The Affair: A Reacher Novel

ticked down from sixty minutes to fifty-nine.

Chapter
47
    I loitered on the sidewalk for half of that hour. Mostly I leaned on a wall and didn’t move. A professional skill. Necessary in my line of work. I’m good at it. But I know people who are better. I know people who have waited hours or days or weeks for something to happen.
    I was waiting for the old guy with the tape measure to show up and open the shirt shop. Which he did, eventually. I pushed off my wall and crossed the street and followed him inside. He fussed with locks and lights and I made straight for his pile of button-downs. I found the same thing I was wearing and took it to the counter.
    The old guy said, “Stocking up?”
    I said, “No, the first one got dirty.”
    He leaned in and peered at my pocket. I saw his eyes trace the curl of blood. Down and up. He said, “I’m sure that would wash out. Cold water, maybe a little salt.”
    “Salt?”
    “Salt helps with bloodstains. With cold water. Hot water sets them.”
    “I don’t think the Toussaint’s hotel offers a very sophisticated laundry service,” I said. “Actually I don’t think they offer any kind of laundry service at all. They don’t even offer coffee in the lounge.”
    “You could take the shirt home with you, sir.”
    “How?”
    “Well, in your suitcase.”
    “Easier just to replace it.”
    “But that would be very expensive.”
    “Compared to what? How much do suitcases cost?”
    “But you would keep a suitcase forever. You would use it over and over again for many years.”
    I said, “I think I’ll just take the new shirt. No need to wrap it.”
    I paid the guy and then ducked into his changing cubicle and pulled the curtain. I took off the old shirt, put on the new, and came back out.
    “Got a trash can?” I asked.
    The guy paused a beat in surprise and then ducked down and came back up with a knee-high metal canister. He held it out uncertainly. I balled up the dirty shirt and hit a three-pointer from about ten feet. The guy looked horrified. Then I headed back across the street to the diner for breakfast. And for a little more purposeful loitering. I knew my best chance of running into Deveraux would be right there. A woman who ate like she did couldn’t stay away for long. It was just a matter of time.
    In the end it was a matter of less than twenty minutes. I ate eggs and was halfway through my third cup of coffee when she came in. She saw me from the doorway and paused. The whole world paused. The atmosphere went solid. She was in uniform again, and her hair was tied back. Her face was a little set in place. A little immobile. She looked wonderful.
    I took a breath and kicked the facing chair out. She didn’t react. I saw her eyes move as she considered her options. She looked at all the tables. Most of them were unoccupied. But evidently she decided that to sit on her own might cause a scene. She was worried about voters. Worried about her reputation. So she came over to me. She pulled the chair out another foot and sat down, quiet and reserved, knees tight together, hands in her lap.
    I said, “I don’t have a fiancée. I don’t have any kind of other girlfriend.”
    She didn’t answer.
    I said, “It was just an MP colleague on the phone. They’re all playing a game with the undercover thing. Apparently it amuses them. My CO calls himself my uncle.”
    No answer.
    “I can’t prove a negative,” I said.
    “I’m hungry,” she said. “This is the first time in two years I’ve missed breakfast.”
    “I apologize for that,” I said.
    “Why? There’s no need, if what you’re saying is true.”
    “It is true. I’m apologizing on behalf of my colleague.”
    “Was it your sergeant? Neagley?”
    “No, it was a woman called Karla Dixon.”
    “What did she want?”
    “To tell me that no one is running a financial scam out of Fort Kelham.”
    “How would she know?”
    “She knows everything about anything with a dollar sign in front of it.”
    “Who thought there was a financial scam out of Kelham?”
    “The brass. I suppose it was a theoretical possibility. Like you said, they’re desperate.”
    “If you had a fiancée, would you cheat on her?”
    “Probably not,” I said. “But I’d want to, with you.”
    “I’ve been burned before.”
    “Hard to believe.”
    “Yet true. Not a good feeling.”
    “I understand,” I said. “But you weren’t being burned last night.”
    She went quiet. I saw her thinking.
Last night
.