Lee Child - The Midnight Line

“It was the only thing that fit.”

“She’s doing OK, I think.”

“Me, too.”

“I even liked the house, in a way. I was surprised. For some reason I thought it would be dark inside.”

“Me, too,” he said again.

“Now tell me what happens next.”

“I wish I knew.”

“Seriously,” she said. “I need to figure out how to handle this.”

“She’s doing OK because she gets high every day. You could give her money, I suppose, and most likely she would continue to do OK, as long as this new guy Stackley keeps on showing up on time, and as long as the Boy Detective doesn’t plug the last leak and put everyone out of business.”

“Which could happen.”

“Nothing lasts forever,” Reacher said. “Her situation out there is not as secure as she thinks it is.”

“Even if it was, I couldn’t leave her there.”

“How are you going to move her out?”

“That’s what I’m asking. I’m open to ideas.”

Reacher said, “Is she getting no treatment at all?”

“At the beginning she was in the hospital a whole year. She ran out of patience. She hasn’t seen anyone since. She won’t. She refuses to.”

“Instead she lives quietly and self-medicates. She does it well enough we both just agreed she’s doing OK. We should respect that. The only way to get her out of there is promise her the exact same thing someplace else. Or even better. As many pills and patches as she wants. You would have to find the right kind of doctor. You would have to find her a quiet place to live. You would have to promise her no hassle. And you would have to mean it. Nothing for a year at least. Which is OK. This kind of thing is a very long game.”

“She doesn’t like people to see her.”

“Then she’s better off here than Illinois.”

“They don’t have the right kind of doctors here.”

“How big is your yard?”

“I think six acres.”

“You could build her a cabin. With a high fence. You could throw her prescriptions over. Leave her alone for a year. See what happens.”

“So the only way to help her is to be a better pusher.”

“The Boy Detective said we shouldn’t underestimate the appeal of an opiate high. I’m sure she’s real pleased to see you, but you should assume getting what she needs right now feels more important to her.”

“That’s tough to accept. Not about me. That she’s so far gone.”

“She needs you on her side right now. Proving that is your job one. Don’t disapprove of her. What choice does she have? Just bite your lip and shovel pills down her throat. Don’t forget she’s tough underneath. She’s a combat veteran. Sooner or later she’ll realize she needs to shape up or ship out, and then she’ll want to talk. To you especially, because you were the one who treated her right. That’s when you can help her.”

“I hope I can.”

“There are books about it. You can spend the first year reading.”

“Did you take classes?”

“Not enough curriculum time,” Reacher said. “In the MPs it was all rubber hoses and nightsticks. But the medics had good people. Psychiatrists in uniform. The weirdest thing you ever saw. Always some inflated rank. I knew a couple. They would tell you a bunch of things.”

“Like what?”

“They would tell you to figure out what’s upsetting her deep down.”

“That’s obvious, surely.”

“But they’re shrinks, and they’re in the army. They would say a person can have two things wrong at once. They would say they know what infantry officers are like. They would want more detail on the incident with the roadside bomb.”

“Why?”

“Specifically they would want to know if there were other American casualties. If so, they would assume Rose is taking it hard. She was an infantry officer. She got her people killed. The facts don’t count. She could have been already wounded and unconscious before anything else even happened. Doesn’t matter. They’re her people. It’s her fault. That’s how infantry officers think. Small words, but they mean a lot to those guys. The top boy at West Point said she led her soldiers well. That’s the hall of fame right there. You could put that on your tombstone. She led her soldiers well. An infantry officer couldn’t hear finer words than those. Because it’s hard to do. Ultimately it works because you make an unspoken promise not to get them killed. It becomes a thing in your head.”

Mackenzie said, “She won’t talk about it.”

Reacher said, “The shrinks would also want to know the status of the mission. Was it a routine kind of thing ordered from above? Or was there an element of initiative involved? In which case, they would assume she was taking it even harder. She led her soldiers into harm’s way, literally.”

“They’re shrinks. You said so yourself. They overcomplicate things. If you hear hoof beats, you look for horses, not zebras. Rose is upset deep down because someone stuck her face in a blender and smeared it with dog shit.”

Reacher said nothing.

Mackenzie said, “What?”

“I’m sure that’s most of it. How could it not be?”

“But?”

“I think like a cop. I can’t help it. Her final rank was major. The guy at West Point told me on her last tour she was doing a pretty big job. Which for a major means desk time and briefings. She had limited opportunities to get out and about. Why would she choose to go look at the side of a road outside a small town? She wouldn’t. She was bored with that kind of stuff four tours ago. She went because her command presence was required. She had some kind of operation running. She had captains below her, and lieutenants below them, all covering their own ass, so we can be certain the protective detail around her was thick on the ground. We can be certain lots of people were involved. Was she the only one hurt? Unlikely, but we don’t know for sure. The files are sealed. Which means most likely her operation was a failure. Perhaps with multiple U.S. casualties. So her face may not be all of it.”

Mackenzie said, “I don’t know if you’re trying to cheer me up, or bring me down.”

“It’s all bad,” Reacher said. “Whichever way around. Let’s not be Pollyanna. But she had a boyfriend. Sy Porterfield. There were two dents in the bed. That says something about how she sees herself. It’s a glimmer of what might be possible.”

“She won’t talk about him. I told her about the comb you found, and she didn’t deny it. She said it was safer I didn’t know. Whatever that means.”

“She thought I was an investigator come to ask questions about him.”

“No one believes the bear story.”

“Which could be an additional traumatizing factor. She really doesn’t know what happened to her boyfriend. She really isn’t sure which would be worse, the bear or not. The shrinks would throw a party. They would tell you it’s a whole big mixture of things.”

“In other words it could be worse than just her face.”

“That would be a glass half empty type of interpretation. But it’s why I asked if you wanted polite or uncomfortable.”

“I said truth. You’re speculating.”

“Agreed,” Reacher said. “And I sincerely hope I’m wrong about all of it.”

She was quiet a beat.

Then she said, “You’re a kind man.”

“Not a word that gets used often.”

“Thank you for being here.”

“My pleasure,” he said, and it was. It was a concrete bench in a blacktop lot, but a yard above the ground it was spectacular. The stars were better than he had ever seen. The air was cool and soft and hummed with silence. Beside him on the bench was a woman who looked like the back of a shiny magazine. He figured she would feel firm and lithe and cool to the touch, except maybe the small of her back, which might be damp.