Running Blind(The Visitor) - By Lee Child Page 0,69

was loose. It spilled all over her shoulders.

"They tell you to bring me back?" he asked.

She shook her head. "They decided you're useless. Nothing to contribute, is what they said."

He smiled. "So now I'm supposed to get all boiled up with indignation and storm back in there and prove them wrong?"

She smiled back. "Something like that. They spent ten minutes discussing the best approach. Lamarr decided they should appeal to your ego."

"That's what happens when you're a psychologist who studied landscape gardening in school."

"I guess so."

They drove on, through the wooded curves, past the last Marine clearing.

"But she's right," he said. "I've got nothing to contribute. Nobody's going to catch this guy. He's too smart. Too smart for me, that's for damn sure."

She smiled again. "A little psychology of your own? Trying to leave with a clear conscience?"

He shook his head. "My conscience is always clear."

"Is it clear about Petrosian?"

"Why shouldn't it be?"

"Hell of a coincidence, don't you think? They threaten you with Petrosian, and he's dead within three days."

"Just dumb luck."

"Yeah, luck. You know I didn't tell them I was outside Trent's office all day?"

"Why not?"

"I was covering my ass."

He looked at her. "And what's Trent's office got to do with anything?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. But I don't like coincidences. "

"They happen, time to time. Obviously."

"Nobody in the Bureau likes coincidences."

"So?"

She shrugged again. "So they could, you know, dig around. Might make it hard for you, later."

He smiled again. "This is phase two of the approach, right?"

She smiled back, and then the smile exploded into a laugh. "Yeah, phase two. There are about a dozen still to go. Some of them are real good. You want to hear them all?"

"Not really. I'm not going back. They're not listening. "

She nodded and drove on. Paused before the junction with the interstate, and then swooped north up the ramp.

"I'll take you to the next one," she said. "Nobody uses this one except Bureau people. And none of them is going to give you a ride."

He nodded. "Thanks, Harper."

"Jodie's home," she said. "I called Cozo's office. Apparently they had a little surveillance going. She's been away. She got back this morning, in a taxi. Looked like she'd come from the airport. Looks like she's working from home today."

He smiled. "OK, so now I'm definitely out of here."

"We need your input, you know."

"They're not listening."

"You need to make them listen," she said.

"This is phase three?"

"No, this is me. I mean it."

He was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded.

"So why won't they listen?"

"Pride, maybe?" she said.

"They need somebody's input," he said. "That's for sure. But not mine. I don't have the resources. And I don't have the authority."

"To do what?"

"To take it out of their hands. They're wasting their time with this profiling shit. It won't get them anywhere. They need to work the clues."

"There aren't any clues."

"Yes, there are. How smart the guy is. And the paint, and the geography, and how quiet the scenes are. They're all clues. They should work them. They've got to mean something. Starting with the motive is starting at the wrong end."

"I'll pass that on."

She pulled off the highway and stopped at the cross street.

"You going to get into trouble?" he asked.

"For failing to bring you back?" she said. "Probably. "

He was silent. She smiled.

"That was phase ten," she said. "I'll be perfectly OK."

"I hope so," he said, and got out of the car. He walked north across the street to the ramp and stood all alone and watched her car slide under the bridge and turn back south.

A MALE HITCHHIKER standing six feet five and weighing two hundred and thirty pounds is on the cusp of acceptability for easy rides. Generally, women won't stop for him, because they see a threat. Men can be just as nervous. But Reacher was showered and shaved and clean, and dressed quietly. That shortened the odds, and there were enough trucks on the road with big confident owner-drivers that he was back in New York City within seven hours of starting out.

He was quiet most of the seven hours, partly because the trucks were too noisy for conversation, and partly because he wasn't in the mood for talking. The old hobo demon was whispering to him again. Where are you going? Back to Jodie, of course. OK, smart guy, but what else? What the hell else? Yardwork behind your house? Painting the damn walls? He sat next to a succession of kindly drivers and felt his brief