Sounds like a plan,” he said.

“What do you want?”

“Whatever you get. We’ll share. Order big portions.”

“You can choose your own if you want.”

He shook his head. “A month from now some DoD clerk is going to go through your expenses. Better for you if he sees one meal rather than two.”

“Worried about my reputation?”

“I’m worried about your next promotion.”

“I won’t get one. I’m terminal at Brigadier General.”

“Not now that this Petersen guy owes you a big one.”

“Can’t deny two stars would be cool.”

“For me too,” Reacher said. “I got screwed by plenty of two-stars. To think I screwed one myself would be fun.”

She made a face.

“Food,” Reacher said.

“I like salads,” she said.

“Someone’s got to, I guess.”

“Don’t you?”

“Get a chicken Caesar to start and a steak to follow. You eat the rabbit food, I’ll eat the steak. Then get some kind of a big dessert. And a big pot of coffee.”

“I like tea.”

“Can’t do it,” Reacher said. “There are some compromises I just can’t make. Not even for the DoD.”

“But I’m thirsty.”

“They’ll send ice water. They always do.”

“I outrank you.”

“You always did. You ever see me drink tea because of it?”

She shook her head and got out of bed. Padded naked across to the desk. Checked the menu and dialed the phone. Ordered chicken Caesar, a sixteen-ounce sirloin, and a big pie with ice cream. And a six-cup pot of coffee. Reacher smiled at her.

“Twenty minutes,” she said. “Let’s take a shower.”

Raskin took the heart of downtown. He was on foot with the sketch in his hand and a list in his head: restaurants, bars, diners, sandwich shops, groceries, hotels. He started at the Metropole Palace. The lobby, the bar. No luck. He moved on to a Chinese restaurant two blocks away. In and out, fast and discreet. He figured he was pretty good for this kind of work. He wasn’t a very noticeable guy. Not memorable. Average height, average weight, unremarkable face. Just a hole in the air, which in some ways was a frustration, but in others was a major advantage. People looked at him, but they didn’t really see him. Their eyes slid right on by.

Reacher wasn’t in the Chinese place. Or the sub shop, or the Irish bar. So Raskin stopped on the sidewalk and decided to dodge north. He could check the lawyer’s office and then head toward the Marriott. Because according to Linsky those places were where the women were. And in Raskin’s experience guys who weren’t just holes in the air got to hang out with women more than the average.

Reacher got out of the shower and borrowed Hutton’s toothbrush and toothpaste and comb. Then he toweled off and walked around and collected his clothes. Put them on and tucked his shirt in. He was dressed and sitting on the bed when he heard the knock at the door.

“Room service,” a foreign voice called.

Hutton put her head out the bathroom door. She was dressed but halfway through drying her hair.

“You go,” Reacher said.

“Me?”

“You have to sign for it.”

“You can write my name.”

“Two hours from now the cops won’t have found me and they’ll come back here. Better that we don’t have a guy downstairs who knows you’re not alone.”

“You never relax, do you?”

“The less I relax, the luckier I get.”

Hutton patted her hair into shape and headed for the door. Reacher heard the rattle of a cart and the clink of plates and the scratch of a pen. Then he heard the door close and he stepped through to the living room and found a wheeled table set up in the middle of the floor. The waiter had placed one chair behind it.

“One knife,” Hutton said. “One fork. One spoon. We didn’t think of that.”

“We’ll take turns,” Reacher said. “Kind of romantic.”

“I’ll cut your steak up and you can use your fingers.”

“You could feed it to me. We should have ordered grapes.”

She smiled.

“Do you remember James Barr?” he asked.

“Too much water over the dam,” she said. “But I reread his file yesterday.”

“How good a shooter was he?”