Nothing to Lose

being so long-suffering.”
    “Stoics have to be long-suffering. Stoicism is about the unquestioning acceptance of destinies. Zeno said so.”
    “Your destiny is to return to Hope. Doesn’t matter to Zeno whether you walk or ride.”
    “What are you anyway—a philosopher or a cop or a cab driver?”
    “The Despair PD calls us when they’re dumping someone at the line. As a courtesy.”
    “This happens a lot?”
    “More than you’d think.”
    “And you come on out and pick us up?”
    “We’re here to serve. Says so on the badge.”
    Reacher looked down at the shield on her door. HPD was written across the scroll in the center, but To Protect was written at the top of the escutcheon, with And Serve added at the bottom.
    “I see,” he said.
    “So get in.”
    “Why do they do it?”
    “Get in and I’ll tell you.”
    “You going to refuse to let me walk?”
    “It’s five miles. You’re grumpy now, you’ll be real cranky when you arrive in town. Believe me. We’ve seen it before. Better for all of us if you ride.”
    “I’m different. Walking calms me down.”
    The woman said, “I’m not going to beg, Reacher.”
    “You know my name?”
    “Despair PD passed it on. As a courtesy.”
    “And a warning?”
    “Maybe. Right now I’m trying to decide whether to take them seriously.”
    Reacher shrugged again and put his hand on the rear door handle.
    “Up front, you idiot,” the woman said. “I’m helping you, not arresting you.”
    So Reacher looped around the trunk and opened the front passenger door. The seat was all hemmed in with radio consoles and a laptop terminal on a bracket, but the space was clear. No hat. He crammed himself in. Not much legroom, because of the security screen behind him. Up front the car smelled of oil and coffee and perfume and warm electronics. The laptop screen showed a GPS map. A small arrow was pointing west and blinking away at the far edge of a pink shape labeled Hope Township. The shape was precisely rectangular, almost square. A fast and arbitrary land allocation, like the state of Colorado itself. Next to it Despair township was represented by a light purple shape. Despair was not rectangular. It was shaped like a blunt wedge. Its eastern border matched Hope’s western limit exactly, then it spread wider, like a triangle with the point cut off. Its western line was twice as long as its eastern and bordered gray emptiness. Unincorporated land, Reacher figured. Spurs came off I-70 and I-25 and ran through the unincorporated land and clipped Despair’s northwestern corner.
    The woman cop buzzed her window back up and craned her neck and glanced behind her and K-turned across the road. She was slightly built under a crisp tan shirt. Probably less than five feet six, probably less than a hundred and twenty pounds, probably less than thirty-five years old. No jewelry, no wedding band. She had a Motorola radio on her collar and a tall gold badge bar pinned over her left breast. According to the badge her name was Vaughan. And according to the badge she was a pretty good cop. She seemed to have won a bunch of awards and commendations. She was good-looking, but different from regular women. She had seen stuff they hadn’t. Reacher was familiar with the concept. He had served with plenty of women, back in the MPs.
    He asked, “Why did Despair run me out?”
    The woman called Vaughan turned out the dome light. Now she was front-lit by red instrument lights from the dash and the pink and purple glow from the GPS screen and white scatter from the headlight beams on the road.
    “Look at yourself,” she said.
    “What about me?”
    “What do you see?”
    “Just a guy.”
    “A blue-collar guy in work clothes, fit, strong, healthy, and hungry.”
    “So?”
    “How far did you get?”
    “I saw the gas station and the restaurant. And the town court.”
    “Then you didn’t see the full picture,” Vaughan said. She drove slow, about thirty miles an hour, as if she had plenty more to say. She had one hand on the wheel, with her elbow propped on the door. Her other hand lay easy in her lap. Five miles at thirty miles an hour was going to take ten minutes. Reacher wondered what she had to tell him, that less than ten minutes wouldn’t cover.
    He said, “I’m more green-collar than blue.”
    “Green?”
    “I was in the army. Military cop.”
    “When?”
    “Ten years ago.”
    “You working now?”
    “No.”
    “Well, then.”
    “Well what?”
    “You were