Running Blind (The Visitor)

same as it had been before.
    “Anything?” Blake asked.
    He shook his head. “No.”
    “OK, we’ll do the outside.”
    They trooped down the stairs, silent. Harper was waiting in the hallway. She looked up at Blake, expectant. Blake just shook his head, like he was saying nothing there . Maybe he was saying don’t go up there . Reacher led him out through the back door into the yard.
    “I checked the windows from outside,” he said.
    “Guy didn’t come in the damn window,” Blake said for the second time. “He came in the door.”
    “But how the hell?” Reacher said. “When we were here, you’d called her ahead on the phone, and Harper was flashing her badge and shouting FBI, FBI , and she still practically hid out in there. And then she was shaking like a leaf when she eventually opened up. So how did this guy get her to do it?”
    Blake shrugged. “Like I told you right at the beginning, these women know this character. They trust him. He’s some kind of an old friend or something. He knocks on the door, they check him out in the spyhole, they get a big smile on their faces, and they open their doors right up.”
    The cellar door was undisturbed. The big padlock through the handles was intact. The garage door in the side of the barn was closed but not locked. Reacher led Blake inside and stood in the gloom. The new Jeep was there, and the stacks of cartons. The big washing machine carton was there, flaps slightly open, sealing tape trailing. The workbench was there, with the power tools neatly laid out on it. The shelves were undisturbed.
    “Something’s different,” Reacher said.
    “What?”
    “Let me think.”
    He stood there, opening and closing his eyes, comparing the scene in front of him with the memory in his head, like he was checking two photographs side by side.
    “The car has moved,” he said.
    Blake sighed, like he was disappointed. “It would have. She drove to the hospital after you left.”
    Reacher nodded. “Something else.”
    “What?”
    “Let me think.”
    Then he saw it.
    “Shit,” he said.
    “What?”
    “I missed it. I’m sorry, Blake, but I missed it.”
    “Missed what?”
    “That washing machine carton. She already had a washing machine. Looked brand-new. It’s in the kitchen, under the counter.”
    “So? It must have come right out of that carton. Whenever it was installed.”
    Reacher shook his head. “No. Two days ago that carton was new and sealed up. Now it’s been opened.”
    “You sure?”
    “I’m sure. Same carton, exact same place. But it was sealed up then and it’s open now.”
    Blake stepped toward the carton. Took a pen from his pocket and used the plastic barrel to raise the flap. Stared down at what he saw.
    “This carton was here already?”
    Reacher nodded. “Sealed up.”
    “Like it had been shipped?”
    “Yes.”
    “OK,” Blake said. “Now we know how he transports the paint. He delivers it ahead of time in washing machine cartons.”
    YOU SIT THERE cold and sweating for an hour and at the end of it you know for certain you forgot to reseal the carton. You didn’t do it, and you didn’t make her do it. That’s a fact now, and it can’t be denied, and it needs dealing with.
    Because resealing the cartons guaranteed a certain amount of delay. You know how investigators work. A just delivered appliance carton in the garage or the basement was going to attract no interest at all. It was going to be way down on the list of priorities. It would be just another part of the normal household clutter they see everywhere. Practically invisible. You’re smart. You know how these people work. Your best guess was the primary investigators would never open it at all. That was your prediction, and you were proved absolutely right three times in a row. Down in Florida, up in New Hampshire, down in California, those boxes were items on somebody’s inventory, but they hadn’t been opened. Maybe much later when the heirs came to clear out the houses they’d open them up and find all the empty cans, whereupon the shit would really hit the fan, but by then it would be way too late. A guaranteed delay, weeks or even months.
    But this time, it would be different. They’d do a walk-through in the garage, and the flaps on the box would be up. Cardboard does that, especially in a damp atmosphere like they have up there. The flaps would be curling back. They’d glance in, and they wouldn’t see Styrofoam packaging and gleaming white enamel,