pirouetted small silver circles and collided and fell over, heads
and tails. Reacher coughed in the bitter cold and stood still and
replayed it in his head: two guys, two seconds, two blows, game
over. You’ve still got the good stuff. He breathed hard and wiped
cold sweat from his forehead. Then he walked away. Stepped
off the pier onto the boardwalk and went in search of Western
Union.
He had looked at the address in the motel phone book, but he
didn’t need it. You could find a Western Union office by feel. By
intuition. It was a simple algorithm: stand on a street corner and
ask yourself, is it more likely to be left or right now? Then you
turned left or right as appropriate, and pretty soon you were in
the right neighbourhood, and pretty soon you found it. This one
had a two-year-old Chevy Suburban parked on a fireplug right
outside the door. The truck was black with smoked windows,
and it was immaculately clean and shiny. It had three short
UHF antennae on the roof. There was a woman alone in the
driver’s seat. He glanced at her once, and then again. She was
fair-haired and looked relaxed and alert all at the same time.
Something about the way her arm was resting against the
window. And she was cute, no doubt about that. Some kind of
magnetism about her. He glanced away and .went inside the
office and claimed his cash. Folded it into his pocket and came
back out and found the woman on the sidewalk, standing right
in front of him, looking straight at him. At his face, like she was
27
checking off similarities and differences against a mental image.
It was a process he recognized. He had been looked at like that
once or twice before.
‘Jack Reacher?’ she said.
He double-checked his memory, because he didn’t want to be
wrong, although he didn’t think he was. Short fair hair, great
eyes looking right at him, some kind of quiet confidence in the
way she held herself. She had qualities he would remember. He
was sure of that. But he didn’t remember them. Therefore he
had never seen her before.
‘You knew my brother,’ he said.
She looked surprised, and a little gratified. And temporarily
lost for words.
‘I could tell,’ he said. ‘People look at me like that, they’re
thinking about how we look a lot alike, but also a lot different.’
She said nothing.
‘Been nice meeting you,’ he said, and moved away.
‘Wait,’ she called.
He turned back.
‘Can we talk?’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’
He nodded. ‘We could talk in the car. I’m freezing my ass off
out here.’
She was still for a second longer, with her eyes locked on his
face. Then she moved suddenly and opened the passenger
door.
‘Please,’ she said. He climbed in and she walked round the
hood and climbed in on her side. Started the engine to run
the heater, but didn’t go anywhere.
‘I knew your brother very well,’ she said. ‘We dated, Joe and
I. More than dated, really. We were pretty serious for a time.
Before he died.’
Reacher said nothing. The woman flushed.
‘Well, obviously before he died,’ she said. ‘Stupid thing to
say.’
She went quiet.
‘When?’ Reacher asked.
‘We were together two years. We broke up a year before it
happened.’
Reacher nodded.
28
‘I’m M. E. Froelich,’ she said.
She left an unspoken question hanging in the air: did he ever
mention me? Reacher nodded again, trying to make it like the
name meant something. But it didn’t. Never heard of you, he
thought. But maybe I wish I had.
‘Emmy?’ he said. ‘Like the television thing?’
‘M. E.,’ she said. ‘I go by my initials.’
‘What are they for?’
‘I won’t tell you that.’
He paused a beat. ‘What did Joe call you?’
‘He called me Froelich,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Yes, he would.’
‘I still miss him,’ she said.
The too, I guess,’ Reacher said. ‘So is this about Joe, or is it
about something else?’
She was still again, for another beat. Then she shook herself,
a tiny subliminal quiver, and came back all business.