Die Trying by Lee Child

the truck would heat up like a pizza oven and it would get as bad as it

had gotten the day before.

The twin-sized mattress had been standing upright on its long edge, up

against the forward bulkhead, and the queen-size had been flat on the

floor, jammed up against it, making a crude sofa. But the

ninety-degree angle between the seat and the back had made the whole

thing uncomfortable. So Readier had slid the queen-size backward, with

Holly riding on it like a sled, and laid the twin flat next to it. Now

they had an eight-foot by six-six flat padded area. They were lying

down on their backs, heads together so they could talk, bodies apart in

a decorous V shape, rocking gently with the motion of the ride.

“You should do what I tell you,” Holly said. “You should have gotten

out.”

He made no reply.

“You’re a burden to me,” she said. “You understand that? I’ve got

enough on my hands here without having to worry about you.”

He didn’t reply. They lay rocking in silence. He could smell

yesterday morning’s shampoo in her hair.

“So you’ve got to do what I tell you from now on,” she said. “Are you

listening to me? I just can’t afford to be worrying about you.”

He turned his head to look at her, close up. She was worrying about

him. It came as a big surprise, out of nowhere. A shock. Like being

on a train, stopped next to another train in a busy railroad station.

Your train begins to move. It picks up speed. And then all of a

sudden it’s not your train moving. It’s the other train. Your train

was stationary all the time. Your frame of reference was wrong. He

thought his train was moving. She thought hers was.

“I don’t need your help,” she said. “I’ve already got all the help I

need. You know how the Bureau works? You know what the biggest crime

in the world is? Not bombing, not terrorism, not racketeering. The

biggest crime in the world is messing with Bureau personnel. The

Bureau looks after its own.”

Reacher stayed quiet for a spell. Then he smiled.

“So then we’re both OK,” he said. “We just lay back here, and pretty

soon a bunch of agents is going to come bursting in to rescue us.”

“I trust my people,” Holly said to him.

There was silence again. The truck droned on for a couple of minutes.

Reacher ticked off the distance in his head. About four hundred and

fifty miles from Chicago, maybe. East, west, north or south. Holly

gasped and used both hands to shift her leg.

“Hurting?” Reacher said.

“When it gets out of line,” she said. “When it’s straight, it’s OK.”

“Which direction are we headed?” he asked.

“Are you going to do what I tell you?” she asked.

“Is it getting hotter or colder?” he said. “Or staying the same?”

She shrugged.

“Can’t tell,” she said. “Why?”

“North or south, it should be getting hotter or colder,” he said. “East

or west, it should be staying more or less the same.”

“Feels the same to me,” she said. “But inside here you can’t really

tell.”

“Highway feels fairly empty,” Reacher said. “We’re not pulling out to

pass people. We’re not getting slowed down by anybody. We’re just

cruising.”

“So?” Holly said.

“Might mean we’re not going east,” he said. There’s a kind of barrier,

right? Cleveland to Pittsburgh to Baltimore. Like a frontier. Gets

much busier. We’d be hitting more traffic. What is it, Tuesday? About

eleven o’clock in the morning? Roads feel too empty for the east.”

Holly nodded.

“So we’re going north or west or south,” she said.

“In a stolen truck,” he said. “Vulnerable.”

“Stolen?” she said. “How do you know that?”

“Because the car was stolen too,” he said.

“How do you know that?” she repeated.

“Because they burned it,” he said.

Holly rolled her head and looked straight at him.

Think about it,” he said. Think about their plan. They came to

Chicago in their own vehicle. Maybe some time ago. Could have taken

them a couple of weeks to stake you out. Maybe three.”