made him think he was going to be OK when he wasn't going to be OK. And the same thing could happen to you. You're stupid if you don't see that."
He nodded. Said nothing. She stood up and walked past him. He caught her perfume as she went by.
"Call me if you need me," he said.
She didn't reply. He didn't get up.
A half hour later there was another knock at the door and he opened it up expecting to find Froelich again. But it was Neagley. Still fully dressed, a little tired, but calm.
"You on your own?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Where is she?" Neagley asked.
"She left."
"Business or lack of pleasure?"
"Confusion," he said. "Half the time she wants me to be Joe, the other half she wants to blame me for getting him killed."
"She's still in love with him."
"Evidently."
"Six years after their relationship ended."
"Is that normal?"
She shrugged. "You're asking me? I guess some people carry a torch for a long time. He must have been quite a guy."
"I didn't really know him all that well."
"Did you get him killed?"
"Of course not. I was a million miles away. Hadn't spoken to him for seven years. I told you that."
"So what's her angle?"
"She says he was driven to be reckless because he was comparing himself to me."
"And was he?"
"I doubt it."
"You said you felt guilty afterward. You told me that too, when we were watching those surveillance tapes."
"I think I said I felt angry, not guilty."
"Angry, guilty, it's all the same thing. Why feel guilty if it wasn't your fault?"
"Now you're saying it was my fault?"
"I'm just asking, what's the guilt about?"
"He grew up under a false impression."
He went quiet and moved deeper into the room. Neagley followed him. He lay down on the bed, arms outstretched, hands hanging off the edges. She sat down in the armchair, where Froelich had been.
"Tell me about the false impression," she said.
"He was big, but he was studious," Reacher said. "The schools we went to, being studious was like having 'Kick my ass' tattooed across your forehead. And he wasn't all that tough, really, although he was big. So he got his ass kicked, regular as clockwork."
"And?"
"I was two years younger, but I was big and tough, and not very studious. So I started to look after him. Loyalty, I guess, and I liked fighting anyway. I was about six. I'd wade in anywhere. I learned a lot of stuff. Learned that style was the big thing. Look like you mean it, and people back off a lot. Sometimes they didn't. I had eight-year-olds all over me the first year. Then I got better at it. I hurt people bad. I was a madman. It got to be a thing. We'd arrive in some new place and pretty quick people would know to lay off Joe, or the psycho would be coming after them."
"Sounds like you were a lovely little boy."
"It was the Army. Anyplace else they'd have sent me to reform school."
"You're saying Joe grew to rely on it."
Reacher nodded. "It was like that for ten years, basically. It came and went, and it happened less as we got older. But more serious when it actually did. I think he internalized it. Ten years is a significant chunk of time when you're growing up, internalizing things. I think it became part of his mind-set to ignore danger because the psycho always had his back. So I think Froelich's right, in a way. He was reckless. Not because he was trying to compete, but because deep down he felt he could afford to be. Because I had always looked after him, like his mother had always fed him, like the Army had always housed him."
"How old was he when he died?"
"Thirty-eight."
"That's twenty years, Reacher. He had twenty years to adjust. We all adjust."
"Do we? Sometimes I still feel like that same six-year-old. Everybody looking out of the corner of their eye at the psycho."
"Like who?"
"Like Froelich."
"She been saying things?"
"I disconcert her, clearly."
"Secret Service is a civilian organization. Paramilitary at best. Nearly as bad as regular citizens."
He smiled. Said nothing.
"So, what's the verdict?" Neagley asked. "You going to be walking around from now on thinking you killed your brother?"
"A little bit, maybe," he said. "But I'll get over it."
She nodded. "You will. And you should. It wasn't your fault. He was thirty-eight. He wasn't waiting for his little brother to show up."