Running Blind (The Visitor)

right, he figured, given her likely salary. It was three suits more than he had, because it was a whole salary more than he had.
    They rode down in the elevator together and walked between buildings. The whole campus was very quiet. It had a weekend feel. He realized it was Sunday. The weather was better. No warmer, but the sun was out and it wasn’t raining. He hoped for a moment it was a sign that this was his day. But it wasn’t. He knew that as soon as he walked into the cafeteria.
    Blake was at the table by the window, alone. There was a jug of coffee, three upturned mugs, a basket of cream and sugar, a basket of Danish and doughnuts. The bad news was the pile of Sunday newspapers, opened and read and scattered, with the Washington Post and USA Today and worst of all the New York Times just sitting right there in plain view. Which meant there was no news from New York. Which meant it hadn’t worked yet, which meant he was going to have to keep on waiting until it did.
    With three people at the table instead of five, there was more elbow room. Harper sat down opposite Blake and Reacher sat opposite nobody. Blake looked old and tired and very strained. He looked ill. The guy was a heart attack waiting to happen. But Reacher felt no sympathy for him. Blake had broken the rules.
    “Today you work the files,” Blake said.
    “Whatever,” Reacher said.
    “They’re updated with the Lorraine Stanley material. So you need to spend today reviewing them and you can give us your conclusions at the breakfast meeting tomorrow. Clear?”
    Reacher nodded. “Crystal.”
    “Any preliminaries I should know about?”
    “Preliminary what?”
    “Conclusions. You got any thoughts yet?”
    Reacher glanced at Harper. This was the point where a loyal agent would inform her boss about his objections. But she said nothing. Just looked down and concentrated on stirring her coffee.
    “Let me read the files,” he said. “Too early to say anything right now.”
    Blake nodded. “We’ve got sixteen days. We need to start making some real progress real soon.”
    Reacher nodded back. “I get the message. Maybe tomorrow we’ll get some good news.”
    Blake and Harper looked at him like it was an odd thing to say. Then they took coffee and Danish and doughnuts and sections of the papers and lingered like they had time to kill. It was Sunday. And the investigation was stalled. That was clear. Reacher recognized the signs. However urgent a thing is, there comes a point where there are no more places to go. The urgency burns out, and you sit there like you’ve got all the time in the world, while the world rages on around you.
    AFTER BREAKFAST HARPER took him to a room pretty much the same as he’d imagined while bucketing along in the Cessna. It was aboveground, quiet, filled with light oak tables and comfortable padded chairs faced with leather. There was a wall of windows, and the sun was shining outside. The only negative was one of the tables held a stack of files about a foot high. They were in dark blue folders, with FBI printed on them in yellow letters.
    The stack was split into three bundles, each one secured with a thick rubber band. He laid them out on the table, side by side. Amy Callan, Caroline Cooke, Lorraine Stanley. Three victims, three bundles. He checked his watch. Ten twenty-five. A late start. The sun was warming the room. He felt lazy.
    “You didn’t try Jodie,” Harper said.
    He shook his head and said nothing.
    “Why not?”
    “No point. She’s obviously not there.”
    “Maybe she went to your place. Where her father used to live.”
    “Maybe,” he said. “But I doubt it. She doesn’t like it there. Too isolated.”
    “Did you try it?”
    He shook his head. “No.”
    “Worried?”
    “I can’t worry about something I can’t change.”
    She said nothing. There was silence. He pulled a file toward him.
    “You read these?” he asked her.
    She nodded. “Every night. I read the files and the summaries.”
    “Anything in them?”
    She looked at the bundles, each one of them four inches thick. “Plenty in them.”
    “Anything significant?”
    “That’s your call,” she said.
    He nodded reluctantly and stretched the rubber band off the Callan file. Opened up the folder. Harper took her jacket off and sat down opposite. Rolled up her shirtsleeves. The sun was directly behind her and it made her shirt transparent. He could see the outside curve of her breast. It swelled gently past the strap