charges, then we've set her free whether she wants us to or not."
He shrugged. "Then that's what we'll do. But it's completely bizarre, isn't it?"
"It sure is," Alice said. "I never heard of such a thing before."
* * *
A hundred miles away, the two male members of the killing crew returned to their motel after eating dinner. They had chosen pizza, too, but with pitchers of cold beer instead of water and coffee. They found their woman partner waiting for them inside their room. She was alert and pacing, which they recognized as a sign of news.
"What?" the tall man asked.
"A supplementary job," she said.
"Where?"
"Pecos."
"Is that smart?"
She nodded. "Pecos is still safe enough."
"You think?" the dark man asked.
"Wait until you hear what he's paying."
"When?"
"Depends on the prior commitment."
"O.K.," the tall man said. "Who's the target?"
"Just some guy," the woman said. "I'll give you the details when we've done the other thing."
She walked to the door.
"Stay inside now," she said. "Get to bed, get some sleep. We've got a very busy day coming up."
* * *
"This is a crummy room," Alice said.
Reacher glanced around. "You think?"
"It's awful."
"I've had worse."
She paused a beat. "You want dinner?"
He was full of pizza and ice cream, but the inch of midriff was attractive. So was the corresponding inch of her back. There was a deep cleft there. The waistband of the pants spanned it like a tiny bridge.
"Sure," he said. "Where?"
She paused again.
"My place?" she said. "It's difficult for me to eat out around here. I'm a vegetarian. So usually I cook for myself."
"A vegetarian in Texas," he said. "You're a long way from home."
"Sure feels like it," she said. "So how about it? And I've got better air conditioning than this."
He smiled. "Woman-cooked food and better air? Sounds good to me."
"You eat vegetarian?"
"I eat anything."
"So let's go."
He shrugged his damp shirt on. She picked up her jacket. He found his shoes. Locked up the room and followed her over to the car.
She drove a couple of miles west to a low-rise residential complex built on a square of scrubby land trapped between two four-lane roads. The buildings had stucco walls painted the color of sand with dark-stained wooden beams stuck all over the place for accents. There were maybe forty rental units and they all looked half-hearted and beaten down by the heat. Hers was right in the center, like a small city townhouse sandwiched between two others. She parked outside her door on a fractured concrete pad. There were parched desert weeds wilting in the cracks.
But it was gloriously cool inside the house. There was central air running hard. He could feel the pressure it was creating. There was a narrow living room with a kitchen area in back. A staircase on the left. Cheap rented furniture and a lot of books. No television.
"I'm going to shower," she said. "Make yourself at home." She disappeared up the stairs.
He took a look around. The books were mostly law texts. The civil and criminal codes of Texas. Some constitutional commentaries. There was a phone on a side table with four speed dials programmed. Top slot was labeled Work. Second was / Home. Third was / Work. Fourth was M & D. On one of the bookshelves there was a photograph in a silver frame, showing a handsome couple who could have been in their middle fifties. It was a casual outdoors shot, in a city, probably New York. The man had gray hair and a long patrician face. The woman looked a little like an older version of Alice herself. Same hair, minus the color and the youthful bounce. The Park Avenue parents, no doubt. Mom and Dad, M & D. They looked O.K. He figured was probably a boyfriend. He checked, but there was no photograph of him. Maybe his picture was upstairs, next to her bed.
He sat in a chair and she came back down within ten minutes. Her hair was wet and combed, and she was wearing shorts again with a T-shirt that probably said Harvard Soccer except it had been washed so many times the writing was nearly illegible. The shorts were short and the T-shirt was thin and tight. She had dispensed with the sports bra. That was clear. She was barefoot and looked altogether sensational.
"You played soccer?" he asked.
"My partner did," she said.
He smiled at the warning. "Does he still?"
"He's a she. Judith. I'm gay. And yes, she still plays."