Echo Burning

whore wife dared to claim a thing like that, they’d lock her up, probably in a rubber room.”
    The day her life changed forever.
    “So what did he do?”
    “He evaded federal taxes,” she said. “He made a lot of money trading oil leases and selling drilling equipment down in Mexico. He neglected to tell the IRS about it. In fact, he neglected to tell the IRS about anything. One day they caught him.”
    “They put you in jail for that?”
    She made a face. “Actually, they try hard not to. A first-time thing like that, they were willing to let him pay, you know, make proposals and so forth. A clean breast and a pay-back plan is what they’re looking for. But Sloop was way too stubborn for that. He made them dig everything out for themselves. He was hiding things right up to the trial. He refused to pay anything. He even disputed that he owed them anything, which was ridiculous. And all the money was hidden behind family trusts, so they couldn’t just take it. It made them mad, I think.”
    “So they prosecuted?”
    She nodded at the wheel.
    “With a vengeance,” she said. “A federal case. You know that expression? Making a federal case out of something? Now I see why people say that. Biggest fuss you ever saw. A real contest, the local good old boys against the Treasury Department. Sloop’s lawyer is his best friend from high school, and his other best friend from high school is the DA in Pecos County, and he was advising them on strategy and stuff like that, but the IRS just rolled right over all of them. It was a massacre. He got three-to-five years. The judge set the minimum at thirty months in jail. And cut me a break.”
    Reacher said nothing. She accelerated past a truck, the first vehicle they had seen in more than twenty miles.
    “I was so happy,” she said. “I’ll never forget it. A white-collar thing like that, after the verdict came in they just told him to present himself at the federal prison the next morning. They didn’t drag him away in handcuffs or anything. He came home and packed a little suitcase. We had a big family meal, stayed up kind of late. Went upstairs, and that was the last time he hit me. Next morning, his friends drove him up to the jail, someplace near Abilene. A Club Fed is what they call it. Minimum security. It’s supposed to be comfortable. I heard you can play tennis there.”
    “Do you visit him?”
    She shook her head.
    “I pretend he’s dead,” she said.
    She went quiet, and the car sped on toward the haze on thehorizon. There were mountains visible to the southwest, unimaginably distant.
    “The Trans-Pecos,” she said. “Watch for the light to change color. It’s very beautiful.”
    He looked ahead, but the light was so bright it had no color at all.
    “Minimum thirty months is two and a half years,” she said. “I thought it safest to bet on the minimum. He’s probably behaving himself in there.”
    Reacher nodded. “Probably.”
    “So, two and a half years,” she said. “I wasted the first one and a half.”
    “You’ve still got twelve months. That’s plenty of time for anything.”
    She was quiet again.
    “Talk me through it,” she said. “We have to agree on what needs to be done. That’s important. That way, you’re seeing it exactly the same way I am.”
    He said nothing.
    “Help me,” she said. “Please. Just theoretically for now, if you want.”
    He shrugged. Then he thought about it, from her point of view. From his, it was too easy. Disappearing and living invisibly was second nature to him.
    “You need to get away,” he said. “An abusive marriage, that’s all a person can do, I guess. So, a place to live, and an income. That’s what you need.”
    “Doesn’t sound much, when you say it.”
    “Any big city,” he said. “They have shelters. All kinds of organizations.”
    “What about Ellie?”
    “The shelters have baby-sitters,” he said. “They’ll look after her while you’re working. There are lots of kids in those places. She’d have friends. And after a little while you could get a place of your own.”
    “What job could I get?”
    “Anything,” he said. “You can read and write. You went to college.”
    “How do I get there?”
    “On a plane, on a train, in a bus. Two one-way tickets.”
    “I don’t have any money.”
    “None at all?”
    She shook her head. “What little I had ran out a week ago.”
    He looked away.
    “What?” she said.
    “You dress pretty sharp for a person with