The Affair: A Reacher Novel

owe her money.”
    “I don’t.”
    “Then she’s crazy about you. I could tell.”
    “You say that about every woman I meet.”
    “But this time it’s true. I mean it. Her cold little heart was going pitter patter. Be warned, OK?”
    “Thanks anyway,” I said. “But I don’t need a big sister on this occasion.”
    “Which reminds me,” she said. “Garber is asking about your brother.”
    “My brother?”
    “Scuttlebutt on the sergeants’ network. Garber has put a watch on your office, for notes or calls from your brother. He wants to know if you’re in regular contact.”
    “Why would he?”
    “Money,” Neagley said. “That’s all I can think of. Your brother is still at Treasury, right? Maybe there’s a financial issue with Kosovo. Got to be warlords and gangsters over there. Maybe Bravo Company is bringing money home for them. You know, laundering it. Or stealing it.”
    “How would that tie in with a woman named Janice May Chapman, from the armpit of Mississippi?”
    “Maybe she found out. Maybe she wanted some for herself. Maybe she was a Bravo Company girlfriend.”
    I didn’t reply.
    “Last chance,” Neagley said. “Do I stay or do I go?”
    “Go,” I said. “This is my problem, not yours. Live long and prosper.”
    “Parting gift,” she said. She leaned down and opened her briefcase and came out with a slim green file folder. It was printed on the outside with the words
Carter County Sheriff’s Department
. She laid it on the table and put her hand flat on it, ready to slide it across. She said, “You’ll find this interesting.”
    I asked, “What is it?”
    “Photographs of the three dead women. They’ve all got something in common.”
    “Deveraux gave this to you?”
    “Not exactly. She left it unattended.”
    “You stole it?”
    “Borrowed it. You can return it when you’re done. I’m sure you’ll find a way.” She slid the file across to me, she stood up, and she walked away. No handshake, no kiss, no touch. I watched her push out through the door, watched her turn right on Main Street, and watched her disappear.
    The waitress heard the door as Neagley left. Maybe there was a repeater bell in the kitchen. She came out to check if there was a new arrival and saw that there wasn’t. She contented herself with refilling my mug for the second time, and then she went back to the kitchen. I squared the green file in front of me and opened it up.
    Three women. Three victims. Three photographs, all taken in the last weeks or months of their lives. Nothing sadder. Cops ask for a recent likeness, and distraught relatives scurry to choose from what they have. Usually they come up with joy and smiles, prom pictures or studio portraits or vacation snapshots, because joy and smiles are what they want to remember. They want the long grim record to start with life and energy.
    Janice May Chapman had showed plenty of both. Her photograph was a waist-up color shot taken at what looked like a party. She was half-turned toward the camera, looking directly into the lens, smiling in the first seconds of spontaneity. A well-timed click. The photographer had not caught her unawares, but neither had he made her pose too long.
    Pellegrino had been wrong. He had called her real pretty, but that was like calling America fairly big. Real pretty was a serious underestimate. In life Chapman had been absolutely spectacular. It was hard to imagine a more beautiful woman. Hair, eyes, face, smile, shoulders, figure, everything. Janice May Chapman had had it all going on, that was for sure.
    I shuffled her to the bottom of the pack and looked at the second woman. She had died in November 1996. Four months ago. A note pasted to the bottom corner of the photograph told me so. The photograph was one of those rushed, semi-formal color portraits like you see from a college service at the start of the academic year, or from a hard-worked hack on a cruise ship. A murky canvas background, a stool, a couple of umbrella flashes, three, two, one,
pop
, thank you. The woman in the picture was black, probably in her middle twenties, and was every bit as spectacular as Janice May Chapman. Maybe even more so. She had flawless skin and the kind of smile that starts the AC running. She had the kind of eyes that start wars. Dark, liquid, radiant. She wasn’t looking at the camera. She was looking right through it. Right at me. Like she was sitting across the table.
    The third woman had died in June 1996. Nine