Tripwire

anything, just because he liked her and she liked it.

“I was so happy,” she said. “I thought I was going to burst. I’ve still got it, I still wear it. So let me pay you back, OK?”

He thought about it. Nodded.

“OK,” he said.

She could afford it. She was a lawyer. Probably made a fortune. And it was a fair trade, looking at it in proportion, cost-versus-income, fifteen years of inflation.

“OK,” he said again. “Thanks, Jodie.”

“You need socks and things, right?”

They picked out a pair of khaki socks and a pair of white boxers. She went to a till and used a gold card. He took the stuff into a changing cubicle and tore off the price tickets and put everything on. He transferred his cash from his pants pocket and left the old clothes in the trash can. The new stuff felt stiff, but it looked pretty good in the mirror, against his tan. He came back out.

“Nice,” Jodie said. “Pharmacy next.”

“Then coffee,” he said.

He bought a razor and a can of foam and a toothbrush and toothpaste. And a small tube of burn ointment. Paid for it all himself and carried it in a brown paper bag. The walk to the pharmacy had taken them near a food court. He could see a rib place that smelled good.

“Let’s have dinner,” he said. “Not just coffee. My treat.”

“OK,” she said, and linked her arm through his again.

The dinner for two cost him the price of the new shirt, which he thought was not outrageous. They had dessert and coffee, and then some of the smaller stores were closing up for the day.

“OK, home,” he said. “And we play it real cautious from here.”

They walked through the department store, through the displays in reverse, first the pastel summer cottons and then the fierce smell of the cosmetics. He stopped her inside the brass-and-glass doors and scanned ahead out in the garage, where the air was warm and damp. A million-to-one possibility, but worth taking into account. Nobody there, just people hustling back to their cars with bulging bags. They walked together to the Bravada and she slid into the driver’s seat. He got in beside her.

“Which way would you normally go?”

“From here? FDR Drive, I guess.”

“OK,” he said. “Head out for LaGuardia, and we’ll come in down through Brooklyn. Over the Brooklyn Bridge.”

She looked at him. “You sure? You want to do the tourist thing, there are better places to go than the Bronx and Brooklyn.”

“First rule,” he said. “Predictability is unsafe. If you’ve got a route you’d normally take, today we take a different one.”

“You serious?”

“You bet your ass. I used to do VIP protection for a living.”

“I’m a VIP now?”

“You bet your ass,” he said again.

AN HOUR LATER it was dark, which is the best condition for using the Brooklyn Bridge. Reacher felt like a tourist as they swooped around the ramp and up over the hump of the span and lower Manhattan was suddenly there in front of them with a billion bright lights everywhere. One of the world’s great sights, he thought, and he had inspected most of the competition.

“Go a few blocks north,” he said. “We’ll come in from a distance. They’ll be expecting us to come straight home.”

She swung wide to the right and headed north on Lafayette. Hung a tight left and another and came back traveling south on Broadway. The light at Leonard was red. Reacher scanned ahead in the neon wash.

“Three blocks,“ Jodie said.

“Where do you park?”

“Garage under the building.”

“OK, turn off a block short,” he said. “I’ll check it out. Come around again and pick me up. If I’m not waiting on the sidewalk, go to the cops.”

She made the right on Thomas. Stopped and let him out. He slapped lightly on the roof and she took off again. He walked around the comer and found her building. It was a big square place, renovated lobby with heavy glass doors, big lock, a vertical row of fifteen buzzers with names printed behind little plastic windows. Apartment twelve had Jacob/ Garber, like there were two people living there. There were people on the street, some of them loitering in knots, some of them walking, but none of them interesting. The parking garage entrance was farther on down the sidewalk. It was an abrupt slope into darkness. He walked down. It was quiet and badly lit. There were two rows of eight spaces, fifteen altogether because the ramp up to the street was where the sixteenth would be. Eleven cars parked up. He checked the full length of the place. Nobody hiding out. He came back up the ramp and ran back to Thomas. Dodged the traffic and crossed the street and waited. She was coming south through the light toward him. She saw him and pulled over and he got back in alongside her.

“All clear,” he said.

She made it back out into the traffic and then pulled right and bumped down the ramp. Her headlights bounced and swung. She stopped in the center aisle and backed into her space. Killed the motor and the lights.

“How do we get upstairs?” he asked.

She pointed. “Door to the lobby.”

There was a flight of metal steps up to a big industrial door, which had a steel sheet riveted over it. The door had a big lock, same as on the glass doors to the street. They got out and locked the car. He carried her garment bag. They walked to the steps and up to the door. She worked the lock and he swung it open. The lobby was empty. A single elevator opposite them.

“I’m on four,” she said.

He pressed five.

“We’ll come down the stairs from above,” he said. “Just in case.”

They used the fire stairs and came back down to four. He had her wait on the landing and peered out. A deserted hallway. Tall and narrow. Apartment ten to the left, eleven to the right, and twelve straight ahead.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Her door was black and thick. Spy hole at eye level, two locks. She used the keys and they went inside. She locked up again and dropped an old hinged bar into place, right across the whole doorway. Reacher pressed it down in its brackets. It was iron, and as long as it was there, nobody else was going to get in. He put her garment bag against a wall. She flicked switches and the lights came on. She waited by the door while Reacher walked ahead. Hallway, living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, bedroom, bathroom, closets. Big rooms, very high. Nobody in them. He came back to the living room and shrugged off his new jacket and threw it on a chair and turned back to her and relaxed.

But she wasn’t relaxed. He could see that. She was looking directly away from him, more tense than she’d been all day. She was just standing there with her sweatshirt cuffs way down over her hands, in the doorway to her living room, fidgeting. He had no idea what was wrong with her.

“You OK?” he asked.

She ducked her head forward and back in a figure eight to drop her hair behind her shoulders.

“I guess I’ll take a shower,” she said. “You know, hit the sack.”

“Hell of a day, right?”

“Unbelievable.”

She crabbed right around him on her way through the room, keeping her distance. She gave him a sort of shy wave, just her fingers peeping out from the sweatshirt sleeve.

“What time tomorrow?” he asked.

“Seven-thirty will do it,” she said.

“OK,” he said. “Good night, Jodie.”