Tripwire

He pressed random numbers and the screen changed back to off.
    There were cupboards under the desktop. Little oak doors. They were all locked. He shook each of them in turn and heard little metal tongues striking metal plates. He walked back into’Hobie’s office. Walked through the furniture to the desk. There was nothing on the sofas. His clothes were gone. Nothing on the desktop. The desk drawers were locked. It was a solid desk, expensive, ruined by the gouges from the hook, and the drawer locks felt tight. He squatted down, ridiculous in his underwear, and pulled at the handles. They moved a fraction, then stopped. He saw the trash can under the desk. It was a brass cylinder, not tall. He tilted it over. His wallet was in there, empty and forlorn. The picture of Marilyn was next to it, facedown. The paper was printed over and over on the back: Kodak. He reached into the can and picked it up. Turned it over. She smiled out at him. It was a casual head-and-shoulders shot. She was wearing the silk dress. The sexy one, the one she’d had custom-made. She didn’t know he knew she’d had it made. He had been home alone when the store called. He’d told them to call back, and let her believe he thought it was off-the-rack. In the photo, she was wearing it for the first time. She was smiling shyly, her eyes animated with daring, telling him not to go too low with the lens, not down to where the thin silk clung to her breasts. He cradled the picture in his palm and stared at it, and then he placed it back in the can, because he had no pockets.
    He stood up urgently and stepped around the leather chair to the wall of windows. Pushed the slats of the blinds apart with both hands and looked out. He had to do something. But he was eighty-eight floors up. Nothing to see except the river and New Jersey. No neighbors opposite to gesture urgently at. Nothing at all opposite, until the Appalachians reached Pennsylvania. He let the blinds fall back and paced every inch of the office, every inch of the reception area, and back into the office to do it all over again. Hopeless. He was in a prison. He stood in the center of the floor, shivering, focusing on nothing.
    He was hungry. He had no idea what time it was. The office had no clock and he had no watch. The sun was getting low in the west. Late afternoon or early evening, and he hadn’t eaten lunch. He crept to the office door. Listened again. Nothing except the comfortable hum of the building and the rattle of the refrigerator motor. He stepped out and crossed to the kitchen. He paused with his finger on the light switch, and then he dared to turn it on. A fluorescent tube kicked in. It flickered for a second and threw a flat glare across the room and added an angry buzz from its circuitry. The kitchen was small, with a token stainless steel sink and an equal length of counter. Rinsed mugs upside down, and a filter machine tarred with old coffee. A tiny refrigerator under the counter. There was milk in there, and a six-pack of beer, and a Zabar’s bag, neatly folded shut. He pulled it out. There was something wrapped in newspaper. It was heavy, and solid. He stood up and unrolled the paper on the counter. There was a plastic bag inside. He gripped the bottom, and the severed hand thumped out on the counter. The fingers were white and curled, and there was spongy purple flesh and splintered white bone and empty blue tubes trailing at the wrist. Then the glare of the fluorescent light spun around and tilted past his gaze as he fainted to the floor.
    REACHER PUT THE pizza box on the elevator floor and took the gun out of his belt and zipped it into the sports bag with the spare shells. Then he crouched and picked up the pizza again in time for the elevator door to slide back on the fourth floor. The apartment opened up as soon as he stepped within range of the fish-eye in the door. Jodie was standing just inside the hallway, waiting for him. She was still in the linen dress. It was slightly creased across the hips, from sitting all day. Her long brown legs were scissored, one foot in front of the other.
    “I brought dinner,” he said.
    She looked at the sports bag instead.
    “Last chance, Reacher. We should talk with somebody about all of this.”
    “No,” he said.
    He put the bag on the floor and she stepped behind him to lock the door.
    “OK,” she said. “If this is the government doing something, maybe you’re right. Maybe we should stay away from the