Lee Child - Running Blind

She waited. She was going to make him say it anyway. It was nothing to be embarrassed about.

“Guess what?” he said.

“What?”

“Can I use the powder room?”

Cold air was swirling in around her legs. She could feel it striking through her jeans.

“Of course,” she said.

She closed the door behind him, to keep some warmth in. Waited next to it, while he disappeared and then came back again.

“Nice and warm in here,” he said.

She nodded, although it wasn’t really true. She kept the house as cold as she could stand it. For the piano tone. So the wood didn’t dry out.

“Cold out there in the car,” he said.

She nodded again.

“Run the motor,” she said. “Get the heater going.”

He shook his head. “Not allowed. Can’t idle the engine. Some pollution thing.”

“So take off for a spell,” she said. “Drive around, get warm. I’ll be OK here.”

Clearly it wasn’t the invitation he was looking for, but he thought about it. Then he shook his head again.

“They’d take my badge,” he said. “I’ve got to stay here.”

She said nothing.

“Sorry to bother you with that padre,” he said, making the point he’d intervened, and gotten rid of him.

She nodded.

"I’ll bring you some hot coffee,” she said. “Five minutes, OK?”

He looked pleased. A shy smile.

“Then I’ll need the powder room again,” he said. “Goes right through me.”

“Whenever,” she said.

She closed the door on him and went back to the kitchen and set her coffee machine going. Waited on the stool next to the shopping bags until it was done. She found the biggest mug she owned and poured the coffee. Added cream from the refrigerator and sugar from the cupboard. He looked like a cream-and-sugar guy, young, a little fat. She carried the mug outside and walked down the path. Steam swirled off the coffee and hung in a thin horizontal band all the way to the sidewalk. She tapped on his window and he turned and smiled and buzzed the glass down. He took the cup, awkwardly, two-handed.

"Thanks,” he said.

He touched it to his lips like an extra gesture of politeness and she walked away, into the driveway, up the path, in through the door. She closed it behind her and locked it and turned around to find the visitor she was expecting standing quietly at the head of the stairs from the garage.

“Hello, Rita,” the visitor said.

“Hello,” she said back.

THE TAXI DROVE south on 205 and found the left turn east on 26. It rode like its next trip should be to the scrap heap. The colors inside the door seams didn’t match the outside. It had probably already done three years in New York, and maybe three more in the suburbs of Chicago. But it moved along steadily enough, and its meter clicked a lot slower than it would have in New York or Chicago. And that was important, because Reacher had just realized he had almost no money in his pockets.

“Why is a demonstration of mobility important?” Harper asked.

“That’s one of the big lies,” Reacher said. “We just swallowed it whole.”

SCIMECA STOOD THERE inside her front door, calmly. The visitor gazed back at her from the other end of the hallway, eyes inquiring.

“Did you buy the paint?”

She nodded.

“Yes, I did,” she said.

“So, are you ready?”

“I’m not sure.”

The visitor watched her a moment longer, just gazing, very calm, eyes steady.

“Are you ready now?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

The visitor smiled.

“I think you’re ready. I really do. What do you think? Are you ready?”

She nodded, slowly.

“Yes, I’m ready,” she said.

“Did you apologize to the cop?”

She nodded again. “Yes, I told him I was sorry.”

“He has to be allowed in, right?”

“I told him, whenever he needs it.”

“He has to find you. He has to be the one. That’s the way I want it.”

“OK,” Scimeca said.

The visitor was silent for a long moment, just standing there, saying nothing, watching carefully. Scimeca waited, awkward.

“Yes, he should be the one to find me,” she said. “If that’s the way you want it.”

“You did good with the padre,” the visitor said.

“He wanted to help me.”

“Nobody can help you.”

“I guess not,” Scimeca said.

“Let’s go into the kitchen,” the visitor said.

Scimeca moved away from the door. Squeezed past the visitor in the narrow hallway and led the way into her kitchen.

“The paint is right here,” she said.

“Show me.”

Scimeca took the can out of the bag and held it up by the wire handle.

“It’s olive green,” she said. “Closest they had.”

The visitor nodded. “Good. You did very well.”

Scimeca blushed with pleasure. A tiny pink flush under the white of her skin.

“Now you need to concentrate,” the visitor said. “Because I’m going to give you a lot of information.”

“What about?”

“About what I want you to do.”

Scimeca nodded.

“OK,” she said.

“First thing, you have to smile for me,” the visitor said. “That’s very important. It means a lot to me.”

“OK,” Scimeca said.

“So can you smile for me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Try it, OK?”

“I don’t smile much anymore.”

The visitor nodded, sympathetic. “I know, but just try now, OK?”

Scimeca ducked her head and concentrated and came back up with a shy, weak smile. Just a faint new angle to her lips, but it was something. She held it, desperately.

“That’s nice,” the visitor said. “Now remember, I want you smiling all the time.”

“OK.”

“Got to be happy in our work, right?”

“Right.”

“We need something to open the can.”

“My tools are downstairs,” Scimeca said.

“Have you got a screwdriver?”

“Of course,” Scimeca said. “I’ve got eight or nine.”

“Go get a big one for me, would you?”

“Sure.”

“And don’t forget the smile, OK?”

“Sorry.”

THE MUG WAS too big for the Crown Vic’s cup holder, so he drank all the coffee straight off because he couldn’t put it down between sips. That always happened. At a party, if he was standing up holding a bottle, he drank it much faster than if he was sitting at a bar where he could sometimes rest it on the napkin. Like smoking. If there was an ashtray to rest the butt in, the cigarette lasted much longer than if he was walking around with it, whereupon he demolished it in about a minute and a half.

So he was sitting there with the empty mug resting on his thigh, thinking about carrying it back up to the house. Here’s your mug back , he could say. Thanks very much . It would give him another chance to drop a hint about how cold he was. Maybe he could get her to put a chair in the hallway, and he could finish his shift inside. Nobody could complain about that. Better protection that way.

But he was nervous about ringing the bell again. She was an uptight character, that was for damn sure. Who knows how she might react, even though he was being real polite, just returning her mug? Even though he’d gotten rid of the chaplain for her? He bounced the mug up and down on his knee and tried to balance out between how cold he was and how offended she might get.

THE TAXI DROVE on, through Gresham, through Kelso, through Sandy. Route 26 picked up a name, Mount Hood Highway. The grade steepened. The old V-8 dug deep and rumbled upward.

“Who is it?” Harper asked.

“The key is in Poulton’s report from Spokane.”

“It is?”

He nodded. “Big and obvious. But it took me some time to spot it.”