Running Blind (The Visitor)

going back. They’re not listening. ”
    She nodded and drove on. Paused before the junction with the interstate, and then swooped north up the ramp.
    “I’ll take you to the next one,” she said. “Nobody uses this one except Bureau people. And none of them is going to give you a ride.”
    He nodded. “Thanks, Harper.”
    “Jodie’s home,” she said. “I called Cozo’s office. Apparently they had a little surveillance going. She’s been away. She got back this morning, in a taxi. Looked like she’d come from the airport. Looks like she’s working from home today.”
    He smiled. “OK, so now I’m definitely out of here.”
    “We need your input, you know.”
    “They’re not listening.”
    “You need to make them listen,” she said.
    “This is phase three?”
    “No, this is me. I mean it.”
    He was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded.
    “So why won’t they listen?”
    “Pride, maybe?” she said.
    “They need somebody’s input,” he said. “That’s for sure. But not mine. I don’t have the resources. And I don’t have the authority.”
    “To do what?”
    “To take it out of their hands. They’re wasting their time with this profiling shit. It won’t get them anywhere. They need to work the clues.”
    “There aren’t any clues.”
    “Yes, there are. How smart the guy is. And the paint, and the geography, and how quiet the scenes are. They’re all clues. They should work them. They’ve got to mean something. Starting with the motive is starting at the wrong end.”
    “I’ll pass that on.”
    She pulled off the highway and stopped at the cross street.
    “You going to get into trouble?” he asked.
    “For failing to bring you back?” she said. “Probably. ”
    He was silent. She smiled.
    “That was phase ten,” she said. “I’ll be perfectly OK.”
    “I hope so,” he said, and got out of the car. He walked north across the street to the ramp and stood all alone and watched her car slide under the bridge and turn back south.
    A MALE HITCHHIKER standing six feet five and weighing two hundred and thirty pounds is on the cusp of acceptability for easy rides. Generally, women won’t stop for him, because they see a threat. Men can be just as nervous. But Reacher was showered and shaved and clean, and dressed quietly. That shortened the odds, and there were enough trucks on the road with big confident owner-drivers that he was back in New York City within seven hours of starting out.
    He was quiet most of the seven hours, partly because the trucks were too noisy for conversation, and partly because he wasn’t in the mood for talking. The old hobo demon was whispering to him again. Where are you going? Back to Jodie, of course. OK, smart guy, but what else? What the hell else? Yardwork behind your house? Painting the damn walls? He sat next to a succession of kindly drivers and felt his brief unsatisfactory excursion into freedom ebb away. He worked on forgetting about it, and felt he succeeded. His final ride was from a New Jersey vegetable truck delivering to Greenwich Village. It rumbled in through the Holland Tunnel. He got out and walked the last mile on Canal and Broadway, all the way down to Jodie’s apartment house, concentrating hard on his desire to see her.
    He had his own key to her lobby, and he went up in the elevator and knocked on her door. The peephole went dark and light again and the door opened and she was standing there, in jeans and a shirt, tall and slim and vital. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. But she wasn’t smiling at him.
    “Hey, Jodie,” he said.
    “There’s an FBI agent in my kitchen.” she replied.
    “Why?”
    “Why?” she repeated. “You tell me.”
    He followed her into the apartment, through to the kitchen. The Bureau guy was a short young man with a wide neck. Blue suit, white shirt, striped tie. He was holding a cell phone up to his face, reporting Reacher’s arrival to somebody else.
    “What do you want?” Reacher asked him.
    “I want you to wait here, sir,” the guy said. “About ten minutes, please.”
    “What’s this about?”
    “You’ll find out, sir. Ten minutes, is all.”
    Reacher felt like walking out, just to be contrary, but Jodie sat down. There was something in her face. Something halfway between concern and annoyance. The New York Times was open on the countertop. Reacher glanced at it.
    “OK,” he said. “Ten minutes.”
    He sat down, too. They waited in silence. It was