Echo Burning

You’ve killed people before. In the army. You told me that.”
    “This is different.”
    “How?”
    “This would be murder. Cold-blooded murder. It would be an assassination.”
    “No, it would be just the same. Just like the army.”
    He shook his head. “Carmen, it wouldn’t be the same.”
    “Don’t you take an oath or something? To protect people?”
    “It’s not the same,” he said again.
    She passed an eighteen-wheeler bound for the coast, and the Cadillac rocked and shimmied through the superheated turbulent air.
    “Slow down,” he said.
    She shook her head. “I can’t slow down. I want to see Ellie.”
    He touched the dashboard in front of him, steadying himself. The freezing air from the vents blasted against his chest.
    “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to crash. Ellie needs me. If it wasn’t for Ellie, I’d have crashed a long time ago, believe me.”
    But she eased off a little, anyway. The big rig crept back alongside.
    “I know this is a difficult conversation,” she said.
    “You think?”
    “But you have to look at it from my point of view. Please, Reacher. I’ve been through it a million times. I’ve thought it through. I’ve been from A to B to C to D, all the way to Z. Then again, and again. And again. I’ve examined all the options. So this is all logical to me. And this is the only way. I know that. But it’s hard to talk about, because it’s new to you. You haven’t thought about it before. It comes out of the blue. So I sound crazy and cold-blooded to you. I know that. I appreciate that. But I’m not crazy or cold-blooded. It’s just that I’ve had the time to reach the conclusion, and you haven’t. And this is the only conclusion, I promise you.”
    “Whatever, I’m not killing a guy I never saw before.”
    “He hits me, Reacher,” she said. “He beats me, badly. Punches me, kicks me, hurts me. He enjoys it. He laughs while he does it. I live in fear, all the time.”
    “So go to the cops.”
    “The cop. There’s only one. And he wouldn’t believe me. And even if he did, he wouldn’t do anything about it. They’re all big buddies. You don’t know how it is here.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “He’s coming home,” she said. “Can you imagine what he’s going to do to me?”
    He said nothing.
    “I’m trapped, Reacher. I’m boxed in, because of Ellie. Do you see that?”
    He said nothing.
    “Why won’t you help me? Is it the money? Is it because I can’t pay you?”
    He said nothing.
    “I’m desperate,” she said. “You’re my only chance. I’m begging you. Why won’t you do it? Is it because I’m Mexican?”
    He said nothing.
    “It’s because I’m just a greaseball, right? A beaner? You’d do it for a white woman? Like your girlfriend? I bet she’s a white woman. Probably a blonde, right?”
    “Yes, she’s a blonde,” he said.
    “Some guy was beating up on her, you’d kill him.”
    Yes, I would, he thought.
    “And she ran off to Europe without you. Didn’t want you to go with her. But you’d do it for her, and you won’t do it for me.”
    “It’s not the same,” he said for the third time.
    “I know,” she said. “Because I’m just beaner trash. I’m not worth it.”
    He said nothing.
    “What’s her name?” she asked. “Your girlfriend?”
    “Jodie,” he said.
    “O.K., imagine Jodie over there in Europe. She’s trapped in some bad situation, getting beat up every day by some maniac sadist. She tells you all about it. Bares her soul. Every horrible humiliating detail. What are you going to do?”
    Kill him, he thought.
    She nodded like she could read his mind. “But you won’t do that for me. You’d do it for the gringa, but not for me.”
    He paused a beat with his mouth halfway open. It was true. He would do it for Jodie Garber, but he wouldn’t do it for Carmen Greer. Why not? Because it comes in a rush. You can’t force it. It’s a hot-blooded thing, like a drug in your veins, and you go with it. If it’s not there, you can’t go with it. Simple as that. He’d gone with it before in his life, many times. People mess with him, they get what they get. They mess with Jodie, that’s the same thing as messing with him. Because Jodie was him. Or at least she used to be. In a way that Carmen wasn’t. And never would be. So it just wasn’t there .
    “It’s not about gringas or latinas,” he said quietly.
    She said nothing.
    “Please, Carmen,” he said. “You need to understand