by Lee Child
Marilyn stared at him.
“Or I could cut yours off,” he said to her. “I could make him watch. Maybe I could make him do it for me.”
“You’re insane,” Marilyn said.
“He would, you know,” Hobie said. “He’d do anything. He’s pathetic. Look at him, in his underwear. You think he looks good in his underwear?”
She said nothing.
“What about you?” Hobie asked. “Do you look good in your underwear? You want to take that dress off and show me?”
She stared at him in panic.
“No?” he said. “OK, maybe later. But what about your real-estate agent? You think she’d look good in her underwear?”
He turned to Sheryl. She was backing away against the door, leaning hard on her taped arms. She stiffened.
“What about it?” he said to her. “You look good in your underwear?”
She stared and shook her head wildly. Her breathing whistled through the hole in the tape. Hobie stepped nearer and pinned her against the door and forced the tip of his hook under the waistband of her skirt.
“Let’s check it out.”
He wrenched with the hook and Sheryl staggered off-balance and the fabric tore open. Buttons scattered and she fell to her knees. He raised his foot and used the flat of his sole to push her all the way over. He nodded to Tony. Tony ducked down and pulled the torn skirt down off her thrashing legs.
“Panty hose,” Hobie said. “God, I hate panty hose. So unromantic.”
He stooped and used the tip of the hook to tear the nylon to shreds. Her shoes came off. Tony balled the skirt and the shoes and the torn nylon and carried it to the kitchen. Dropped it into the trash. Sheryl scrabbled her bare legs under her and sat there gasping through the tape. She was wearing tiny white panties and was trying to make the tails of her blouse fall down over them. Marilyn was watching her, openmouthed in horror.
“OK, now we’re having fun,” Hobie said. “Aren’t we?”
“You bet,” Tony said. “But not as much fun as we’re going to have.”
Hobie laughed and Stone stirred. Marilyn ducked down and helped him to a sitting position on the kitchen floor. Hobie stepped over and picked up the severed hand from the countertop.
“This came off the last guy who annoyed me,” he said.
Stone was opening and closing his eyes like he could make the scene change by wiping it away. Then he stared out at Sheryl. Marilyn realized he had never met her before. He didn’t know who she was.
“Into the bathroom,” Hobie said.
Tony pulled Sheryl to her feet and Marilyn helped Chester. Hobie walked behind them. They filed into the big office and crossed to the bathroom door.
“Inside,” Hobie said.
Stone led the way. The women followed him. Hobie watched them go and stood at the door. Nodded in at Stone. “Tony’s going to sleep the night out here, on the sofa. So don’t come out again. And spend your time fruitfully. Talk things over with your wife. We’re going to do the stock transfer tomorrow. Much better for her if we do it in an atmosphere of mutual agreement. Much better. Any other way, there could be bad consequences. You get my meaning?”
Stone just stared at him. Hobie let his glance linger on the women and then he waved the severed hand in farewell and pulled the door closed.
JODIE’S WHITE BEDROOM was flooded with light. For five minutes every evening in June, the sun dropped away to the west and found a slim straight path through Manhattan’s tall buildings and hit her window with its full force. The blind burned like it was incandescent and the walls picked it up and bounced it around until the whole place was glowing like a soft white explosion. Reacher thought it was entirely appropriate. He was lying on his back, happier than he could ever remember getting.
If he’d thought about it, he might have worried. He could remember mean little proverbs that said things like pity the man who gets what he wants. And it’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive. To get something you want after fifteen years of wanting it could have felt strange. But it didn’t. It had felt like a blissful rocket trip to somewhere he had no idea existed. It had been everything he had dreamed it would be, multiplied by a million. She wasn’t a myth. She was a living breathing creature, hard and strong and sinewy and perfumed, warm and shy and giving.
She lay nestled in the crook of his arm, with her hair over his face. It was in his mouth as he breathed. His hand was resting on her back. He was rocking it back and forth over her ribs. Her backbone was in a cleft formed by long, shallow muscle. He traced his finger down the groove. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling. He knew that. He had felt the scrape of her lashes on his neck, and his shoulder could feel the shape of her mouth. It could decode the feel of the muscles in her face. She was smiling. He moved his hand. Her skin was cool and soft.
“I should be crying now,” she said, quietly. “I always thought I would be. I used to think, if this ever, ever happens, I’ll cry afterward.”
He squeezed her tighter. “Why should we cry?”
“Because of all those wasted years,” she said.
“Better late than never,” he said.
She came up on her elbows. Climbed half on top of him, her breasts crushed into his chest. “That stuff you said to me, I could have said to you, exactly word for word. I wish I had, a long time ago. But I couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t, either,” he said. “It felt like a guilty secret.”
“Yes,” she said. “My guilty secret.”
She climbed up all the way and sat astride him, back straight, smiling.
“But now it’s not a secret,” she said.
“No,” he said.
She stretched her arms up high and started a yawn that ended in a contented smile. He put his hands on her tiny waist. Traced them upward to her breasts. Her smile broadened to a grin. “Again?”
He nudged her sideways with his hips and rolled her over and laid her down gently on the bed. “We’re playing catch-up, right? All those wasted years.”
She nodded. Just a tiny motion, smiling, rubbing her hair against the pillow.
MARILYN TOOK charge She felt she was the strong one. Chester and Sheryl were dazed, which she felt was understandable, because they were the two who had suffered the abuse. She could guess how vulnerable they must be feeling, half-dressed. She felt half-dressed herself, but she wasn’t going to worry about that now. She pulled the tape off Sheryl’s mouth and held her while she cried. Then she ducked behind her and worked the binding free from her wrists and unwound it up to her elbows. She balled up the sticky mass and dropped it in the trash and went back to help massage some feeling back into her shoulders. Then she found a washcloth and ran hot water into the sink and sponged the crusted blood off Sheryl’s face. Her nose was swollen and going black. She started worrying about getting her to a doctor. She started rehearsing things in her head. She had seen movies where hostages get taken. Somebody always elects herself spokesman and says no police and gets the sick released to the hospital. But how exactly do they do it?
She took the towels from the bar and gave Sheryl a bath sheet to use as a skirt. Then she divided up the remainder into three piles and laid them on the floor. She could see the tiles were going to be cold. Thermal insulation was going to be important. She slid the three piles into a row against the wall. She sat with her back against the door, and put Chester on her left and Sheryl on her right. She took their hands and squeezed them hard. Chester squeezed back.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“How much do you owe?” she asked.
“More than seventeen million.”
She didn’t bother to ask if he could pay it back. He wouldn’t be half-naked on a bathroom floor if he could pay it back.
“What does he want?” she asked.
He shrugged at her side, miserably.
“Everything,” he said. “He wants the whole company.”
She nodded, and focused on the plumbing under the sink.
“
What would that leave us with?”
He paused and then shrugged again. “Whatever crumb he would feel like throwing us. Probably nothing at all.”
“What about the house?” she asked. “We’d still have that, right? I put it on the market. This lady is the broker. She says it’ll sell for nearly two million.”
Stone glanced across at Sheryl. Then he shook his head. “The house belongs to the company. It was a technical thing, easier to finance that way. So Hobie will get it, along with everything else.”
She nodded and stared into space. On her right, Sheryl was sleeping, sitting up. The terror had exhausted her.
“You go to sleep, too,” she said. “I’ll figure something out.”
He squeezed her hand again and leaned his head back. Closed his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” he said again.
She made no reply. Just smoothed the thin silk down over her thighs and stared straight ahead, thinking hard.
THE SUN WAS gone before they finished for the second time. It became a bright bar sliding sideways off the window. Then it became a narrow horizontal beam, playing across the white wall, traveling slowly, dust dancing through it. Then it was gone, shut off like a light, leaving the room with the cool, dull glow of evening. They lay spent and nuzzling in a tangle of sheets, bodies slack, breathing low. Then he felt her smile again. She came up on one elbow and looked at him with the same teasing grin he’d seen outside her office building.
“What?” he asked.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said.
He waited.
“In my official capacity.”
He focused on her face. She was still smiling. Her teeth were white and her eyes were bright blue, even in the new cool dimness. He thought what official capacity? She was a lawyer who cleaned up the mess when somebody owed somebody else a hundred million dollars.
“I don’t owe money,” he said. “And I don’t think anybody owes me.”
She shook her head. Still smiling. “As executor of Dad’s will.”
He nodded. It made sense that Leon should appoint her. A lawyer in the family, the obvious choice.
“I opened it up and read it,” she said. “Today, at work.”
“So what’s in it? He was a secret miser? A closet billionaire?”
She shook her head again. Said nothing.
“He knows what happened to Victor Hobie and wrote it all down in his will?”
She was still smiling. “He left you something. A bequest.”
He nodded again, slowly. That made sense, too. That was Leon. He’d remember, and he’d pick out some little thing, for the sake of sentiment. But what? He scanned back. Probably a souvenir. Maybe his medals? Maybe the sniper rifle he brought home from Korea. It was an old Mauser, originally German, presumably captured by the Soviets on the Eastern Front and sold on ten years later to their Korean customers. It was a hell of a piece of machinery. Leon and he had speculated on the action it must have seen, many times. It would be a nice thing to have. A nice memory. But where the hell would he keep it?
“He left you his house,” she said.
“His what?”
“His house,” she said again. “Where we were, up in Garrison.”
He stared at her blankly. “His house?”
She nodded. Still smiling.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “And I can’t accept it. What would I do with it?”
“What would you do with it? You’d live in it, Reacher. That’s what houses are for, right?”
“But I don’t live in houses,” he said. “I’ve never lived in a house.”
“Well, you can live in one now.”
He was silent. Then he shook his head. “Jodie, I just can’t accept it. It should be yours. He should have left it to you. It’s your inheritance.”
“I don’t want it,” she said simply. “He knew that. I like the city better.”
“OK, so sell it. But it’s yours, right? Sell it and keep the money.”
“I don’t need money. He knew that, too. It’s worth less than I make in a year.”
He looked at her. “I thought that was an expensive area, right by the river?”
She nodded. “It is.”
He paused, confused.
“His house?” he said again.
She nodded.
“Did you know he was doing this?”
“Not specifically,” she said. “But I knew he wasn’t leaving it to me. I thought he might want me to sell it, give the money to charity. Old soldiers, or something.”
“OK, so you should do that instead.”
She smiled again. “Reacher, I can’t. It’s not up to me. It’s a binding instruction in his will. I’ve got to obey it.”
“His house,” he said vaguely. “He left me his house?”
“He was worried about you. For two years, he was worrying. Since they cut you loose. He knew how it could be, you spend the whole of your life in the service, and suddenly you find you’ve got nothing at the end of it. He was concerned about how you were living.”
“But he didn’t know how I was living,” he said.
She nodded again. “But he could guess, right? He was a smart old guy. He knew you’d be drifting around somewhere. He used to say, drifting around is great, maybe three or four years. But what about when he’s fifty? Sixty? Seventy? He was thinking about it.”
Reacher shrugged, flat on his back, naked, staring at the ceiling.
“I was never thinking about it. ‘One day at a time’ was my motto.”
She made no reply. Just ducked her head and kissed his chest.
“I feel like I’m stealing from you,” he said. “It’s your inheritance, Jodie. You should have it.”
She kissed him again. “It was his house. Even if I wanted it, we’d have to respect his wishes. But the fact is I don’t want it. I never did. He knew that. He was totally free to do whatever he wanted with it. And he did. He left it to you because he wanted you to have it.”
He was staring at the ceiling, but he was wandering through the house in his mind. Down the driveway, through the trees, the garage on his right, the breezeway, the low bulk of the place on his left. The den, the living room, the wide slow Hudson rolling by. The furniture. It had looked pretty comfortable. Maybe he could get a stereo. Some books. A house. His house. He tried the words in his head: my house. My-house. He barely knew how to say them. My house. He shivered.
“He wanted you to have it,” she said again. “It’s a bequest. You can’t argue against it. It’s happened. And it’s not any kind of a problem to me, I promise, OK?”
He nodded, slowly.
“OK,” he said. “OK, but weird. Really, truly weird.”
“You want coffee?” she asked.
He turned and focused on her face. He could get his own coffee machine. In his kitchen. In his house. Connected to the electricity. His electricity.
“Coffee?” she asked again.
“I guess,” he said.
She slid off the bed and found her shoes.
“Black, no sugar, right?”
She was standing there, naked except for her shoes. Patent, with heels. She saw him looking at her.
“Kitchen floor feels cold. I always wear shoes in there.”
“Forget the coffee, OK?”
THEY SLEPT IN her bed, all night, way past dawn. Reacher woke first and eased his arm out from under her and checked his watch. Almost seven. He had slept nine hours. The finest sleep of his life. The best bed. He had slept in a lot of beds. Hundreds, maybe even thousands. This was the best of all of them. Jodie was asleep beside him. She was on her front and had thrown the sheet off during the night. Her back was bare, all the way down to her waist. He could see the swell of her breast under her. Her hair spilled over her shoulders. One knee was pulled up, resting on his thigh. Her head was bent forward on the pillow, curving in, following the direction of her knee. It gave her a compact, athletic look. He kissed her neck. She s
tirred.
“Morning, Jodie,” he said.
She opened her eyes. Then she closed them, and opened them again. She smiled. A warm, morning smile.
“I was afraid I’d dreamed it,” she said. “I used to, once.”
He kissed her again. Tenderly, on the cheek. Then less tenderly, on the mouth. Her arms came around behind him and he rolled over with her. They made love again, the fourth time in fifteen years. Then they showered together, the first time ever. Then breakfast. They ate like they were starving.
“I need to go to the Bronx,” he said.
She nodded. “This Rutter guy? I’ll drive. I know roughly where it is.”
“What about work? I thought you had to go in.”
She looked at him, mystified.
“You told me you had hours to bill,” he said. “You sounded real busy.”
She smiled, shyly. “I made that up. I’m well ahead, really. They said I should take the whole week off. I just didn’t want to be hanging around with you, feeling what I was feeling. That’s why I just ran off to bed, the first night. I should have shown you the guest room, you know, like a proper little hostess. But I didn’t want to be alone in a bedroom with you. It would have driven me crazy. So near, but so far, you know what I mean?”
He nodded. “So what did you do in the office all day?”
She giggled. “Nothing. Just sat there all day, doing nothing.”
“You’re nuts,” he said. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I did tell you.”
“Eventually,” she said. “After fifteen years.”
He nodded. “I know, but I was worried about it. I thought you’d be hurt or something. I thought it would be the last thing you wanted to hear.”
“Same here,” she said. “I thought you’d hate me forever.”
They looked at each other and they smiled. Then they grinned. Then they laughed, and kept on laughing for five solid minutes.
“I’m going to get dressed,” she said, still laughing. He followed her through to the bedroom and found his clothes on the floor. She was halfway into her closet, selecting something clean. He watched her, and started wondering if Leon’s house had closets. No, if his house had them. Of course it did. All houses had closets, right? So did that mean he’d have to start assembling stuff to fill them all with?