“Is she OK?” Harper called.
“I don’t know,” Reacher said.
He watched her breathing. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, urgently, like she had just run a mile.
“I think so,” he said. “She’s breathing.”
He caught her wrist and felt for the pulse. It was there, strong and fast.
“She’s OK,” he said. “Pulse is good.”
“We should get her to the hospital,” Harper called.
“She’ll be better here,” Reacher said.
“But she’ll need sedation. This will have blown her mind.”
He shook his head. “She’ll wake up, and she won’t remember a thing.”
Harper stared at him. “Are you kidding?”
He looked up at her. She was standing there, holding a bathrobe, soaked to the skin and smeared with paint. Her shirt was olive green and transparent.
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“She was hypnotized,” he said.
He nodded toward the bathroom.
“That’s how she did it all,” he said. “Everything, every damn step of the way. She was the Bureau’s biggest expert.”
“Hypnosis?” Harper said.
He took the bathrobe from her and laid it over Scimeca’s passive form. Tucked it tight around her. Bent his head and listened to her breathing. It was still strong, and it was slowing down. She looked like a person in a deep sleep, except her eyes were wide open and staring at nothing.
“I don’t believe it,” Harper said.
Reacher used the corner of the towel and dried Scimeca’s face.
“That’s how she did it all,” he said again.
He used his thumbs and closed Scimeca’s eyes. It seemed like the right thing to do. She breathed lower and turned her head an inch. Her wet hair dragged on the pillow. She turned her head the other way, scrubbing her face into the pillow, restlessly, like a sleeping woman confused by her dreams. Harper stared at her, immobile. Then she turned around and stared and spoke to the bathroom door.
“When did you know?” she asked.
“For sure?” he said. “Last night.”
“But how?” she said.
Reacher used the towel again, where thin green fluid was leaking down out of Scimeca’s hair.
“I just went around and around,” he said. “Right from the beginning, for days and days, thinking, thinking, thinking, driving myself crazy. It was a real what ?y~thing. And then it turned into a so what else thing.”
Harper stared at him. He pulled the bathrobe higher on Scimeca’s shoulder.
“I knew they were wrong about the motive,” he said. “I knew it all along. But I couldn’t understand it. They’re smart people, right? But they were so wrong. I was asking myself why? Why? Had they gotten dumb all of a sudden? Were they blinded by their professional specialty? That’s what I thought it was, at first. Small units inside big organizations are so defensive, aren’t they? Innately? I figured a bunch of psychologists paid to unravel very complex things wouldn’t be too willing to give it up and say no, this is something very ordinary. I thought it might be subconscious. But eventually I passed on that. It’s
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just too irresponsible. So I went around and around. And in the end the only answer left was they were wrong because they wanted to be wrong.”
“And you knew Lamarr was driving the motive,” Harper said. “Because it was her case, really. So you suspected her.”
He nodded.
“Exactly,” he said. “Soon as Alison died, I had to think about Lamarr doing it, because there was a close connection, and like you said, close family connections are always significant. So then I asked myself what if she did them all? What if she’s camouflaging a personal motive behind the randomness of the first three? But I couldn’t see how. Or why. There was no personal motive. They weren’t best buddies, but they got along OK. There were no family issues. No unfairness about the inheritance, for instance. It was going to be equal. No jealousy there. And she couldn’t fly, so how could it be her?”
“But?”
“But then the dam broke. Something Alison said. I remembered it much later. She said her father was dying but sisters take care of each other, right*. I thought she was talking about emotional support or something. But then I thought what if she meant it another way? Like some people use the phrase? Like you did, when we had coffee in New York and the check came and you said you’d take care of it? Meaning you’d pay for me, you’d treat me? I thought what if Alison meant that she’d take care of Julia financially? Share with her? Like she knew the inheritance was all coming her way and Julia was getting nothing and was all uptight about it? But Julia had told me everything was equal, and she was already rich, anyway, because the old man was generous and fair. So I suddenly asked myself what if she’s lying about that? What if the old guy wasn’t generous and fair? What if she’s not rich?”