Without Fail

that with them yet?”
    Stuyvesant shook his head.
    “That’ll be your job,” he said. “I’m not good at interrogation.”
    Reacher said nothing.

    He left as suddenly as he had arrived. Just upped and walked out of the room. The door swung shut behind him and left Reacher and Neagley and Froelich sitting together at the table in the bright light and the silence.
    “You won’t be popular,” Froelich said. “Internal investigators never are.”
    “I’m not interested in being popular,” Reacher said.
    “I’ve already got a job,” Neagley said.
    “Take some vacation time,” Reacher said. “Stick around, be unpopular with me.”
    “Will I get paid?”
    “I’m sure there’ll be a fee,” Froelich said.
    Neagley shrugged. “OK, I guess my partners could see this as a prestige thing. You know, government work? I could go back to the hotel, make some calls, see if they can cope without me for a spell.”
    “You want to get that dinner first?” Froelich asked.
    Neagley shook her head. “No, I’ll eat in my room. You two get dinner.”
    They wound their way back through the corridors to Froelich’s office and she called a driver for Neagley. Then she escorted her down to the garage and came back upstairs to find Reacher sitting quiet at her desk.
    “Are you two having a relationship?” she asked.
    “Who?”
    “You and Neagley.”
    “What kind of a question is that?”
    “She was weird about dinner.”
    He shook his head. “No, we’re not having a relationship.”
    “Did you ever? You seem awful close.”
    “Do we?”
    “She obviously likes you, and you obviously like her. And she’s cute.”
    He nodded. “I do like her. And she is cute. But we never had a relationship.”
    “Why not?”
    “Why not? It just never happened. You know what I mean?”
    “I guess.”
    “I’m not sure what it’s got to do with you, anyway. You’re my brother’s ex, not mine. I don’t even know your name.”
    “M. E.,” she said.
    “Martha Enid?” he said. “Mildred Eliza?”
    “Let’s go,” she said. “Dinner, my place.”
    “Your place?”
    “Restaurants are impossible here on Sunday night. And I can’t afford them anyway. And I’ve still got some of Joe’s things. Maybe you should have them.”

    She lived in a small warm row house in an unglamorous neighborhood across the Anacostia River near Bolling Air Force Base. It was one of those city homes where you close the drapes and concentrate on the inside. There was street parking and a wooden front door with a small foyer behind it that led directly into a living room. It was a comfortable space. Wood floors, a rug, old-fashioned furniture. A small television set with a big cable box wired to it. Some books on a shelf, a small music system with a yard of CDs propped against it. The heaters were turned up high so Reacher peeled off his black jacket and dumped it on the back of a chair.
    “I don’t want it to be an insider,” Froelich said.
    “Better that than a real outside threat.”
    She nodded and moved toward the back of the room where an arch opened into an eat-in kitchen. She looked around, a little vague, like she was wondering what all the machines and cabinets were for.
    “We could send out for Chinese food,” Reacher called.
    She took off her jacket and folded it in half and laid it on a stool.
    “Maybe we should,” she said.
    She had a white blouse on and without the jacket it looked softer and more feminine. The kitchen was lit with regular bulbs turned low and they were kinder to her skin than the bright office halogen had been. He looked at her and saw what Joe must have seen, eight years previously. She found a take-out menu in a drawer and dialed a number and called in an order. Hot and sour soup and General Tso’s chicken, times two.
    “That OK?” she asked.
    “Don’t tell me,” he said. “It’s what Joe liked.”
    “I’ve still got some of his things,” she said. “You should come see them.”
    She walked ahead of him back to the foyer and up the stairs. There was a guest room at the front of the house. It had a deep closet with a single door. A light bulb came on automatically when she opened it. The closet was full of miscellaneous junk, but the hanging rail had a long line of suits and shirts still wrapped in the dry cleaner’s plastic. The plastic had turned a little yellow and brittle with age.
    “These are his,” Froelich said.
    “He left them here?” Reacher asked.
    She touched the