Running Blind

“What?” she asked. “Something’s on your mind.”

“It is?”

She nodded. “Sure it is. I can tell. I’m a woman. I’m intuitive.”

He looked straight at her. “Truth is I don’t especially want to be alone in a room with you and a bed.”

She smiled, happily, mischievously. “Tempted?”

“I’m only human.”

“So am I,” she said. “If I can control myself, I’m sure you can.”

He said nothing.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

“Christ,” he muttered.

IT’S A STANDARD motel room, like a thousand you’ve seen coast to coast. Doorway, bathroom on the right, closet on the left, queen bed, dresser, table and two chairs. Old television, ice bucket, awful pictures on the wall. You hang your coat in the closet, but you keep your gloves on. No need to leave fingerprints all over the place. No real possibility of them ever finding the room, but you’ve built your whole life on being careful. The only time you take your gloves off is when you’re washing, and motel bathrooms are safe enough. You check out at eleven, and by twelve a maid is spraying cleaner all over every surface and wiping everything with a wet cloth. Nobody ever found a meaningful fingerprint in a motel bathroom.

You walk through the room and you sit in the left-hand chair. You lean back, you close your eyes, and you start to think. Tomorrow. It has to be tomorrow. You plan the timing by working backward. You need dark before you can get out. That’s the fundamental consideration. That drives everything else. But you want the daytime cop to find her. You accept that’s just a whim on your part, but hey, if you can’t brighten things up with a little whimsy, what kind of life is that? So you need to be out after dark, but before the cop’s last bathroom break. That specifies a pretty exact time, somewhere between six and six-thirty. Call it five- forty, for a margin. No, call it five-thirty, because you really need to be back in position to see the cop’s face.

OK, five-thirty. Twilight, not really dark, but it’s acceptable. The longest time you spent in any of the previous places was twenty-two minutes. In principle this one won’t be any longer, but you’re going to allow a full half hour. So you need to be inside and started by five. Then you think it through from her point of view, and it’s pretty clear you need to be making the phone call at about two o’clock.

So, check out of this dump before eleven, you’re over there before twelve, you wait and watch, you make the call at two. It’s decided. You open your eyes and stand up. Undress and use the bathroom. Pull back the covers and slide into bed, wearing nothing but your gloves.

HARPER CAME OUT of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel. Her face was scrubbed and her hair was wet. Under the weight of the water, it hung down past her waist. Without makeup, her face looked vulnerable. Cornflower-blue eyes, white teeth, cheekbones, skin. She looked about fourteen, except she was more than six feet tall. And that kind of height made a standard-issue motel towel seriously deficient in terms of length.

“I think I better call Blake,” she said. “I should really check in.”

“Don’t tell him anything,” Reacher said. “I mean it, things will spin out of control.”

She nodded. “I’ll just tell him we’re close.”

He shook his head. “Vaguer than that, OK? Just say we’re seeing some guy tomorrow who might have something connected.”

“I’ll be careful,” she said. She sat down at the mirror. The towel rode up. She started looking at her hair.

“Can you get my phone out of my pocketbook for me?” she called.

He walked to the bed and slipped his hand into her bag. Things in there released faint fragrance as they moved. He found the phone and slipped it out and carried it over to her.

“Be real vague, OK?” he said again.

She nodded and opened the phone.

“Don’t worry,” she said.

“I guess I’ll shower too.”

She smiled. “Enjoy. I won’t come in, I promise.”

He went into the bathroom and closed the door. Harper’s clothes were hanging from the hook on the back. All of them. The underwear was white and lacy. He thought about setting the shower icy cold, but decided to rely on willpower alone. So he set it hot and stripped off his clothes. Dumped them in a pile on the floor. Took the folding toothbrush from his jacket pocket and cleaned his teeth with plain water. Then he stood under the shower and washed with the same soap and shampoo Harper had used. He stood for a long time, trying to relax. Then he gave it up and turned the handle to cold. He held it there, gasping. One minute. Two. Then he shut it off and groped for a towel.

She knocked on the door.

“Are you done?” she called. “I need my clothes.”

He unfolded the towel and wrapped it around his waist.

“OK, come in,” he called.

“Just pass them out,” she called back.

He bunched them into his hand and lifted them off the hook. Cracked the door and passed them through. She took them and walked away. He toweled himself almost dry and dressed, awkward in the narrow space. Combed his hair with his fingers. He stood still for a minute. Then he rattled the door handle and came out. She was standing by the bed, wearing some of her clothes. The rest of them were folded over the back of the dresser chair. Her hair was combed back. Her phone was closed, lying next to the ice bucket.

“What did you tell him?” he asked.

“Just what you said. We’re meeting some guy in the morning, noting specific.”

She was wearing the shirt, but the tie was draped over the chair. So was the bra. And the suit trousers.

“He have anything to say?” he asked.

“Poulton’s in Spokane,” she said. “The Hertz thing came to nothing, just some woman on business. But the UPS guy is coming through with stuff. They’re talking tonight, but they’re three hours behind, so we won’t hear anything until morning, probably. But they identified the date from the baseball thing and UPS is pulling the records.”

'Won’t say LaSalle Kruger on the paperwork, that’s for sure.”

“Probably not, but that doesn’t matter anymore, does it? We found him.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed, her back to him.

“Thanks to you,” she said. “You were absolutely right, a smart guy with a good solid plain-vanilla motive. ”

She stood up again, restless. Paced the small area between the bed and the table. She was wearing the underpants. He could see that, through the shirttails. Her ass was wonderful. Her legs were lean. And long. Her feet were small and delicate, for her height.

“We should celebrate,” she said.

Reacher propped the pillows on the far side of the bed and leaned back against them. Looked up at the ceiling and concentrated on the sound of the rain battering on the roof.

“No room service in a place like this,” he said.

She turned to face him. The first two buttons on her shirt were undone. Thing like that, the effect depends on how far apart the buttons are. If they’re close together, it doesn’t mean much. But these were well spaced out, maybe three or four inches between each of them.

“It’s Jodie, isn’t it?” she said.

He nodded. “Of course it is.”

“Wasn’t for her, you’d want to, right?”

“I do want to,” he said.

Then he paused.

“But I won’t,” he said. “Because of her.”

She looked at him, and then she smiled.

“I like that in a guy, I guess,” she said.

He said nothing.

“Steadfastness,” she said.

He said nothing. There was silence. Just the sound of the rain on the roof, relentless and insistent.