“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 anymore, 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 gray 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 neighborhoods, so far.”

“Makes sense,” he said. “They want community. What about husbands and families?”

“Callan was separated, no kids. Cooke had boy-friends, 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 stakeout? Cigarette butts and soda cans piled up under a nearby tree?”

She shook her head. “This guy is leaving no evidence of anything.”

“Neighbors 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.”

She went silent again and the car hissed into a wall of rain. She set the wipers going and switched on the headlights and backed off the speed a little.

“Are you going to insult me all the time?” she asked.

“Making a little fun of you is a pretty small insult compared to how you’re threatening my girlfriend. And how you’re so ready and willing to believe I’m the type of guy could kill two women.”

“So was that a yes or a no?”

“It was a maybe. I guess an apology from you would help turn it into a no.”

“An apology? Forget about it, Reacher. I stand by my profile. If it wasn’t you, it was some scumbag just like you.”

The sky was turning black and the rain was intense. Up ahead, brake lights were shining red through the deluge on the windshield. The traffic was slowing to a crawl. Lamarr sat forward and braked sharply.

“Shit,” she said.

Reacher smiled. “Fun, right? And right now your risk of death or injury is ten thousand times higher than flying, conditions like these.”

She made no reply. She was watching her mirror, anxious the people behind her should slow down as smartly as she had. Ahead, the brake lights made a red chain as far as the eye could see. Reacher found the electric switch on the side of his seat and racked it back. He stretched out and got comfortable.

“I’m going to take a nap,” he said. “Wake me up when we get someplace.”

“We’re not through talking,” Lamarr said. “We have a deal, remember? Think about Petrosian. I wonder what he’s doing right now.”

Reacher glanced to his left, looking across her and out her window. Manhattan lay in that direction, but he could barely see the far shoulder of the highway.

“OK, we’ll keep on talking,” he said.

She was concentrating, riding the brake, crawling forward into the deluge.

“Where were we?” she said.

“He’s staked them out sufficient to know they’re alone, it’s daylight, somehow he walks right in. Then what?”

“Then he kills them.”

“In the house?”

“We think so.”

“You think so? Can’t you tell?”

“There’s a lot we can’t tell, unfortunately.”

“Well, that’s wonderful.”

“He leaves no evidence,” she said. “It’s a hell of a problem.”

He nodded. “So describe the scenes for me. Start with the plantings in their front yards.”

“Why? You think that’s important?”

He laughed. “No, I just thought you’d feel better telling me something you did know a little about.”

“You son of a bitch.”

The car was crawling forward. The wipers beat slowly across the glass, back and forth, back and forth. There were flashing red and blue lights up ahead.

"Accident,” he said.

“He leaves no evidence,” she said again. “Absolutely nothing. No trace evidence, no fibers, no blood, no saliva, no hair, no prints, no DNA, no nothing.”