Running Blind (The Visitor)

weren’t best buddies, but they got along OK. There were no family issues. No unfairness about the inheritance, for instance. It was going to be equal. No jealousy there. And she couldn’t fly, so how could it be her?”
    “But?”
    “But then the dam broke. Something Alison said. I remembered it much later. She said her father was dying but sisters take care of each other, right? I thought she was talking about emotional support or something. But then I thought what if she meant it another way? Like some people use the phrase? Like you did, when we had coffee in New York and the check came and you said you’d take care of it? Meaning you’d pay for me, you’d treat me? I thought what if Alison meant that she’d take care of Julia financially? Share with her? Like she knew the inheritance was all coming her way and Julia was getting nothing and was all uptight about it? But Julia had told me everything was equal, and she was already rich, anyway, because the old man was generous and fair. So I suddenly asked myself what if she’s lying about that? What if the old guy wasn’t generous and fair? What if she’s not rich?”
    “She was lying about that?”
    Reacher nodded. “Had to be. Suddenly it made a lot of sense. I realized she doesn’t look rich. She dresses very cheap. She has cheap luggage.”
    “You based it on her luggage ?”
    He shrugged. “I told you it was a house of cards. But in my experience if somebody’s got money outside of their salary, it shows up somewhere. It might be subtle and tasteful, but it’s there. And with Julia Lamarr, it wasn’t there. So she was poor. So she was lying. And Jodie told me her firm has this so what else thing. If they find a guy lying about something, they ask themselves so what else ? What else is he lying about? So I thought what if she’s lying about the relationship with her sister too? What if she still hates her and resents her, like when she was a little kid? And what if she’s lying about the equal inheritance? What if there’s no inheritance for her at all?”
    “Did you check it out?”
    “How could I? But check it out yourself and you’ll see. It’s the only thing that fits. So then I thought what the hell else? What if everything is a lie? What if she’s lying about not flying? What if that’s a big beautiful lie too, just sitting there, so big and obvious nobody thinks twice about it? I even asked you how she gets away with it. You said everybody just works around it, like a law of nature. Well, we all did. We just worked around it. Like she intended. Because it made it absolutely impossible it was her. But it was a lie. It had to be. Fear of flying is way too irrational for her.”
    “But it’s an impossible lie to tell. I mean, either a person flies, or she doesn’t.”
    “She used to, years ago,” Reacher said. “She told me that. Then presumably she grew to hate it, so she stopped. So it was convincing. Nobody who knows her now ever saw her fly. So everybody believed her. But when it came to it, she could put herself on a plane. If it was worth it to her. And this was worth it to her. Biggest motive you ever saw. Alison was going to get everything, and she wanted it for herself. She was Cinderella, all burning up with jealousy and resentment and hatred.”
    “Well, she fooled me,” Harper said. “That’s for sure.”
    Reacher stroked Scimeca’s hair.
    “She fooled everybody,” he said. “That’s why she did the far corners first. To make everybody think about the geography, the range, the reach, the distance. To move herself right outside the picture, subconsciously. ”
    Harper was quiet for a beat. “But she was so upset. She cried , remember? In front of us all?”
    Reacher shook his head. “She wasn’t upset. She was frightened. It was her time of maximum danger. Remember just before that? She refused to take her rest period. Because she knew she needed to be around, to control any fallout from the postmortem. And then I started questioning the motive, and she got tense as hell because I might be heading in the right direction. But then I said it was weapons theft in the Army, and she cried, but not because she was upset. She cried with relief , because she was still safe. I hadn’t smoked her out. And you remember what she did next?”
    Harper nodded. “She started backing you up on the weapons theft thing.”
    “Exactly,” Reacher said. “She started making my case for me. Putting words in my mouth.