‘Angry, guilty, it’s all the same thing. Why feel guilty if it
wasn’t your fault?’
‘Now you’re saying it was my fault?’
‘I’m just asking, what’s the guilt about?’
‘He grew up under a false impression.’
He went quiet and moved deeper into the room. Neagley
240
followed him. He lay down on the bed, arms outstretched,
hands hanging off the edges. She sat down in the armchair,
where Froelich had been.
‘ell me about the false impression,’ she said.
‘He was big, but he was studious,’ Reacher said. qhe schools
we went to, being studious was like having kick my ass tattooed
across your forehead. And he wasn’t all that tough, really,
although he was big. So he got his ass kicked, regular as
clockwork.’
‘And?’
‘I was two years younger, but I was big and tough, and not
very studious. So I started to look after him. Loyalty, I guess,
and I liked fighting anyway. I was about six. I’d wade in anywhere.
I learned a lot of stuff. Learned that style was the big
thing. Look like you mean it, and people back off a lot. Sometimes
they didn’t. I had eight-year-olds all over me the first year.
Then I got better at it. I hurt people bad. I was a madman. It got
to be a thing. We’d arrive in some new place and pretty quick
people would know to lay off Joe, or the psycho would be
coming after them.’
‘Sounds like you were a lovely little boy.’
‘It was the army. Anyplace else they’d have sent me to reform
school.’
‘You’re saying Joe grew to rely on it.’
Reacher nodded. ‘It was like that for ten years, basically. It
came and went, and it got less as we got older. But more
serious when it actually happened. I think he internalized it.
Ten years is a significant chunk of time when you’re growing
up, internalizing things. I think it became part of his mindset to
ignore danger because the psycho always had his back. So I
think Froelich’s right, in a way. He was reckless. Not because
he was trying to compete, but because deep down he felt he
could afford to be. Because I had always looked after him, like
his mother had always fed him, like the army had always
housed him.’
‘How old was he when he died?’
Fhirty-eight.’
Fhat’s twenty years, Reacher. He had twenty years to adjust.
We all adjust.’
241
‘Do we? Sometimes I still feel like that same six-year-old.
Everybody looking out of the corner of their eye at the psycho.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like Froelich.’
‘She been saying things?’
‘I disconcert her, clearly.’
‘Secret Service is a civilian organization. Paramilitary at best.
Nearly as bad as regular citizens.’
He smiled. Said nothing.
‘So, what’s the verdict?’ Neagley asked. ‘You going to
be walking around from now on thinking you killed your
brother?’
‘A little bit, maybe,’ he said. ‘But I’ll get over it.’
She nodded. ‘You will. And you should. It wasn’t your fault.
He was thirty-eight. He wasn’t waiting for his little brother to
show up.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘About what?’
‘Something else Froelich said.’
‘She wonders why we aren’t doing it?’
‘You’re quick,’ he said.
‘I could sense it,’ Neagley said. ‘She came across as a little
concerned. A little jealous. Cold, even. But then, I’d just kicked
her ass with the audit thing.’
‘You sure had.’
‘We’ve never even touched, you know that, you and me?
We’ve never had any physical contact of any kind at all. You’ve
never patted me on the back, never even shaken my hand.’
He looked at her, and thought back through fifteen years.
‘Haven’t I?’ he said. ‘Is that good or bad?’
‘It’s good,’ she said. ‘But don’t ask why.’
‘OK,’ he said.
‘Reasons of my own. Don’t ask what they are. But I don’t like
to be touched. And younever touched me. I always figured you
could sense it. And I always appreciated that. It’s one of the
reasons I always liked you so much.’
He said nothing.
‘Even if you should have been in reform school,’ she said.
‘You probably should have been in there with me.’