Running Blind (The Visitor)

looking at the quartz sparkles showing between his fingers. Then he felt the elevator arrive and heard the apartment door open. He heard urgent conversation and fast light footsteps through the living room and then Jodie was back in the kitchen with Lisa Harper standing at her side.

15
    HARPER WAS STILL in her second suit and her hair was still loose on her shoulders, but those were the only similarities with the last time he had seen her. Her long-limbed slowness was all wiped away by some kind of feverish tension, and her eyes were red and strained. He guessed she was as near to distraught as she was ever going to get.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Everything,” she said. “It’s all gone crazy.”
    “Where?”
    “Spokane,” she said.
    “No,” he said.
    “Yes,” she said. “Alison Lamarr.”
    There was silence.
    “Shit,” he whispered.
    Harper nodded. “Yeah, shit.”
    “When?”
    “Sometime yesterday. He’s speeding up. He didn’t stick to the interval. The next one should have been two weeks away.”
    “How?”
    “Same as all the others. The hospital was calling her because her father died, and there was no reply, so eventually they called the cops, and the cops went out there and found her. Dead in the tub, in the paint, like all the others.”
    More silence.
    “But how the hell did he get in?”
    Harper shook her head. “Just walked right in the door.”
    “Shit, I don’t believe it.”
    “They’ve sealed the place off. They’re sending a crime scene unit direct from Quantico.”
    “They won’t find anything.”
    Silence again. Harper glanced around Jodie’s kitchen, nervously.
    “Blake wants you back on board,” she said. “He’s signed up for your theory in a big way. He believes you now. Eleven women, not ninety-one.”
    Reacher stared at her. “So what am I supposed to say to that? Better late than never?”
    “He wants you back,” Harper said again. “This is getting way out of control. We need to start cutting some corners with the Army. And he figures you’ve demonstrated a talent for cutting corners.”
    It was the wrong thing to say. It fell across the kitchen like a weight. Jodie switched her gaze from Harper to the refrigerator door.
    “You should go, Reacher,” she said.
    He made no reply.
    “Go cut some corners,” she said. “Go do what you’re good at.”
    HE WENT. HARPER had a car waiting at the curb on Broadway. It was a Bureau car, borrowed from the New York office, and the driver was the same guy who had driven him down from Garrison with a gun at his head. But if the guy was confused about Reacher’s recent change of status, he didn’t show it. Just lit up his red light and took off west toward Newark.
    The airport was a mess. They fought through crowds to the Continental counter. The reservation was coming in direct from Quantico as they waited at the desk. Two coach seats. They ran to the gate and were the last passengers to board. The purser was waiting for them at the end of the jetway. She put them in first class. Then she stood near them and used a microphone and welcomed everybody joining her for the trip to Seattle-Tacoma.
    “Seattle?” Reacher said. “I thought we were going to Quantico.”
    Harper felt behind her for the seat-belt buckle and shook her head. “First we’re going to the scene. Blake thought it could be useful. We saw the place two days ago. We can give him some direct before-and-after comparisons. He thinks it’s worth a try. He’s pretty desperate.”
    Reacher nodded. “How’s Lamarr taking it?”
    Harper shrugged. “She’s not falling apart. But she’s real tense. She wants to take complete control of everything. But she won’t join us out there. Still won’t fly.”
    The plane was taxiing, swinging wide circles across the tarmac on its way to the takeoff line. The engines were whining up to pitch. There was vibration in the cabin.
    “Flying’s OK,” Reacher said.
    Harper nodded. “I know, crashing is the problem.”
    “Hardly ever happens, statistically.”
    “Like a Powerball win. But somebody always gets lucky.”
    “Hell of a thing, not flying. A country this size, it’s kind of limiting, isn’t it? Especially for a federal agent. I’m surprised they let her get away with it.”
    She shrugged again. “It’s a known quantity. They work around it.”
    The plane swung onto the runway and stopped hard against the brakes. The engine noise built louder and the plane rolled forward, gently at first,