Running Blind (The Visitor)

treat us like shit.”
    The engines wound up to a scream and the plane rolled backward from the gate. Swung its nose around and lumbered toward the runway.
    “So what about the marks on her face?” Harper asked.
    “I think it proves my point,” Reacher said. “I think it’s the single most valuable piece of evidence we’ve gotten so far.”
    “Why?”
    He shrugged. “It was so halfhearted, wasn’t it? So tentative? I think it proves the guy is hiding behind appearances. It proves he’s pretending. Like there’s me, looking at the cases, and I’m thinking where’s the violence? Where’s the anger? And simultaneously somewhere the guy is reviewing his progress, and he’s thinking oh my God, I’m not showing any anger , and so on the next one he tries to show some, but he’s not really feeling any, so it comes across as really nothing much at all.”
    Harper nodded. “Not even enough to make her flinch, according to Stavely.”
    “Bloodless,” Reacher said. “Almost literally. Like a technical exercise, which it was, because this whole thing is a technical exercise, some cast-iron down-to-earth motive hiding behind a psycho masquerade.”
    “He made her do it to herself.”
    “I think so.”
    “But why would he?”
    “Worried about fingerprints? About revealing if he’s left-handed or right-handed? Demonstrating his control? ”
    “It’s a lot of control, don’t you think? But it explains why it was so halfhearted. She wouldn’t really hurt herself.”
    “I guess not,” he said, sleepily.
    “Why Alison, though? Why did he wait until number four?”
    “Ceaseless quest for perfection, I suppose. A guy like this, he’s thinking and refining all the time.”
    “Does it make her special in some way? Significant? ”
    Reacher shrugged. “That’s pointy-head stuff. If they thought so, I’m sure they’d have said.”
    “Maybe he knew her better than the others. Worked with her more closely.”
    “Maybe. But don’t stray into their territory. Keep your feet on the ground. You’re plain-vanilla, remember? ”
    Harper nodded. “And the plain-vanilla motive is money.”
    “Has to be,” Reacher said. “Always love or money. And it can’t be love, because love makes you crazy, and this guy isn’t crazy.”
    The plane turned and stopped hard against its brakes at the head of the runway. Paused for a second and jumped forward and accelerated. Unstuck itself and lifted heavily into the air. The lights of D.C. spun past the window.
    “Why did he change the interval?” Harper asked over the noise of the climb.
    Reacher shrugged. “Maybe he just wanted to.”
    “Wanted to?”
    “Maybe he just did it for fun. Nothing more disruptive for you guys than a pattern that changes.”
    “Will it change again?”
    The plane rocked and tilted and leveled, and the engine noise fell away to a cruise.
    “It’s over,” Reacher said. “The women are guarded, and you’ll be making the arrest pretty soon.”
    “You’re that confident?”
    Reacher shrugged again. “No point going in expecting to lose.”
    He yawned and jammed his head between the seatback and the plastic bulkhead. Closed his eyes.
    “Wake me when we get there,” he said.
    BUT THE THUMP and whine of the wheels coming down woke him, three thousand feet above and three miles east of La Guardia in New York. He looked at his watch and saw he’d slept fifty minutes. His mouth tasted tired.
    “You want to get some dinner?” Harper asked him.
    He blinked and checked his watch again. He had at least an hour to kill before Jodie’s earliest possible ETA. Probably two hours. Maybe three.
    “You got somewhere in mind?” he asked back.
    “I don’t know New York too well,” she said. “I’m an Aspen girl.”
    “I know a good Italian,” he said.
    “They put me in a hotel on Park and Thirty-sixth,” she said. “I assume you’re staying at Jodie’s.”
    He nodded. “I assume I am, too.”
    “So is the restaurant near Park and Thirty-sixth?”
    He shook his head. “Cab ride. This is a big town.”
    She shook her head in turn. “No cabs. They’ll send a car. Ours for the duration.”
    The driver was waiting at the gate. Same guy who had driven them before. His car was parked in the tow lane outside Arrivals, with a large card with the Bureau shield printed on it propped behind the windshield. Congestion was bad, all the way into Manhattan. It was the second half of rush hour. But the guy drove like he had nothing to fear