Echo Burning

"I asked her, was it me?" Alice said. "Did she want somebody different? Older? A man? A Hispanic person?"

"What did she say?"

"She said she didn’t want anybody at all."

"That’s crazy."

"Yes, it is," Alice said. "I described her predicament. You know, in case she wasn’t seeing it clearly. It made no difference."

"Tell me everything she said."

"I already have."

Reacher was uncomfortable in the towel. It was too small.

"Let me put my pants on," he said.

He scooped them off the chair and ducked into the bathroom. The pants were wet and clammy. He pulled them on and zipped them up. Came back out. Alice had taken her jacket off and laid it on the chair, next to his wet shirt. She was sitting on the bed with her elbows on her knees.

"I tried everything," she said again. "I said, show me your arm. She said, what for? I said, I want to see how good your veins are. Because that’s where the lethal injection will go. I told her she’d be strapped down on the gurney, I described the drugs she’d get. I told her about the people behind the glass, there to watch her die."

"And?"

"It made no difference at all. Like talking to the wall."

"How hard did you push?"

"I shouted a little. But she waited me out and just repeated herself. She’s refusing representation, Reacher. We better face it."

"Is that kosher?"

"Of course it is. No law says you have to have counsel. Just that you have to be offered counsel."

"Isn’t it evidence of insanity or something?"

She shook her head.

"Not in itself," she said. "Otherwise every murderer would just refuse to have a lawyer and automatically get off with an incapacity defense."

"She’s not a murderer."

"She doesn’t seem very anxious to prove it."

"Did anybody hear her?"

"Not yet. But I’m worried. Logically her next move is to put it in writing. Then I can’t even get in the door. Nor can anybody else."

"So what do we do?"

"We have to finesse her. That’s all we can do. We just have to ignore her completely and keep on dealing with Walker behind her back. On her behalf. If we can get him to drop the 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."

"She any good?"

"As a partner?"

"As a soccer player."

"She’s pretty good. Does it bother you?"

"That she’s pretty good at soccer?"

"No, that I’m gay."

"Why would it?"

Alice shrugged. "It bothers some people."

"Not this one."

"I’m Jewish, too."

Reacher smiled. "Did your folks buy you the handgun?"

She glanced at him. "You found that?"

"Sure," he said. "Nice piece."

She nodded. "A gay Jewish vegetarian woman from New York, they figured I should have it."

Reacher smiled again. "I’m surprised they didn’t get you a machine gun or a grenade launcher."

She smiled back. "I’m sure they thought about it."

"You obviously take your atoning seriously. You must feel like I did walking around in the Lebanon."

She laughed. "Actually, it’s not so bad here. Texas is a pretty nice place, overall. Some great people, really."

"What does Judith do?"

"She’s a lawyer, too. She’s in Mississippi right now."

"Same reasons?"

Alice nodded. "A five-year plan."

"There’s hope for the legal profession yet."

"So it doesn’t bother you?" she said. "That it’s just a meal with a new friend and then back to the motel on your own?"

"I never thought it would be anything else," he lied.

The meal was excellent. It had to be, because he wasn’t hungry. It was some kind of a homemade dark chewy confection made out of crushed nuts bound together with cheese and onions. Probably full of protein. Maybe some vitamins, too. They drank a little wine and a lot of water with it. He helped her clear up and then they talked until eleven.

"I’ll drive you back," she said.

But she was barefoot and comfortable, so he shook his head.

"I’ll walk," he said. "Couple of miles will do me good."

"It’s still hot," she said.

"Don’t worry. I’ll be O.K."

She didn’t put up much of a protest. He arranged to meet her at the mission in the morning and said goodnight. The outside air was as thick as soup. The walk took forty minutes and his shirt was soaked again when he got back to the motel.

* * *

He woke early in the morning and rinsed his clothes and put them on wet. They were dry by the time he reached the law offices. The humidity had gone and the hot desert air sucked the moisture right out of them and left them as stiff as new canvas. The sky was blue and completely empty.