"So, you've got a year," he said. "That's plenty of time. A year from now, you could be a million miles away. New start, new life. Is that what you want me for? To help you get away?"
She said nothing for a couple of minutes. A couple of miles. The road rolled down a slight hill, and then up again. There were buildings in the far distance, on the next crest. Probably the gas station. Maybe a tow-truck operation next to it.
"Right now just agree with me," she said. "A year is enough. So it's O. K. to have waited. "
"Sure," he said. "A year is enough. It's O. K. to have waited. "
She said nothing more. Just drove straight ahead for the gas station, like her life depended on it.
The first establishment was a junkyard. There was a long low shed made out of corrugated tin, with the front wall all covered with old hubcaps. Behind it was an acre of wrecked cars. They were piled five or six deep, with the older models at the bottom, like geological strata. Beyond the low shed was the turn for the gas station. It was old enough to have pumps with pointers instead of figures, and four public rest rooms instead of two. Old enough that a taciturn guy came out into the heat and filled your car for you.
The Cadillac took more than twenty gallons, which cost Reacher the price of a motel room. He passed the bills through his window and waved away a dollar in change. He figured the guy should have it. The outside temperature reading on the dash showed one hundred and eleven degrees. No wonder the guy didn't talk. Then he found himself wondering whether it was because the guy didn't like to see a beaner driving a white man around in a Cadillac.
"Gracias, senor," Carmen said. "Thank you. "
"Pleasure," he said. "De nada, senorita. "
"You speak Spanish?"
"Not really," he said. "I served all over, so I can say a few words in a lot of languages. But that's all. Except French. I speak French pretty well. My mother was French. "
"From Louisiana or Canada?"
"From Paris, France. "
"So you're half-foreign," she said.
"Sometimes I feel a lot more than half. "
She smiled like she didn't believe him and eased back to the road. The gas needle jumped up to F, which seemed to reassure her. She got the car straight in her lane and accelerated back to a cruise.
"But you should call me senora," she said. "Not senorita. I'm a married woman. "
"Yes," he said. "I guess you are. "
She went quiet for a mile. Settled back in the seat and rested both hands lightly on the bottom curve of the wheel. Then she took a deep breath.
"O. K. , here's the problem," she said. "I don't have a year. "
"Why not?"
"Because a month ago his lawyer friend came out to the house. Told us there was some kind of deal on the table. "
"What deal?"
"I don't know for sure. Nobody told me exactly. My guess is Sloop's going to rat out some business associates in exchange for early release. I think his other friend is brokering it through the DA's office. "
"Shit," Reacher said.
Carmen nodded. "Yes, shit. They've all been working their asses off, getting it going. I've had to be all smiles, like oh great, Sloop's coming home early. "
Reacher said nothing.
"But inside, I'm screaming," she said. "I left it too late, you see. A year and a half, I did nothing at all. I thought I was safe. I was wrong. I was stupid. I was sitting around in a trap without knowing it, and now it's sprung shut, and I'm still in it. "
Reacher nodded slowly. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. That was his guiding principle.
"So what's the progress on the deal?" he asked. The car sped on south.
"It's done," she said, in a small voice.
"So when does he get out?"
"Today's Friday," she said. "I don't think they can do it on the weekend. So it'll be Monday, I expect. A couple of days, is all. "
"I see," Reacher said.
"So I'm scared," she said. "He's coming home. "
"I see," Reacher said again.
"Do you?" she asked.
He said nothing.
"Monday night," she said. "He's going to start it all up again. It's going to be worse than ever. "
"Maybe he's changed," Reacher said. "Prison can change people. "
It was a useless thing to say. He could see it in her face. And in his experience, prison didn't change people for the better.
"No, it's going to be worse than ever," she said. "I know it. I know it for sure. I'm in big trouble, Reacher. I can promise you that. "
Something in her voice.
"Why?"
She moved her hands on the wheel. Closed her eyes tight, even though she was doing seventy miles an hour.
"Because it was me who told the IRS about him," she said.
* * *
The Crown Victoria drove south, and then west, and then looped back north in a giant sweeping curve. It detoured over near the highway so it could fill up with gas at a self-service pump in a busy station. The driver used a stolen Amex card in the slot and then wiped his prints off it and dropped it in the trash next to the pump, with the empty oil bottles and the soda cans and the used paper towels covered with windshield dirt. The woman busied herself with a map and selected their next destination. Kept her finger on the spot until the driver got back in and squirmed around to take a look at it. "Now?" he asked.
"Just to check it out," she replied. "For later. "
* * *
"It seemed like such a good plan," Carmen said. "It seemed foolproof. I knew how stubborn he was, and how greedy he was, so I knew he wouldn't cooperate with them, so I knew he would go to jail, at least for a little while. Even if by some chance he didn't, I thought it might preoccupy him for a spell. And I thought it might shake some money loose for me, you know, when he was hiding it all. And it worked real well, apart from the money. But that seemed like such a small thing at the time. "
"How did you do it?"
"I just called them. They're in the book. They have a whole section to take information from spouses. It's one of their big ways to get people. Normally it happens during divorces, when you're mad at each other. But I was already mad at him. "
"Why haven't you gone ahead and got a divorce?" he asked. "Husband in jail is grounds, right? Some kind of desertion?"
She glanced in the mirror, at the briefcase on the rear seat. "It doesn't solve the problem with Ellie," she said. "In fact, it makes it much worse. It alerts everybody to the possibility I'll leave the state. Legally, Sloop could require me to register her whereabouts, and I'm sure he would. "
"You could stay in Texas," he said again.
She nodded.
"I know, I know," she said. "But I can't. I just can't. I know I'm being irrational, but I can't stay here, Reacher. It's a beautiful state, and there are nice people here, and it's very big, so I could get a long way away, but it's a symbol. Things have happened to me here that I have to get away from. Not just with Sloop. "
He shrugged.
"Your call," he said.
She went quiet and concentrated on driving. The road reeled in. It was dropping down off of a wide flat mesa that looked the size of Rhode Island.
"The caprock," she said. "It's limestone, or something. All the water evaporated about a million years ago and left the rock behind. Geological deposits, or something. "
She sounded vague. Her tour-guide explanation was less definitive than usual.
"So what do you want me to do?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said, although he was certain that she did.
"Help you run? I could do that, probably. "
She said nothing.
"You picked me out," he said. "You must have had something in mind. "
She said nothing. He fell to thinking about the potential target group she had outlined to him. Out-of-work rodeo riders and roughnecks. Men of various talents, but he wasn't sure if beating a federa
l manhunt would be among them. So she had chosen well. Or lucked out.
"You need to move fast," he said. "Two days, you need to get started right now. We should pick Ellie up and turn the car around and get going. Vegas, maybe, for the first stop. "
"And do what there?"
"Pick up some ID," he said. "Place like Vegas, we could find something, even if it's only temporary. I've got some money. I can get more, if you need it. "
"I can't take your money," she said. "That wouldn't be fair. "
"Fair or not, you're going to need money. You can pay me back later. Then maybe you should go back to L. A. You could start building some new paperwork there. "
She was quiet again, another mile.
"No, I can't run," she said. "I can't be a fugitive. I can't be an illegal. Whatever else I am, I've never been an illegal. I'm not going to start being one now. And neither is Ellie. She deserves better than that. "
"You both deserve better than that," he said. "But you've got to do something. "
"I'm a citizen," she said. "Think about what that means to a person like me. I'm not going to give it up. I'm not going to pretend to be somebody else. "
"So what's your plan?"
"You're my plan," she said.
Bull riders, roughnecks, a six-foot-five two-hundred-fifty-pound ex-military cop.
"You want me to be your bodyguard?'' he asked.
She made no reply.
"Carmen, I'm sorry about your situation," he said. "Believe me, I really am. "
No response.
"But I can't be your bodyguard. "
No reply.
"I can't be," he said again. "It's ridiculous. What do you think is going to happen? You think I'm going to be with you twenty-four hours a day? Seven days a week? Making sure he doesn't hit you?"
No reply. A huge highway interchange sprawled across the empty landscape, miles away in the haze.
"It's ridiculous," he said again. "I could warn him off, I guess. I could scare him. I could smack him around a little, to back up the message. But what happens when I'm gone? Because sooner or later, I'm going to be gone, Carmen. I'm not going to stay around. I don't like to stay anywhere. And it's not just me. Face it, nobody is going to stay around. Not long enough. Not ten years. Or twenty, or thirty or however long it is until he ups and dies of old age. "
No reply. No effect, either. It wasn't like what he was saying was a big disappointment to her. She just listened and drove, fast and smooth, and silent, like she was biding her time. The highway cloverleaf grew larger and nearer and she swooped onto it and around it and headed due west, following a big green sign that said: PECOS 75 MILES.
"I don't want a bodyguard," she said. "I agree, that would be ridiculous. "
"So what am I supposed to be for?"
She settled onto the highway, center lane, driving faster than before. He watched her face. It was completely blank.
"What am I supposed to be for?" he asked again.
She hesitated. "I can't say it. "
"Say what?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Swallowed hard, and said nothing. He stared at her. Bull riders, roughnecks, an ex-MP. Clay Allison's grave, the fancy inscription, the obituary in the Kansas City newspaper.
"You are crazy," he said.
"Am I?" The spots of color came back to her face, the size of quarters, burning red high above her cheekbones.
"Totally crazy," he said. "And you can forget about it. "
"I can't forget about it. "
He said nothing.
"I want him dead, Reacher," she said. "I really do. It's my only way out, literally. And he deserves it. "
"Tell me you're kidding. "
"I'm not kidding," she said. "I want him killed. "
He shook his head. Stared out of the window.
"Just forget all about it," he said. "It's absurd. This isn't the Wild West anymore. "
"Isn't it? Isn't it still O. K. to kill a man who needs killing?"
Then she went quiet, just driving, like she was waiting him out. He stared at the speeding landscape in front of him. They were heading for the distant mountains. The blazing afternoon sun made them red and purple. It changed the color of the air. The Trans-Pecos, she had called them.
"Please, Reacher," she said. "Please. At least think about it. "
He said nothing. Please? Think about it? He was beyond reaction. He dropped his eyes from the mountains and watched the highway. It was busy with traffic. A river of cars and trucks, crawling across the vastness. She was passing them all, one after another. Driving way too fast.