Echo Burning

teeth.
    The second report concerned two cracked ribs. It was dated in the spring, fifteen months after childbirth. There was an X-ray film attached. It showed the whole left side of her upper torso. The ribs were bright white. Two of them had tiny gray cracks. Her left breast was a neat dark shape. The attending physician had noted that the patient reported being thrown from a horse and landing hard against the top rail of a section of ranch fencing. As was usual with rib injuries, there was nothing much to be done except bind them tight and recommend plenty of physical rest.
    “What do you think?” Alice asked.
    “Could be something,” Reacher said.
    The third report was dated six months later, at the end of the summer. It concerned severe bruising to Carmen’s lower right leg. The same physician noted she reported falling from a horse while jumping and landing with her shin against the pole that constituted the obstacle the horse was attempting. There was a long technical description of the contusion, with measurements vertically and laterally. The affected area was a tilted oval, four inches wide and five long. X rays had been taken. The bone was not fractured. Painkillers had been prescribed and the first day’s supply provided from the emergency room pharmacy.
    The fourth report was dated two and a half years later, which was maybe nine months before Sloop went to prison. It showed a broken collarbone on the right side. All the names in the file were new. It seemed like the whole ER staff had turned over. There was a new name for the attending physician, and she made no comment about Carmen’s claim to have fallen offher horse onto the rocks of the mesa. There were extensive detailed notes about the injury. They were very thorough. There was an X-ray film. It showed the curve of her neck and her shoulder. The collarbone was cleanly snapped in the middle.
    Alice squared all four reports together, upside down on the desk.
    “Well?” she said.
    Reacher made no reply. Just shook his head.
    “Well?” she said again.
    “Maybe she sometimes went to another hospital,” he said.
    “No, we’d have picked it up. I told you, we ask at all of them. Matter of routine.”
    “Maybe they drove out of state.”
    “We checked,” she said. “Domestic violence, we cover all neighboring states. I told you that, too. Routine guidelines.”
    “Maybe she used another name.”
    “They’re logged by Social Security number.”
    He nodded. “This isn’t enough, Alice. She told me about more than this. We’ve got the ribs and we’ve got the collarbone, but she claimed he broke her arm, too. Also her jaw. She said she’d had three teeth reimplanted.”
    Alice said nothing. He closed his eyes. Tried to think about it like he would have in the old days, an experienced investigator with a suspicious mind and thirteen years of hard time behind him.
    “Two possibilities,” he said. “One, the hospital records system screwed up.”
    Alice shook her head. “Very unlikely.”
    He nodded again. “Agreed. So two, she was lying.”
    Alice was quiet for a long moment.
    “Exaggerating, maybe,” she said. “You know, to lock you in. To make sure of your help.”
    He nodded again, vaguely. Checked his watch. It was twenty past nine. He leaned sideways and slipped the stacked reports back into the FedEx packet.
    “Let’s go see what Hack thinks,” he said.

    Two thirds of the killing crew rolled south out of Pecos, uncharacteristically quiet. The third member waited in the motelroom, pensive. They were taking risks now. Twelve years in the business, and they had never worked one area so long. It had always seemed too dangerous. In and out, quick and clean, had been their preferred method. Now they were departing from it. Radically. So there had been no conversation that morning. No jokes, no banter. No pre-mission excitement. Just a lot of nervous preoccupation with private thoughts.
    But they had readied the car on schedule, and assembled the things they would need. Then they had half-eaten breakfast, and sat quiet, checking their watches.
    “Nine-twenty,” the woman said eventually. “It’s time.”

    There was a visitor already seated in Walker’s office. He was a man of maybe seventy, overweight and florid, and he was suffering badly in the heat. The air conditioners were going so hard that the rush of air was audible over the drone of the motors and papers were lifting off the desk. But the indoor temperature