Without Fail

paper. Armstrong wanted to talk to him. Said he felt sorry for him. And then he insisted on sticking with the walkabout. He’s nuts. And I’m nuts for allowing it.”
    “Is he going to walk back?”
    “Probably. I need it to rain, Reacher. Why doesn’t it ever rain when you want it to? A real downpour an hour from now would help me out.”
    He glanced up at the sky. It was gray and cold, but all the clouds were high and unthreatening. It wasn’t going to rain.
    “You should tell him,” he said.
    She shook her head and turned to face front. “We just don’t do that.”
    “Then you should get one of his staff to call him back in a hurry. Like something’s real urgent. Then he’d have to ride.”
    She shook her head again. “He’s running the transition. He sets the pace. Nothing’s urgent unless he says it is.”
    “So tell him it’s another rehearsal. A new tactic or something.”
    Froelich glanced across at him. “I guess I could do that. It’s still the pregame period. We’re entitled to rehearse with him. Maybe.”
    “Try it,” he said. “The walk back is more dangerous than the walk there. There’ll be a couple hours for somebody to find out he’s going to do it.”
    “Get in,” she said. “You look cold.”
    He walked around the Suburban’s hood and climbed in on the passenger side. Unzipped his jacket and held it open to allow the warm air from the heater to funnel up inside it. They sat and watched until Armstrong and his minders disappeared inside the Labor building. Froelich immediately called her office. Left instructions that she was to be informed before Armstrong moved again. Then she put the car in gear and took off south and west toward the East Wing of the National Gallery. She made a left and drove past the Capitol Building’s reflecting pool. Then a right onto Independence Avenue.
    “Where are we going?” Reacher asked.
    “Nowhere in particular,” she said. “I’m just killing time. And trying to decide if I should resign today or keep on beating my brains out.”
    She drove past all the museums and made a left onto Fourteenth Street. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing rose up on their right, between them and the Tidal Basin. It was a big gray building. She pulled up at the curb opposite its main entrance. Kept the engine running and her foot on the brake. Gazed up at one of the high office windows.
    “Joe spent time in there,” she said. “Back when they were designing the new hundred-dollar bill. He figured if he was going to have to protect it, he should have some input on it. A long time ago, now.”
    Her head was tilted up. Reacher could see the curve of her throat. He could see the way it met the opening of her shirt. He said nothing.
    “I used to meet him here sometimes,” she said. “Or on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. We’d walk around the Basin, late in the evening. In spring or summer.”
    Reacher looked ahead to his right. The memorial crouched low among the bare trees and was reflected perfectly in the still water.
    “I loved him, you know,” Froelich said.
    Reacher said nothing. Just looked at her hand resting on the wheel. And her wrist. It was slim. The skin was perfect. There was a trace of a faded summer tan.
    “And you’re very like him,” she said.
    “Where did he live?”
    She glanced at him. “Don’t you know?”
    “I don’t think he ever told me.”
    Silence in the idling car.
    “He had an apartment in the Watergate,” she said.
    “Rented?”
    She nodded. “It was very bare. Like it was only temporary.”
    “It would be. Reachers don’t own property. I don’t think we ever have.”
    “Your mother’s family did. They had estates in France.”
    “Did they?”
    “You don’t know that either?”
    He shrugged. “I know they were French, obviously. Not sure I ever heard about their real-estate situation.”
    Froelich eased her foot off the brake and glanced in the mirror and gunned the motor and rejoined the traffic stream.
    “You guys had a weird idea of family,” she said. “That’s for damn sure.”
    “Seemed normal at the time,” he said. “We thought every family was like that.”
    Her cell phone rang. A low electronic trill in the quiet of the car. She flipped it open. Listened for a moment and said OK and closed it up.
    “Neagley,” she said. “She’s finished with the cleaners.”
    “She get anything?”
    “Didn’t say. She’s meeting us back at the office.”
    She looped around south