Die Trying by Lee Child

that. Obviously if he’d been strolling on that particular Chicago

street a minute earlier or a minute later, he’d have been right past

that dry-cleaners and never known a damn thing about all this. But he

hadn’t been strolling a minute earlier or a minute later, and the freak

chance had happened, and he wasn’t about to waste his time wondering

where he’d be now if it hadn’t.

But what he did need to pin down was why he was still there, just over

fourteen hours later, according to the clock inside his head. He’d had

two marginal chances and one cast-iron certainty of getting out. Right

away, on the street, he could have made it. Probably. The possibility

of collateral damage had stopped him. Then in the abandoned lot,

getting into the white truck, he might have made it. Probably. Three

against one, both times, but they were three amateurs against Jack

Reacher, and he felt comfortable enough about those odds.

The cast-iron certainty was he could have been out of the cow barn, say

an hour after the three guys returned from the gas station with the

truck. He could have slipped the cuff again, climbed the wall and

dropped down into the barnyard and been away. Just jogged over to the

road and walked away and disappeared. Why hadn’t he done that?

He lay there in the huge inky blackness of relaxation and realized it

was Holly that was keeping him there. He hadn’t bailed out because he

couldn’t take the risk. The three guys could have panicked and wasted

her and run. Reacher didn’t want that to happen. Holly was a smart,

spirited woman. Sharp, impatient, confident, tough as hell.

Attractive, in a shy, unforced sort of a way. Dark, slim, a lot of

intelligence and energy.

Great eyes. Eyes were Reacher’s thing. He was lost in a pair of

pretty eyes.

But it wasn’t her eyes that were doing it to him. Not her looks. Or

her intelligence or her personality. It was her knee. That’s what was

doing it to him. Her guts and her dignity. The sight of a

good-looking spirited woman cheerfully fighting an unaccustomed

disability seemed like a brave and noble thing to Reacher. It made her

his type of person. She was coping with it. She was doing it well.

She wasn’t complaining. She wasn’t asking for his help. And because

she wasn’t asking for it, she was going to get it.

TEN

FIVE-THIRTY TUESDAY MORNING FBI SPECIAL AGENT BROGAN WAS alone in the

third-floor meeting room, using one of the newly installed phone lines

for an early call to his girlfriend. Five-thirty in the morning is not

the best time to deliver an apology for a broken date from the night

before, but Brogan had been very busy, and he anticipated being busier

still. So he made the call. He woke her and told her he had been tied

up, and probably would be for the rest of the week. She was sleepy and

annoyed, and made him repeat it all twice. Then she chose to interpret

the message as a cowardly prelude to some kind of a brush-off. Brogan

got annoyed in turn. He told her the Bureau had to come first. Surely

she understood that? It was not the best point to be making to a

sleepy, annoyed woman at five-thirty in the morning. They had a short

row and Brogan hung up, depressed. His partner Milosevic was alone in

his own office cubicle. Slumped in his chair, also depressed. His

problem was a lack of imagination. It was his biggest weakness.

McGrath had told him to trace Holly Johnson’s every move from noon

yesterday. But he hadn’t come up with anything. He had seen her

leaving the FBI Building. Stepping out of the door, onto the street,

forearm jammed into the curved-metal clip of her hospital cane. He had

seen her getting that far. But then the picture just went blank. He’d

thought hard all night, and told McGrath nothing.

Five-forty, he went to the bathroom and got more coffee. Still

miserable. He walked back to his desk. Sat down, lost in thought for

a long time. Then he glanced at the heavy gold watch on his wrist.