He accelerated hard for fifty yards and then lifted off the gas. Coasted to a gentle stop just beyond the neighbour’s driveway. Selected reverse again and idled backward into it and down into the plantings.
Straightened up and killed the motor. Behind him, Jodie struggled up off the floor and stared.
‘Hell are we doing here?’ she said.
‘Waiting.’
‘For what?’
‘For them to get out of there.’
She gasped, halfway between outrage and astonishment.
‘We’re not waiting, Reacher, we’re going straight to the police with this.’
He turned the key again to give him power to operate the window. Buzzed it all the way down, so he could listen to the sounds outside.
‘I can’t go to the police with this,’ he said, not looking at her.
‘Why the hell can’t you?’
‘Because they’ll start looking at me for Costello.’
‘You didn’t kill Costello.’
‘You think they’ll be ready and willing to believe that?’
‘They’ll have to believe it, because it wasn’t you, simple as that.’
‘Could take them time to find somebody looks better for it.’
She paused. ‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying it’s all-around advantageous I stay away from the police.’
She shook her head. He saw it in the mirror.
‘No, Reacher, we need the police for this.’
He kept his eyes on hers, in the mirror.
‘Remember what Leon used to say? He used to say hell, I am the police.’
‘Well, he was, and you were. But that was a long time ago.’
‘Not so long ago, for either of us.’
She went quiet. Sat forward. Leaned towards him. ‘You don’t want to go to the police, right? That’s it, isn’t it? Not that you can’t, you just damn well don’t want to.’
He half turned in the driver’s seat so he could look straight at her. He saw her eyes drop to the burn on his shirt. There was a long teardrop shape there, a black sooty stain, gunpowder particles tattooed into the cotton. He undid the buttons and pulled the shirt open. Squinted down. The same teardrop shape was burned into his skin, the hairs frizzed and curled, a blister already puffing up, getting red and angry. He licked his thumb and pressed it on the blister and grimaced.
‘They mess with me, they answer to me.’
She stared at him. ‘You’re totally unbelievable, you know that? You’re just as bad as my father was. We should go to the police, Reacher.’
‘Can’t do it,’ he said. ‘They’ll throw me in jail.’
‘We should,’ she said again.
But she said it weakly. He shook his head and said nothing back. Watched her closely. She was a lawyer, but she was also Leon’s daughter, and she knew how things worked outside in the real world. She was quiet for a long spell, and then she shrugged helplessly and put her hand on her breastbone, like it was tender.
‘You OK?’ he asked her.
‘You hit me kind of hard,’ she said.
I could rub it better, he thought.
‘Who were those guys?’ she asked.
“The two who killed Costello,’ he said.
She nodded. Then she sighed. Her blue eyes glanced left and right.
‘So where are we going?’
He relaxed. Then he smiled. ‘Where’s the last place they’ll look for us?’
She shrugged. Took her hand off her chest and used it to smooth her hair.
‘Manhattan?’ she said.
‘The house,’ he said. ‘They saw us run, they won’t expect us to double back.’
‘You’re crazy, you know that?’
‘We need the suitcase. Leon might have made notes.’
She shook her head, dazed.
‘And we need to close the place up again. We can’t leave the garage open. It’ll end up full of raccoons. Whole families of the bastards.’
Then he held up his hand. Put his finger to his lips. There was the sound of a motor starting up. Maybe a big V-8, maybe two hundred yards away. There was the rattle of big tyres on a distant stony driveway. The burble of acceleration. Then a black shape flashed across their view. A big black jeep, aluminium wheels. A Yukon or a Tahoe, depending on whether it said GMC on the back, or Chevrolet. Two guys in it, dark suits, one of them driving and the other slumped back in his seat. Reacher stuck his head all the way out of the window and listened to the sound as it died to silence in the direction of town.