Tripwire

"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 stirred.

"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?"