Tripwire

right elbow and tore it open as he walked and Jodie saw more engraving on thick parchment. He took the long way around to the desk and dumped the certificates on top of the three hundred he already had. Stone followed Tony like he had been forgotten and stood gazing at the life’s work of his ancestors piled casually on the scarred wood. Marilyn looked up and walked her fingers backward across the glass, jacking herself upright with her hands because she had no strength left in her shoulders.
    “OK, you got them all,” she said quietly. “Now you can let us go.”
    Hobie smiled. “Marilyn, what are you, a moron?”
    Tony laughed. Jodie looked from him to Hobie. She saw they were very nearly at the end of some long process. Some goal had been in sight, and now it was very close. Tony’s laughter was about release after days of strain and tension.
    “Reacher is still out there,” she said quietly, like a move in a game of chess.
    Hobie stopped smiling. He touched the hook to his forehead and rubbed it across his scars and nodded.
    “Reacher,” he said. “Yes, the last piece of the puzzle. We mustn’t forget about Reacher, must we? He’s still out there. But out where, exactly?”
    She hesitated.
    “I don’t know, exactly,” she said.
    Then her head came up, defiant.
    “But he’s in the city,” she said. “And he’ll find you.”
    Hobie met her gaze. Stared at her, contempt in his face.
    “You think that’s some kind of threat?” he sneered. “Truth is I want him to find me. Because he has something I require. Something vital. So help me out, Mrs. Jacob. Call him and invite him right over.”
    She was silent for a moment.
    “I don’t know where he is,” she said.
    “Try your place,” Hobie said back. “We know he’s been staying there. He’s probably there right now. You got off the plane at eleven-fifty, right?”
    She stared at him. He nodded, complacently.
    “We check these things. We own a boy called Simon, who I believe you’ve met. He put you on the seven o’clock flight from Honolulu, and we called JFK and they told us it landed at eleven-fifty exactly. Old Jack Reacher was all upset in Hawaii, according to our boy Simon, so he’s probably still upset. And tired. Like you are. You look tired, Mrs. Jacob, you know that? But your friend Jack Reacher is probably in bed at your place, sleeping it off, while you’re here having fun with the rest of us. So call him, tell him to come over and join you.”
    She stared down at the table. Said nothing.
    “Call him. Then you can see him one more time before you die.”
    She was silent. She stared down at the glass. It was smeared with her handprints. She wanted to call him. She wanted to see him. She felt like she had felt a million times over fifteen long years. She wanted to see him again. His lazy, lopsided grin. His tousled hair. His arms, so long they gave him a greyhound’s grace even though he was built like the side of a house. His eyes, cold, icy blue like the Arctic. His hands, giant battered mitts that bunched into fists the size of footballs. She wanted to see those hands again. She wanted to see them around Hobie’s throat.
    She glanced around the office. The sunbeams had crawled an inch across the desk. She saw Chester Stone, inert. Marilyn, trembling. Curry, white in the face and breathing hard next to her. The guy with the shotgun, relaxed. Reacher would break him in half without even thinking about it. She saw Tony, his eyes fixed on hers. And Hobie, caressing his hook with his manicured hand, smiling at her, waiting. She turned and looked at the closed door. She imagined it bursting open with a crash and Jack Reacher striding in through it. She wanted to see that happen. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything.
    “OK,” she whispered. “I’ll call him.”
    Hobie nodded. “Tell him I’ll be here a few more hours. But tell him if he wants to see you again, he better come quick. Because you and I have a little date in the bathroom, about thirty minutes from now.”
    She shuddered and pushed off the glass table and stood upright. Her legs were weak and her shoulders were on fire. Hobie came around and took her elbow and led her to the door. Led her over behind the reception counter.
    “This is the only telephone in the place,” he said. “I don’t like telephones.”
    He sat down in the chair and pressed nine with the tip of his hook. Handed the phone across to her. “Come closer, so I can hear