trade. There were to be no doubts about her day-to-day comfort or
safety. Those factors were to be removed from the negotiation. Those
factors were to be taken for granted. She was to be a high-status
prisoner. Because of her value. Because of who she was.
But not because of who she was. Because of who her father was. Because
of the connections she had. She was supposed to sit in this crushing,
fear-filled room and be somebody’s daughter. Sit and wait while people
weighed her value, one way and the other. While people reacted to her
plight, feeling a little reassured by the fact that she had a shower
all to herself.
She eased herself off the bed. To hell with that, she thought. She
was not going to sit there and be negotiated over. The anger rose up
inside her. It rose up and she turned it into a steely determination.
She limped to the door and tried the handle for the twentieth time.
Then she heard footsteps on the stairs. They clattered down the
corridor. Stopped at her door. A key turned the lock. The handle
moved against her grip. She stepped back and the door opened.
Reacher was pushed up into the room. A blur of camouflaged figures
behind him. They shoved him up through the door and slammed it shut.
She heard it locking and the footsteps tramping away. Reacher was left
standing there, gazing around.
“Looks like we have to share,” he said.
She looked at him.
They were only expecting one guest,” he added.
She made no reply to that. She just watched his eyes examining the
room. They flicked around the walls, the floor, the ceiling. He
twisted and glanced into the bathroom. Nodded to himself. Turned back
to face her, waiting for her comment. She was pausing, thinking hard
about what to say and how to say it.
“It’s only a single bed,” she said at last.
She tried to make the words count for more. She tried to make them
like a long speech. Like a closely reasoned argument. She tried to
make them say: OK, in the truck, we were close. OK, we kissed. Twice.
The first time, it just happened. The second time, I asked you to,
because I was looking for comfort and reassurance. But now we’ve been
apart for an hour or two. Long enough for me to get to feeling a
little silly about what we did. She tried to make those five words say
all that, while she watched his eyes for his reaction.
“There’s somebody else, right?” he said.
She saw that he said it as a joke, as a throwaway line to show her he
agreed with her, that he understood, as a way to let them both off the
hook without getting all heavy about it. But she didn’t smile at him.
Instead, she found herself nodding.
“Yes, there is somebody,” she said. “What can I say? If there wasn’t,
maybe I would want to share.”
She thought: he looks disappointed.
“In fact, I probably would want to,” she added. “But there is somebody
and I’m sorry. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
It showed in his face and she felt she had to say more.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “It’s not that I wouldn’t want to.”
She watched him. He just shrugged at her. She saw he was thinking:
it’s not the end of the world. And then he was thinking: it just feels
like it. She blushed. She was absurdly gratified. But ready to
change the subject.
“What’s going on here?” she asked. “They tell you anything?”
“Who’s the lucky guy?” Reacher asked.
“Just somebody,” she said. “What’s going on here?”
His eyes were clouded. He looked straight at her.
“Lucky somebody,” he said.
“He doesn’t even know,” she said.
That you’re gone?” he asked.
She shook her head.
That I feel this way,” she said.
He stared at her. Didn’t reply. There was a long silence in the room.
Then she heard footsteps again. Hurrying, outside the building.
Clattering inside. Coming up the stairs. They stopped outside the
door. The key slid in. The door opened. Six guards clattered inside: