Nothing to Lose

trouble. An unmarked squad car, like a detective would drive. She stopped close to him and buzzed the window down. He said, “Did you get promoted?”
    “It’s my watch commander’s ride. He took pity on me and loaned it out. Since you got my truck smashed up.”
    “Did you find the litterbug?”
    “No. And it’s a serial crime now. I saw the silver foil later. Technically that’s two separate offenses.”
    “Maria is back. The MPs brought her home early this morning.”
    “Is she saying anything?”
    “Not a word.” He got out of the chair and walked around the hood and slid in beside her. The car was very plain. Lots of black plastic, lots of mouse-fur upholstery of an indeterminate color. It felt like a beat-up rental. The front was full of police gear. Radios, a laptop on a bracket, a video camera on the dash, a hard-disc recorder, a red bubble light on a curly cord. But there was no security screen between the front and the rear, and therefore the seat was going to rack all the way back. It was going to be comfortable. Plenty of legroom. The water sample was on the rear seat. Vaughan was looking good. She was in old blue jeans and a white Oxford shirt, the neck open two buttons and the sleeves rolled to her elbows.
    She said, “You’ve changed.”
    “In what way?”
    “Your clothes, you idiot.”
    “New this morning,” he said. “From the hardware store.”
    “Nicer than the last lot.”
    “Don’t get attached to them. They’ll be gone soon.”
    “What’s the longest you ever wore a set of clothes?”
    “Eight months,” Reacher said. “Desert BDUs, during Gulf War One. Never took them off. We had all kinds of supply snafus. No spares, no pajamas.”
    “You were in the Gulf, the first time?”
    “Beginning to end.”
    “How was it?”
    “Hot.”
    Vaughan pulled out of the motel lot and headed north to First Street. Turned left, east, toward Kansas. Reacher said, “We’re taking the long way around?”
    “I think it would be better.”
    Reacher said, “Me too.”

    It was an obvious cop car and the roads were empty and Vaughan averaged ninety most of the way, charging head-on toward the mountains. Reacher knew Colorado Springs a little. Fort Carson was there, which was a major army presence, but it was really more of an Air Force town. Aside from that, it was a pleasant place. Scenery was pretty, the air was clean, it was often sunny, the view of Pikes Peak was usually spectacular. The downtown area was neat and compact. The state lab was in a stone government building. It was a satellite operation, an offshoot of the main facility in Denver, the capital. Water was a big deal all over Colorado. There wasn’t much of it. Vaughan handed over her bottle and filled out a form and a guy wrapped the form around the bottle and secured it with a rubber band. Then he carried it away, ceremoniously, like that particular quart had the power to save the world, or destroy it. He came back and told Vaughan that she would be notified of the results by phone, and to please let the lab know some figures for Despair’s total TCE consumption. He explained that the state used a rough rule-of-thumb formula, whereby a certain percentage of evaporation could be assumed, and a further percentage of absorption by the ground could be relied upon, so that what really mattered was how much was running off and how deep an aquifer was. The state knew the depth of Halfway County’s aquifer to the inch, so the only variable would be the exact amount of TCE heading down toward it.
    “What are the symptoms?” Vaughan asked. “If it’s there already?”
    The lab guy glanced at Reacher.
    “Prostate cancer,” he said. “That’s the early warning. Men go first.”

    They got back in the car. Vaughan was distracted. A little vague. Reacher didn’t know what was on her mind. She was a cop and a conscientious member of her community, but clearly she was worrying about more than a distant chemical threat to her water table. He wasn’t sure why she had asked him to travel with her. They hadn’t spoken much. He wasn’t sure that his company was doing her any good at all.
    She pulled out off the curb and drove a hundred yards on a tree-lined street and stopped at a light at a T-junction. Left was west and right was east. The light turned green and she didn’t move. She just sat there, gripping the wheel, looking left, looking right, as if she couldn’t choose. A guy honked behind her. She glanced in the