Lee Child - Echo Burning

"Show me your shoes."

She paused a second, and then leaned down and worked her shoes off. Passed them across to him, one at a time. He checked them carefully. Nothing in them. He passed them back. Then he leaned forward and unbuttoned his shirt. Took it off. Passed it to her.

"I'm getting out now," he said. "I'm going to turn my back. Take all your clothes off and put the shirt on. Leave your clothes on the seat and then get out, too."

"Why?"

"You want me to help you, just do it. All of them, O.K.?"

He got out of the car and walked away. Turned around and stared down the road, back the way they had come. It was very hot. He could feel the sun burning the skin on his shoulders. Then he heard the car door open. He turned back and saw her climbing out, barefoot, wearing his shirt. It was huge on her. She was hopping from foot to foot because the road was burning her feet.

"You can keep your shoes," he called.

She leaned in and picked them up and put them on.

"Now walk away and wait," he called.

She paused again, and then moved ten feet away. He stepped back to the car. Her clothes were neatly folded on her seat. He ignored them. Reached back and searched her pocketbook again, and then the briefcase. Nothing there. He turned back to the clothes and shook them out. They were warm from her body. The dress, a bra, underpants. Nothing hidden in them. He laid them on the roof of the car and searched the rest of it.

It took him twenty minutes. He covered it completely. Under the hood, the whole of the interior, under the carpets, in the seats, under the seats, in the trunk, under the fenders, everywhere. He found nothing at all, and he was absolutely prepared to bet his life no civilian could conceal anything from him in an automobile.

"O.K.," he called. "Get dressed now. Same routine."

He waited with his back turned until he heard her behind him. She was holding his shirt. He took it from her and put it back on.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"Now I'll help you," he said. "Because now I believe you."

"Why?"

"Because you really don't have any money," he said. "No credit cards, either. Not in your wallet, and not hidden anyplace else. And nobody travels three hundred miles from home, not overnight, with absolutely no money. Not unless they've got some real big problems. And a person with real big problems deserves some kind of help."

She said nothing. Just ducked her head slightly, like she was accepting a compliment. Or offering one. They climbed back in the car and shut the doors. Sat for a minute in the cool air, and then she maneuvered back onto the road again.

"So, you've got a year," he said. "That's plenty of time. A year from now, you could be a million miles away. New start, new life. Is that what you want me for? To help you get away?"

She said nothing for a couple of minutes. A couple of miles. The road rolled down a slight hill, and then up again. There were buildings in the far distance, on the next crest. Probably the gas station. Maybe a tow-truck operation next to it.

"Right now just agree with me," she said. "A year is enough. So it's O.K. to have waited."

"Sure," he said. "A year is enough. It's O.K. to have waited."

She said nothing more. Just drove straight ahead for the gas station, like her life depended on it.

The first establishment was a junkyard. There was a long low shed made out of corrugated tin, with the front wall all covered with old hubcaps. Behind it was an acre of wrecked cars. They were piled five or six deep, with the older models at the bottom, like geological strata. Beyond the low shed was the turn for the gas station. It was old enough to have pumps with pointers instead of figures, and four public rest rooms instead of two. Old enough that a taciturn guy came out into the heat and filled your car for you.

The Cadillac took more than twenty gallons, which cost Reacher the price of a motel room. He passed the bills through his window and waved away a dollar in change. He figured the guy should have it. The outside temperature reading on the dash showed one hundred and eleven degrees. No wonder the guy didn't talk. Then he found himself wondering whether it was because the guy didn't like to see a beaner driving a white man around in a Cadillac.

"Gracias, senor," Carmen said. "Thank you."

"Pleasure," he said. "De nada, senorita."

"You speak Spanish?"

"Not really," he said. "I served all over, so I can say a few words in a lot of languages. But that's all. Except French. I speak French pretty well. My mother was French."

"From Louisiana or Canada?"

"From Paris, France."

"So you're half-foreign," she said.

"Sometimes I feel a lot more than half."

She smiled like she didn't believe him and eased back to the road. The gas needle jumped up to F, which seemed to reassure her. She got the car straight in her lane and accelerated back to a cruise.

"But you should call me senora," she said. "Not senorita. I'm a married woman."

"Yes," he said. "I guess you are."

She went quiet for a mile. Settled back in the seat and rested both hands lightly on the bottom curve of the wheel. Then she took a deep breath.

"O.K., here's the problem," she said. "I don't have a year."

"Why not?"

"Because a month ago his lawyer friend came out to the house. Told us there was some kind of deal on the table."

"What deal?"

"I don't know for sure. Nobody told me exactly. My guess is Sloop's going to rat out some business associates in exchange for early release. I think his other friend is brokering it through the DA's office."

"Shit," Reacher said.

Carmen nodded. "Yes, shit. They've all been working their asses off, getting it going. I've had to be all smiles, like oh great, Sloop's coming home early."

Reacher said nothing.

"But inside, I'm screaming," she said. "I left it too late, you see. A year and a half, I did nothing at all. I thought I was safe. I was wrong. I was stupid. I was sitting around in a trap without knowing it, and now it's sprung shut, and I'm still in it."

Reacher nodded slowly. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. That was his guiding principle.

"So what's the progress on the deal?" he asked. The car sped on south.

"It's done," she said, in a small voice.

"So when does he get out?"

"Today's Friday," she said. "I don't think they can do it on the weekend. So it'll be Monday, I expect. A couple of days, is all."

"I see," Reacher said.

"So I'm scared," she said. "He's coming home."

"I see," Reacher said again.

"Do you?" she asked.

He said nothing.

"Monday night," she said. "He's going to start it all up again. It's going to be worse than ever."

"Maybe he's changed," Reacher said. "Prison can change people."

It was a useless thing to say. He could see it in her face. And in his experience, prison didn't change people for the better.

"No, it's going to be worse than ever," she said. "I know it. I know it for sure. I'm in big trouble, Reacher. I can promise you that."

Something in her voice.

"Why?"

She moved her hands on the wheel. Closed her eyes tight, even though she was doing seventy miles an hour.

"Because it was me who told the IRS about him," she said.

* * *

The Crown Victoria drove south, and then west, and then looped back north in a giant sweeping curve. It detoured over near the highway so it could fill up with gas at a self-service pump in a busy station. The driver used a stolen Amex card in the slot and then wiped his prints off it and dropped it in the trash next to the pump, with the empty oil bottles and the soda cans and the used paper towels covered with windshield dirt. The woman busied herself with a map and selected their next destination. Kept her finger on the spot until the driver got back in and squirmed around to take a look at it. "Now?" he asked.