Running Blind

gets away with it. You said everybody just works around it, like a law of nature. Well, we all did. We just worked around it. Like she intended. Because it made it absolutely impossible it was her. But it was a lie. It had to be. Fear of flying is way too irrational for her.”

“But it’s an impossible lie to tell. I mean, either a person flies, or she doesn’t.”

“She used to, years ago,” Reacher said. “She told me that. Then presumably she grew to hate it, so she stopped. So it was convincing. Nobody who knows her now ever saw her fly. So everybody believed her. But when it came to it, she could put herself on a plane. If it was worth it to her. And this was worth it to her. Biggest motive you ever saw. Alison was going to get everything, and she wanted it for herself. She was Cinderella, all burning up with jealousy and resentment and hatred.”

“Well, she fooled me,” Harper said. “That’s for sure.”

Reacher stroked Scimeca’s hair.

“She fooled everybody,” he said. “That’s why she did the far corners first. To make everybody think about the geography, the range, the reach, the distance. To move herself right outside the picture, subconsciously. ”

Harper was quiet for a beat. “But she was so upset. She cried, remember? In front of us all?”

Reacher shook his head. “She wasn’t upset. She was frightened. It was her time of maximum danger. Remember just before that? She refused to take her rest period. Because she knew she needed to be around, to control any fallout from the postmortem. And then I started questioning the motive, and she got tense as hell because I might be heading in the right direction. But then I said it was weapons theft in the Army, and she cried, but not because she was upset. She cried with relief, because she was still safe. I hadn’t smoked her out. And you remember what she did next?”

Harper nodded. “She started backing you up on the weapons theft thing.”

“Exactly,” Reacher said. “She started making my case for me. Putting words in my mouth. She said we should think laterally, go for it, maximum effort. She jumped on the bandwagon, because she saw the bandwagon was heading in the wrong direction. She was thinking hard, improvising like crazy, sending us all down another blind alley. But she wasn’t thinking hard enough, because that bandwagon was always bullshit. There was a flaw in it, a mile wide.”

“What flaw?”

“It was an impossible coincidence that the eleven witnesses could be the only eleven women obviously living alone afterward. I told you it was partly an experiment. I wanted to see who wouldn’t support it. Only Poulton wouldn’t. Blake was out of it, upset because Lamarr was upset. But Lamarr backed it all the way. She backed it big-time, because it made her safe. And then she went home, with everybody’s sympathy. But she didn’t go home. At least not for more than the time it takes to pack a bag. She came straight here and went to work.”

Harper went pale.

“She actually confessed,” she said. “Right then and there, before she left. Remember that? She said I killed my sister. Because of wasting time, she said. But it was really true. It was a sick joke.”

Reacher nodded. “She’s sick as hell. She killed four women for her stepfather’s money. And this paint thing? It was always so bizarre. So bizarre, it was overwhelming. But it was difficult, too. Can you imagine the practicalities? Why would a person use a trick like that?”

“To confuse us.”

“And?”

“Because she enjoyed it,” Harper said, slowly. “Because she’s really sick.”

“Sick as hell,” Reacher said again. “But very smart, too. Can you imagine the planning? She must have started two whole years ago. Her stepfather fell ill about the same time her sister came out of the Army. She started putting it all together right then. Very, very meticulous. She got the support group list direct from her sister, picked out the ones who obviously lived alone, like I did, then she visited all eleven of them, secretly, probably weekends, by plane. Walked in everywhere she needed to because she was a woman with an FBI shield, just like you walked into Alison’s place the other day and you walked past that cop just now. Nothing more reassuring than a woman with an FBI shield, right? Then she maybe gave them some story about how the Bureau was trying to finally nail the military, which must have gratified them. Said she was starting a big investigation. Sat them down in their own living rooms and asked if she could hypnotize them for background information on the issue.”

“Including her own sister? But how could she do that without Alison knowing she flew there?”

“She made Alison come to Quantico for it. Remember that? Alison said she’d flown out to Quantico so Julia could hypnotize her for deep background. But there were no questions about deep background. No questions at all, in fact, just instructions for the future. She told her what to do, just like she told all of them what to do. Lorraine Stanley was still serving then, so she told her to steal the paint and hide it. The others, she told them to expect a carton sometime in the future and store it. She told all of them to expect another visit from her, and in the meantime to deny everything if they were ever asked about anything. She even scripted the bullshit stories for them, bogus roommates and random delivery mistakes.”

Harper nodded and stared at the bathroom door.

“So then she told Stanley to activate the deliveries,” she said. “And then she went back to Florida and killed Amy Callan. Then Caroline Cooke. And she knew as soon as she killed Cooke, a serial pattern would be established and the whole thing would fall into Blake’s lap at Quantico, whereupon she was right there to start misdirecting the investigation. God, I should have spotted it. She insisted on working the case. And she insisted on staying with it. It was perfect, wasn’t it? Who did the profile? She did. Who insisted on the military motive? She did. Who said we’re looking for a soldier? She did. She even hauled you in as an example of what we were looking for.”

Reacher said nothing. Harper stared at the door.

“But Alison was the only real target,” she said. “And that’s why she dropped the interval, I guess. Because she was all hyped up and excited and couldn’t wait.”

“She made us do her surveillance,” Reacher said. “She asked us about Alison’s place, remember? She was abandoning the interval, so she didn’t have time for surveillance, so she got us to do it for her. Remember that? Is it isolated? Is the door locked? We did her scouting for her.”

Harper closed her eyes. “She was off duty the day Alison died. It was Sunday. Quantico was quiet. I never even thought about it. She knew nobody would think about it, on a Sunday. She knows nobody’s there.”

“She’s very smart,” Reacher said.

Harper nodded. Opened her eyes. “And I guess it explains the lack of evidence everywhere. She knows what we look for at the scene.”

“And she’s a woman,” Reacher said. “The investigators were looking for a man, because she told them to. Same with the rental cars. She knew if anybody checked they would come back with a woman’s name, which would be ignored. Which is exactly what happened. ”

“But what name?” Harper asked. “She’d need ID for the rental.”

“For the airlines, too,” Reacher said. “But I’m sure she’s got a drawerful of ID. From women the Bureau has sent to prison. You’ll be able to match them up, relevant dates and places. Innocent feminine names, meaning nothing.”

Harper looked rueful. “I passed that message on, remember? From Hertz? It was nothing, I said, just some woman on business.”

Reacher nodded. “She’s very smart. I think she even dressed the same as the victims, while she was in their houses. She watched them, and if they wore a cotton dress, she wore a cotton dress. If they wore pants, she wore pants. Like she’s in here now wearing an old sweater like Scimeca’s. So any fibers she leaves behind will be discounted. She asked us what Alison was wearing, remember? No time for surveillance, so she asked us, all innocent and roundabout. Is she still all sporty and tanned and dressed like a cowboy? We said yes, she is, so no doubt she went in there wearing denim jeans and boots.”

“And she scratched her face because she hated her.”

Reacher shook his head.

“No, I’m afraid that was my fault,” he said. “I kept questioning the lack of violence, right in front of her. So she supplied some, the very next time around. I should have kept my big mouth shut.”