Running Blind (The Visitor)

mean?”
    “Why isn’t Poulton looking after me? He doesn’t seem to have much else to do.”
    “I don’t follow.”
    “Yes you do. That’s why Blake assigned you , right? So you could get real close to me? All this vulnerable little-girl-lost stuff? I don’t know why? So maybe if Blake wants to stop banging on about Petrosian, he’s got something else to twist my arm with, like a nice intimate little scene, you and me in my room, on a nice little videocassette he can say he’ll send to Jodie.”
    She blushed. “I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”
    “But he asked you to, right?”
    She was quiet for a long time. Reacher looked away and drained his coffee, staring at his own reflection in the glass.
    “He practically challenged me to try,” he said. “Told me you’re the bitch from hell, if anybody puts the moves on.”
    She was still silent.
    “But I wouldn’t fall for it, anyway,” he said. “Because I’m not stupid. I’m not about to give them any more ammunition.”
    She was quiet another minute. Then she looked at him and smiled.
    “So can we relax?” she said. “Get past it?”
    He nodded. “Sure, let’s relax. Let’s get past it. You can put your jacket back on now. You can stop showing me your breasts.”
    She blushed again. “I took it off because I was warm. No other reason.”
    “OK, I’m not complaining.”
    He turned away again and watched the dark through the window.
    “You want dessert?” she asked.
    He turned back and nodded. “And more coffee.”
    “You stay here. I’ll get it.”
    She walked back to the serving counter. The room seemed to fall silent. Every eye was on her. She came back with a tray bearing two ice cream sundaes and two cups of coffee. A hundred people watched her all the way.
    “I apologize,” Reacher said.
    She bent and slid the tray onto the table. “For what?”
    He shrugged. “For looking at you the way I’ve been looking at you, I guess. You must be sick of it. Everybody looking at you all the time.”
    She smiled. “Look at me as much as you like, and I’ll look at you right back, because you aren’t the ugliest thing I ever saw either. But that’s as far as it’s going to go, OK?”
    He smiled back. “Deal.”
    The ice cream was excellent. It had hot fudge sauce all over it. The coffee was strong. If he narrowed his eyes and cut out the rest of the room, he could rate this place about as highly as he had rated Mostro’s.
    “What do people do here in the evenings?” he asked.
    “Mostly they go home,” Harper said. “But not you. You go back to your room. Blake’s orders.”
    “We’re following Blake’s orders now?”
    She smiled. “Some of them.”
    He nodded. “OK, so let’s go.”
    SHE LEFT HIM on the side of the door without the handle. He stood there and heard her footsteps recede across the carpet outside. Then the thump of the elevator door. Then the whine of the car going down. Then the floor fell silent. He walked to the nightstand and dialed Jodie’s apartment. The machine cut in. He dialed her office. No answer. He tried her mobile. It was not in service.
    He walked to the bathroom. Somebody had supplemented his toothbrush with a tube of toothpaste and a disposable razor and a can of shaving cream. There was a bottle of shampoo on the rim of the tub. There was soap in the dish. Fluffy white towels on the rack. He stripped and hung his clothes on the back of the door. Set the shower to hot and stepped under the water.
    He stood there for ten minutes and then shut it off. Toweled himself dry. Walked naked to the window and pulled the drapes. Lay down on the bed and scanned the ceiling. He found the camera. The lens was a black tube the diameter of a nickel, wedged deep in a crack in the molding where the wall met the ceiling. He turned back to the phone. Dialed all the same numbers again. Her apartment. He got the machine. Her office. No reply. Her mobile. Switched off.

10
    HE SLEPT BADLY and woke himself up before six in the morning and rolled toward the nightstand. Flicked on the bedside light and checked the exact time on his watch. He was cold. He had been cold all night. The sheets were starched, and the shiny surfaces pulled heat away from his skin.
    He reached for the phone and dialed Jodie’s apartment. He got the machine. No answer in her office. Her mobile was switched off. He held the phone to his ear for a long time, listening to her cellular company telling him so, over and over again. Then he