oxygen hissing in and out of the bottle in time with the old man’s ragged breathing.
“I can die happy now,” he said.
Reacher shook his head.
“Not yet you can’t,” he said. “You have to go see the Wall. His name will be there. I want you to bring me a photograph of it.”
The old man nodded and his wife smiled a watery smile.
“Miss Garber told us you might be living over in Garrison,” she said. “You might be our neighbor.”
Reacher nodded.
“It’s possible,” he said.
“Miss Garber is a fine young woman.”
“Yes, ma’am, she is.”
“Stop your nonsense,” the old man said to her. Then they told him they couldn’t stay, because their neighbor had driven them down and had to get back. Reacher watched them all the way out to the corridor. Soon as they were gone, Jodie came back in, smiling.
“The doctor says you can leave.”
“So can you drive me? Did you get a new car yet?”
She shook her head. “Just a rental. No time for shopping. Hertz brought me a Mercury. It’s got satellite navigation.”
He stretched his arms above his head and flexed his shoulders. They felt OK. Surprisingly good. His ribs were fine. No pain.
“I need clothes,” he said. “I guess those old ones got ruined.”
She nodded. “Nurses sliced them off with scissors.”
“You were here for that?”
“I’ve been here all the time,” she said. “I’m living in a room down the hall.”
“What about work?”
“Leave of absence,” she said. “I told them, agree or I quit.”
She ducked down to a laminate cupboard and came out with a stack of clothes. New jeans, new shirt, new jacket, new socks and shorts, all folded and piled together, his old shoes squared on top, Army-style.
“They’re nothing special,” she said. “I didn’t want to take too much time out. I wanted to be with you when you woke up.”
“You sat around here for three weeks?”
“Felt like three years,” she said. “You were all scrunched up. Comatose. You looked awful. In a real bad way.”
“This satellite thing,” he said. “Does it have Garrison on it?”
“You going up there?”
He shrugged.
“I guess. I need to take it easy, right? Country air might do me good.”
Then he looked away from her.
“Maybe you could stay with me awhile, you know, help me recover.”
He threw back the sheet and slid his feet to the floor. Stood up, slow and unsteady, and started to dress, while she held his elbow to keep him from falling.
