Without Fail

room. Neagley followed him. He lay down on the bed, arms outstretched, hands hanging off the edges. She sat down in the armchair, where Froelich had been.
    “Tell me about the false impression,” she said.
    “He was big, but he was studious,” Reacher said. “The schools we went to, being studious was like having ‘Kick my ass’ tattooed across your forehead. And he wasn’t all that tough, really, although he was big. So he got his ass kicked, regular as clockwork.”
    “And?”
    “I was two years younger, but I was big and tough, and not very studious. So I started to look after him. Loyalty, I guess, and I liked fighting anyway. I was about six. I’d wade in anywhere. I learned a lot of stuff. Learned that style was the big thing. Look like you mean it, and people back off a lot. Sometimes they didn’t. I had eight-year-olds all over me the first year. Then I got better at it. I hurt people bad. I was a madman. It got to be a thing. We’d arrive in some new place and pretty quick people would know to lay off Joe, or the psycho would be coming after them.”
    “Sounds like you were a lovely little boy.”
    “It was the Army. Anyplace else they’d have sent me to reform school.”
    “You’re saying Joe grew to rely on it.”
    Reacher nodded. “It was like that for ten years, basically. It came and went, and it happened less as we got older. But more serious when it actually did. I think he internalized it. Ten years is a significant chunk of time when you’re growing up, internalizing things. I think it became part of his mind-set to ignore danger because the psycho always had his back. So I think Froelich’s right, in a way. He was reckless. Not because he was trying to compete, but because deep down he felt he could afford to be. Because I had always looked after him, like his mother had always fed him, like the Army had always housed him.”
    “How old was he when he died?”
    “Thirty-eight.”
    “That’s twenty years, Reacher. He had twenty years to adjust. We all adjust.”
    “Do we? Sometimes I still feel like that same six-year-old. Everybody looking out of the corner of their eye at the psycho.”
    “Like who?”
    “Like Froelich.”
    “She been saying things?”
    “I disconcert her, clearly.”
    “Secret Service is a civilian organization. Paramilitary at best. Nearly as bad as regular citizens.”
    He smiled. Said nothing.
    “So, what’s the verdict?” Neagley asked. “You going to be walking around from now on thinking you killed your brother?”
    “A little bit, maybe,” he said. “But I’ll get over it.”
    She nodded. “You will. And you should. It wasn’t your fault. He was thirty-eight. He wasn’t waiting for his little brother to show up.”
    “Can I ask you a question?”
    “About what?”
    “Something else Froelich said.”
    “She wonders why we aren’t doing it?”
    “You’re quick,” he said.
    “I could sense it,” Neagley said. “She came across as a little concerned. A little jealous. Cold, even. But then, I’d just kicked her ass with the audit thing.”
    “You sure had.”
    “We’ve never even touched, you know that, you and me? We’ve never had any physical contact of any kind at all. You’ve never patted me on the back, never even shaken my hand.”
    He looked at her, and thought back through fifteen years.
    “Haven’t I?” he said. “Is that good or bad?”
    “It’s good,” she said. “But don’t ask why.”
    “OK,” he said.
    “Reasons of my own. Don’t ask what they are. But I don’t like to be touched. And you never touched me. I always figured you could sense it. And I always appreciated that. It’s one of the reasons I always liked you so much.”
    He said nothing.
    “Even if you should have been in reform school,” she said.
    “You probably should have been in there with me.”
    “We’d have made a good team,” she said. “We are a good team. You should come back to Chicago with me.”
    “I’m a wanderer,” he said.
    “OK, I won’t push,” she said. “And look on the bright side with Froelich. Cut her some slack. She’s probably worth it. She’s a nice woman. Have some fun. You’re good together.”
    “OK,” he said. “I guess.”
    Neagley stood up and yawned.
    “You OK?” he asked.
    She nodded. “I’m fine.”
    Then she put a kiss on the tips of her fingers and blew it to him from six feet away. Walked out of the room without saying another word.

    He was tired, but he was agitated and