Tripwire

DEAD, but he was still thinking. Was that OK? Was this the afterlife? That would be a hell of a thing. He had lived nearly thirty-nine years assuming there was no afterlife. Some people had agreed with him, others had argued with him. But he’d always been adamant about it. Now he was right there in it. Somebody was going to come sneering up to him and say told you so. He would, if the boot was on the other foot. He wouldn’t let somebody get away with being absolutely wrong about something, not without a little friendly ribbing at least.
    He saw Jodie Garber. She was going to tell him. No, that wasn’t possible. She wasn’t dead. Only a dead person could yell at you in the afterlife, surely. A live person couldn’t do it. That was pretty obvious. A live person wasn’t in the afterlife. And Jodie Garber was a live person. He’d made certain of it. That had been the whole damn point. And anyway, he was pretty sure he had never discussed the afterlife with Jodie Garber. Or had he? Maybe many years ago, when she was still a kid? But it was Jodie Garber. And she was going to speak to him. She sat down in front of him and pushed her hair behind her ears. Long blond hair, small ears.
    “Hi, Reacher,” she said.
    It was her voice. No doubt about it. No mistake. So maybe she was dead. Maybe it had been an automobile accident. That would be a hell of an irony. Maybe she was hit by a speeding truck on lower Broadway, on her way home from the World Trade Center.
    “Hey, Jodie,” he said.
    She smiled. There was communication. So she was dead. Only a dead person could hear another dead person speak, surely. But he had to know.
    “Where are we?” he asked.
    “St. Vincent’s,” she said.
    Saint Peter he had heard of. He was the guy at the gates. He had seen pictures. Well, not really pictures, but cartoons, at least. He was an old guy in a robe, with a beard. He stood at a lectern and asked questions about why you should be let in. But he didn’t remember Saint Peter asking him any questions. Maybe that came later. Maybe you had to go out again, and then try to get back in.
    But who was Saint Vincent? Maybe he was the guy who ran the place you stayed while you were waiting for Saint Peter’s questions. Like the boot camp part. Maybe old Vincent ran the Fort Dix equivalent. Well, that would be no problem. He’d murdered boot camp. Easiest time he’d ever done. He could do it again. But he was annoyed about it. He’d finished up a major, for God’s sake. He’d been a star. He had medals. Why the hell should he do boot camp all over again?
    And why was Jodie here? She was supposed to be alive. He realized his left hand was clenching. He was intensely irritated. He’d saved her life, because he loved her. So why was she dead now? What the hell was going on? He tried to struggle upright. Something was tying him down. What the hell? He was going to get some answers or he was going to knock some heads together.
    “Take it easy,” Jodie said to him.
    “I want to see Saint Vincent,” he said. “And I want to see him right now. Tell him to get his sorry ass in this room inside five minutes or I’m going to be seriously pissed off.”
    She looked at him and nodded.
    “OK,” she said.
    Then she looked away and stood up. She disappeared from his sight and he lay back down. This wasn’t any kind of a boot camp. It was too quiet, and the pillows were soft.
    LOOKING BACK, IT should have been a shock. But it wasn’t. The room just swam into focus and he saw the decor and the shiny equipment and he thought hospital. He changed from being dead to being alive with the same little mental shrug a busy man gives when he realizes he’s wrong about what day it is.
    The room was bright with sun. He moved his head and saw he had a window. Jodie was sitting in a chair next to it, reading. He kept his breathing low and watched her. Her hair was washed and shiny. It fell past her shoulders, and she was twirling a strand between her finger and thumb. She was wearing a yellow sleeveless dress. Her shoulders were brown with summer. He could see the little knobs of bone on top. Her arms were long and lean. Her legs were crossed. She was wearing tan penny loafers that matched the dress. Her ankles glowed brown in the sun.
    “Hey, Jodie,” he said.
    She turned her head and looked at him. Searched his face for something and when she found it she smiled.
    “Hey yourself,” she said. She dropped the book and stood up. Walked three