Echo Burning

much do you want for it?”
    “Whatever it’s worth,” Alice said.
    “I could give you twenty,” the guy said.
    “Twenty what?”
    “Thousand dollars,” the guy said.
    “Twenty thousand dollars?”
    The guy put up his hands, palms out, defensively.
    “I know, I know,” he said. “Someone probably told you it’s worth more. And maybe it is, retail, some big fancy store, Dallas or somewhere. But this is Pecos, and you’re selling, not buying. And I have to make my profit.”
    “I’ll think about it,” Alice said.
    “Twenty-five?” the guy said.
    “Twenty- five thousand dollars?”
    The guy nodded. “That’s about as high as I can go, being fair to myself. I got to eat, after all.”
    “Let me think about it,” Alice said.
    “Well, don’t think too long,” the guy said. “The market might change. And I’m the only game in town. Piece like this, it’ll scare anybody else.”

    They stopped together on the sidewalk right outside the store. Alice was holding the ring like it was red hot. Then she opened her pocketbook and put it in a zippered compartment. Used her fingertips to push it all the way down.
    “Guy like that says twenty-five, it’s got to be worth sixty,” Reacher said. “Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. My guess is he’s not the Better Business Bureau’s poster boy.”
    “A lot more than thirty dollars, anyway,” Alice said. “A fake? Cubic zirconium? She’s playing us for fools.”
    He nodded, vaguely. He knew she meant playing you for a fool . He knew she was too polite to say it.
    “Let’s go,” he said.
    They walked west through the heat, back to the cheap part of town, beyond the courthouse, next to the railroad tracks. It was about a mile, and they spent thirty minutes on it. It was too hot to hurry. He didn’t speak the whole way. Just fought his usual interior battle about exactly when to give up on a lost cause.
    He stopped her again at the door to the mission.
    “I want to try one last thing,” he said.
    “Why?” she asked.
    “Because I’m from the army,” he said. “First we double-check, then we triple-check.”
    She sighed. A little impatience there. “What do you want to do?”
    “You need to drive me.”
    “Where?”
    “There’s an eyewitness we can talk to.”
    “An eyewitness? Where?”
    “In school, down in Echo.”
    “The kid?”
    He nodded. “Ellie. She’s sharp as a tack.”
    “She’s six years old.”
    “If it was happening, I’ll bet she knows.”
    Alice stood completely still for a second. Then she glanced in through the windows. The place was crowded with customers. They looked listless from the heat and beaten down by life.
    “It’s not fair to them,” she said. “I need to move on.”
    “Just this one last thing.”
    “I’ll lend you the car again. You can go alone.”
    He shook his head. “I need your opinion. You’re the lawyer. And I won’t get in the schoolhouse without you. You’ve got status. I haven’t.”
    “I can’t do it. It’ll take all day.”
    “How long would it have taken to get the money from the rancher? How many billable hours?”
    “We don’t bill.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    She was quiet for a moment.
    “O.K.,” she said. “A deal’s a deal, I guess.”
    “This is the last thing, I promise.”

    “Why, exactly?” she asked.
    They were in the yellow VW, heading south on the empty road out of Pecos. He recognized none of the landmarks. It had been dark when he came the other way in the back of the police cruiser.
    “Because I was an investigator,” he said.
    “O.K.,” she said. “Investigators investigate. That, I can follow. But don’t they stop investigating? I mean, ever? When they know already?”
    “Investigators never know,” he said. “They feel, and they guess.”
    “I thought they dealt in facts.”
    “Not really,” he said. “I mean, eventually they do, I suppose. But ninety-nine percent of the time it’s ninety-nine percent about what you feel . About people. A good investigator is a person with a feel for people.”
    “Feeling doesn’t change black into white.”
    He nodded. “No, it doesn’t.”
    “Weren’t you ever wrong before?”
    “Of course I was. Lots of times.”
    “But?”
    “But I don’t think I’m wrong now.”
    “So why, exactly?” she asked again.
    “Because I know things about people, Alice.”
    “So do I,” she said. “Like, I know Carmen Greer suckered you, too.”
    He said nothing more. Just watched her drive, and