61 Hours

many.’
    ‘What are the others?’
    ‘Never forgive, never forget. Do it once and do it right. You reap what you sow. Plans go to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. Protect and serve. Never off duty.’
    ‘You’re as hard on yourself as you are on others.’
    ‘Cruel but fair.’
    ‘I can’t stand this kind of tension much longer.’
    ‘I hope you won’t have to.’
    ‘For the first time in my life I’m afraid. It’s a very elemental thing, isn’t it?’
    ‘It’s a choice,’ Reacher said. ‘That’s all.’
    ‘Surely everyone’s afraid of death.’
    ‘That was another motto. I’m not afraid of death. Death’s afraid of me.’
    ‘You sound like you were trying to convince yourself.’
    ‘We were. All the time. Believe me.’
    ‘So you are afraid of death.’
    ‘We all have to go sometime. Depends what form it takes, I guess.’
    Janet Salter went quiet for a moment. Then she said, ‘I met my successor at Yale two years ago. At a library conference. It was an interesting experience. I imagine you feel the same way, talking to the woman in Virginia.’
    ‘She isn’t my successor. Not directly. There could have been six or seven other people in between me and her. Maybe more. It’s a distant connection. Almost archaeological.’
    ‘Is she better than you?’
    ‘Probably.’
    ‘That’s how I felt, too. At first I was depressed about it. Then I realized actually I should feel encouraged about it. Progress is being maintained. The world is still moving forward.’
    ‘How long have you been retired?’
    ‘A little more than ten years.’
    ‘So you got back here before the prison was built.’
    ‘Years before. It was a different town then. But not too different, I suppose. The real change is still to come. We’re still in a transitional phase. The real change will come when we get used to it. At the moment we’re a town with a prison in it. Soon we’ll be a prison town.’
    ‘So what was it like?’
    ‘Gentle,’ Janet Salter said. ‘Quiet. Half the size. No fast food, only one motel. Chief Holland was a young man with a family. Like Andrew Peterson is now. I don’t know why, but that symbolizes the change for me. Everything felt cheerful and young and lighthearted. Not old and tired and bitter, like it is now.’
    ‘What happened to Holland’s wife?’
    ‘Cancer. But mercifully quick. Their daughter Liz was fifteen at the time. Which could have been awkward, but she seemed to handle it quite well. She was named for her mother. Her mother went by Betty, and she went by Liz. They were very similar in every way. Which could have been awkward for the chief, too,but he got past it. He was already involved in the early stages of planning the prison by then, which took his mind off it.’
    ‘And what was the Lowell divorce all about?’
    ‘I told you, I don’t know. But the fact that no one speaks of it invites speculation, doesn’t it?’
    ‘His fault or hers?
    ‘Oh, his, I think.’
    ‘Peterson said he has a sister who looks just like him.’
    ‘In a way. Much younger than him. More like a niece.’
    ‘Are you going to stay here, even when it’s a prison town?’
    ‘Me? I’m far too old to start over somewhere else. What about you?’
    ‘I couldn’t stay here. It’s too cold.’
    ‘Eventually you’ll want to stay somewhere.’
    ‘Hasn’t happened so far.’
    ‘See how you feel thirty years from now.’
    ‘That’s a far horizon.’
    ‘It will come faster than you expect.’
    Reacher put his empty mug on a low table. He wasn’t sure whether to stay in the room or to leave her alone to read. He wasn’t sure which she would prefer.
    ‘Sit,’ she said. ‘I’ll have plenty of time to read after all this fuss is over.’
    He sat.
    She asked, ‘Are you warm enough?’
    He said, ‘I’m fine.’ Which he was. The ancient radiator under the window was putting out plenty of heat. The hot water in the pipes was coursing around the house relentlessly. He could hear it. He could hear the occluded right-angle joint at the top of the stairs, hissing a little louder than the others. He pictured the burner in the basement, roaring, and the pump, running hard. Unlimited heat, available around the clock. Much better than the arrangement in Andrew Peterson’s farmhouse. The old iron wood stove, banked and cooling all night, barely warm by morning.
    He stared into space for a second.
    He said, ‘Stupid.’
    Janet Salter asked him, ‘Who or