“And she’s a woman,” Reacher said. “The investigators were looking for a
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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.”
Harper said nothing.
“And that’s how I knew she’d be here,” Reacher said. “Because she was trying to imitate a guy like me, all along. And I said I would go for Scimeca next. So I knew she’d be here, sooner or later. But she was a little quicker than I thought. And we were a little slower. She didn’t waste any time, did she?”
Harper glanced at the bathroom door. Shuddered. Glanced away.
“How did you figure the hypnotism thing?” she asked.
“Like everything else,” Reacher said. “I thought I knew who, and why, but the how part looked absolutely impossible, so I just went around and around. That’s why I wanted to get out of Quantico. I wanted space to think. It took me a real long time. But eventually, it was the only possibility. It explained everything. The passivity, the obedience, the acquiescence. And why the scenes looked the way they did. Looked like the guy never laid a finger on them, because she never did lay a finger on them. She just reestablished the spell and told them what to do, step by step. They did everything themselves. Right down
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to filling their own tubs, swallowing their own tongues. The only thing she did herself was what I did, pull their tongues back up afterward, so the pathologists wouldn’t catch on.”
“But how did you know about the tongues?”
He was quiet for a beat.
“From kissing you,” he said.
“Kissing me?”
He smiled. “You’ve got a great tongue, Harper. It set me thinking. Tongues were the only things which fitted Stavely’s autopsy findings. But I figured there was no way to make somebody swallow their own tongue, until I realized it was Lamarr, and she was a hypnotist, and then the whole thing fell together.”
Harper was silent.
“And you know what?” Reacher said.
“What?”
“The very first night I met her, she wanted to hypnotize me. For deep background, she said, but obviously she was going to tell me to look convincing and get absolutely nowhere. Blake pestered me to do it, and I said no, because she’ll make me run naked down Fifth Avenue. Like a joke. But it was awful near the truth.”
Harper shivered. “Where would she have stopped?”
“Maybe one more,” Reacher said. “Six would be enough. Six would have done it. Sand on the beach.”
She stepped over and sat down next to him on the bed. Stared down at Scimeca, inert beneath the bathrobe.
“Will she be OK?” she asked.