“It’s not the same,” he said for the third time.
“I know,” she said. “Because I’m just beaner trash. I’m not worth it.”
He said nothing.
“What’s her name?” she asked. “Your girlfriend?”
“Jodie,” he said.
“O.K., imagine Jodie over there in Europe. She’s trapped in some bad situation, getting beat up every day by some maniac sadist. She tells you all about it. Bares her soul. Every horrible humiliating detail. What are you going to do?”
Kill him, he thought.
She nodded like she could read his mind. “But you won’t do that for me. You’d do it for the gringa, but not for me.”
He paused a beat with his mouth halfway open. It was true. He would do it for Jodie Garber, but he wouldn’t do it for Carmen Greer. Why not? Because it comes in a rush. You can’t force it. It’s a hot-blooded thing, like a drug in your veins, and you go with it. If it’s not there, you can’t go with it. Simple as that. He’d gone with it before in his life, many times. People mess with him, they get what they get. They mess with Jodie, that’s the same thing as messing with him. Because Jodie was him. Or at least she used to be. In a way that Carmen wasn’t. And never would be. So it just wasn’t there.
“It’s not about gringas or latinas,” he said quietly.
She said nothing.
“Please, Carmen,” he said. “You need to understand that.”
“So what is it about?”
“It’s about I know her and I don’t know you.”
“And that makes a difference?”
“Of course it does.”
“Then get to know me,” she said. “We’ve got two days. You’re about to meet my daughter. Get to know us.”
He said nothing. She drove on. PECOS 55 MILES.
“You were a policeman,” she said. “You should want to help people. Or are you scared? Is that it? Are you a coward?”
He said nothing.
“You could do it,” she said. “You’ve done it before. So you know how. You could do it and get clean away. You could dump his body where nobody would find it. Out in the desert. Nobody would ever know. It wouldn’t come back on you, if you were careful. You’d never get caught. You’re smart enough.”
He said nothing.
“Are you smart enough? Do you know how? Do you?”
“Of course I know how,” he said. “But I won’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I told you why not. Because I’m not an assassin.”
“But I’m desperate,” she said. “I need you to do this. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything if you’ll help me.”
He said nothing.
“What do you want, Reacher? You want sex? We could do that.”
“Stop the car,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve had enough of this.”
She jammed her foot down hard on the gas. The car leapt forward. He glanced back at the traffic and leaned over toward her and knocked the transmission into N. The engine unloaded and screamed and the car coasted and slowed. He used his left hand on the wheel and hauled it around against her desperate grip and steered the car to the shoulder. It bounced off the blacktop and the gravel bit against the tires and the speed washed away. He jammed the lever into P and opened his door, all in one movement. The car skidded to a stop with the transmission locked. He slid out and stood up unsteadily. Felt the heat on his body like a blow from a hammer and slammed the door and walked away from her.
Chapter 4
He was sweating heavily twenty yards after getting out of the car. And already regretting his decision. He was in the middle of nowhere, on foot on a major highway, and the slowest vehicles were doing sixty. Nobody was going to want to stop for him. Even if they did want to, give them a little reaction time, give them a little time to check their mirrors, a little braking time, they’d be more than a mile away before they knew it, and then they’d shrug their shoulders and speed up again and keep on going. Dumb place to hitch a ride, they’d think.