Without Fail

It’s the most incredibly beautiful smile I ever saw.”
    “You’re not exactly over him, are you?” he said. “At the risk of being the last to know. At the risk of stating the bloody obvious.”
    She didn’t answer. Just got out of the car and started walking. He followed after her. It was cold and damp on the street. The night air was heavy. He could smell the river, and jet fuel from somewhere. They reached her house. She unlocked the door. They stepped inside.
    There was a sheet of paper lying on the hallway floor.

12
    It was the familiar high-white letter-size sheet. It was lying precisely aligned with the oak flooring strips. It was in the geometric center of the hallway, near the bottom of the stairs, exactly where Reacher had dumped his garbage bag of clothes two nights previously. It had a simple statement printed neatly on it, in the familiar Times New Roman computer script, fourteen point, bold. The statement was five words long, split between two lines in the center of the page: It’s going to happen soon . The three words It’s going to made up the first line on their own. The happen soon part was alone on the second line. It looked like a poem or a song lyric. Like it was divided up that way for a dramatic purpose, like there should be a pause between the lines, or a breath, or a drum roll, or a rim shot. It’s going to . . . bam! . . . happen soon . Reacher stared at it. The effect was hypnotic. Happen soon. Happen soon .
    “Don’t touch it,” Froelich said.
    “Wasn’t going to,” Reacher replied.
    He ducked his head back out the door and checked the street. All the nearby cars were empty. All the nearby windows were closed and draped. No pedestrians. No loiterers in the dark. All was quiet. He came back inside and closed the door slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb the paper with a draft.
    “How did they get it in here?” Froelich said.
    “Through the door,” Reacher said. “Probably at the back.”
    Froelich pulled the SIG Sauer from her holster and they walked through the living room together and into the kitchen. The door to the backyard was closed, but it was unlocked. Reacher opened it a foot. Scanned the outside surroundings and saw nothing at all. Eased the door back wide so the inside light fell onto the exterior surface. Leaned close and looked at the scratch plate around the keyhole.
    “Marks,” he said. “Very small. They were pretty good.”
    “They’re here in D.C.,” she said. “Right now. They’re not in some Midwest bar.”
    She stared through the kitchen into the living room.
    “The phone,” she said.
    It was pulled out of position on the table next to the fireside chair.
    “They used my phone,” she said.
    “To call me, probably,” Reacher said.
    “Prints?”
    He shook his head. “Gloves.”
    “They’ve been in my house,” she said.
    She moved away from the rear door and stopped at the kitchen counter. Glanced down at something and snatched open a drawer.
    “They took my gun,” she said. “I had a backup gun in here.”
    “I know,” Reacher said. “An old Beretta.”
    She opened the drawer next to it.
    “The magazines are gone too,” she said. “I had ammo in here.”
    “I know,” Reacher said again. “Under an oven glove.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I checked, Monday night.”
    “Why would you?”
    “Habit,” he said. “Don’t take it personally.”
    She stared at him and then opened the wall cupboard with the money stash in it. He saw her check the earthenware pot. She said nothing, so he assumed the cash was still there. He filed the observation away in the professional corner of his mind, as confirmation of a long-held belief: people don’t like searching above head height .
    Then she stiffened. A new thought.
    “They might still be in the house,” she said, quietly.
    But she didn’t move. It was the first sign of fear he had ever seen from her.
    “I’ll check,” he said. “Unless that’s an unhealthy response to a challenge.”
    She just handed him her pistol. He turned out the kitchen light so he wouldn’t be silhouetted on the basement stairs and walked slowly down. Listened hard past the creaks and sighs of the house, and the hum and trickle of the heating system. Stood still in the dark and let his eyes adjust. There was nobody there. Nobody upstairs, either. Nobody hiding and waiting. People hiding and waiting give off human vibrations. Tiny hums and quivers. And he wasn’t feeling anything. The