“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 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 gray 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.

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 cooperative.”

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.”

“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 semifunctional 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.”