Without Fail

him,” she said.
    “I know,” he said.
    “Do you understand what I mean?”
    He nodded. “What you saw in him you see in me, a little bit.”
    “But are you like him?”
    He knew exactly what she was asking. Did you see things the same? Did you share tastes? Were you attracted to the same women?
    “Like I told you,” he said. “There are similarities. And there are differences.”
    “That’s no answer.”
    “He’s dead,” Reacher said. “That’s an answer.”
    “And if he wasn’t?”
    “Then a lot of things would be different.”
    “Suppose I’d never known him. Suppose I’d gotten your name some other way.”
    “Then I might not be here at all.”
    “Suppose you were anyway.”
    He looked at her. Took a deep breath, and held it, and let it out.
    “Then I doubt if we’d be standing here talking about dinner,” he said.
    “Maybe you wouldn’t be a substitute,” she said. “Maybe you’d be the real thing and Joe was the substitute.”
    He said nothing.
    “This is too weird,” she said. “We can’t do this.”
    “No,” he said. “We can’t.”
    “It was a long time ago,” she said. “Six years.”
    “Is Armstrong OK?”
    “Yes,” she said. “He’s OK.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “We broke up, remember?” she said. “A year before he died. It’s not like I’m his tragic widow or something.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “And it’s not like you’re really his grieving brother either,” she said. “You hardly knew him.”
    “Mad at me about that?”
    She nodded. “He was a lonely man. He needed somebody. So I’m a little mad about it.”
    “Not half as much as I am.”
    She said nothing in reply. Just moved her wrist and checked her watch. It was a strange gesture, so he checked his, too. The second hand hit nine-thirty exactly. Her cell phone rang inside her open purse out in the hallway. It was loud in the silence.
    “My people checking in,” she said. “From Armstrong’s house.”
    She stepped back to the hallway and bent down and answered the call. Hung up without comment.
    “All quiet,” she said. “I told them to call every hour.”
    He nodded. She looked anywhere but straight at him. The moment was gone.
    “Chinese again?” she asked.
    “Suits me,” he said. “Same order.”
    She called it in from the kitchen phone and disappeared upstairs to take a shower. He waited in the living room and took the food from the delivery guy when he eventually showed up with it. She came down again and they ate across from each other at the kitchen table. She brewed coffee and they drank two cups each slowly, not talking. Her cell phone rang again at exactly ten-thirty. She had it next to her at the table and answered it immediately. Just a short message.
    “All quiet,” she said. “So far, so good.”
    “Stop worrying,” he said. “It would take an air strike to get him in his house.”
    She smiled suddenly. “Remember Harry Truman?”
    “My favorite president,” Reacher said. “From what I know about him.”
    “Ours, too,” she said. “From what we know about him. One time around 1950 the White House residence was being renovated and he was living in Blair House across Pennsylvania Avenue. Two men came to kill him. One was taken out by the cops on the street, but the other made it to the door. Our people had to pull Truman off the assassin. He said he was going to take his gun away and stick it up his ass.”
    “Truman was like that.”
    “You bet he was. You should hear some of the old stories.”
    “Would Armstrong be like that?”
    “Maybe. Depends how the moment struck him, I guess. He’s pretty gentle physically, but he’s not a coward. And I’ve seen him very angry.”
    “And he looks tough enough.”
    Froelich nodded. Checked her watch. “We should get back to the office now. See if anything’s happened anyplace else. You call Neagley while I clear up here. Tell her to be ready to roll in twenty minutes.”

    They were back in the office before eleven-fifteen. The message logs were blank. Nothing of significance from the D.C. police department. Nothing from North Dakota, nothing from the FBI. Updates were still streaming into the National Crime Information Center’s database. Froelich started combing through the day’s reports. She found nothing of interest. Her cell phone rang at eleven-thirty. All was quiet and peaceful in Georgetown. She turned back to the computer. Nothing doing. Time ticked around to midnight. Monday