Worth Dying For

been a car wreck in another state.’
    ‘And the Duncans never explained?’
    ‘Why would they? It was nobody’s business but theirs.’
    ‘What happened when Dorothy’s little girl went missing?’
    ‘It was awful. Almost like a betrayal. It changed people. A thing like that, OK, it puts a scare in you, but it’s supposed to have a happy ending. It’s supposed to turn out right. But it didn’t.’
    ‘Dorothy thought the Duncans did it.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘She said you stood by her.’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Why not?’
    Reacher said, ‘You were fourteen. She was what? Thirty? Thirty-five? More than twice your age. So it wasn’t about solidarity between two women or two mothers or two neighbours. Not in the normal sense. It was because you knew something, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Why are you asking?’
    ‘Call it professional interest.’
    ‘It was a quarter of a century ago.’
    ‘It was yesterday, as far as Dorothy is concerned.’
    ‘You’re not from here.’
    ‘I know,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m on my way to Virginia.’
    ‘So go there.’
    ‘I can’t. Not yet. Not if I think the Duncans did it and got away with it.’
    ‘Why does it matter to you?’
    ‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. But it does.’
    ‘The Duncans get away with plenty, believe me. Every single day.’
    ‘But I don’t care about that other stuff. I don’t care who gets their harvest hauled or when or how much they pay for it. You all can take care of that for yourselves. It’s not rocket science.’
    The doctor’s wife said, ‘I was the Duncans’ babysitter that year.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘They didn’t really need one. They rarely went out. Or actually they went out a lot, but then they came right back. Like a trick or a subterfuge. Then they would be real slow about driving me home. It was like they were paying me to be there with them. With all four of them, I mean, not just with Seth.’
    ‘How often did you work for them?’
    ‘About six times.’
    ‘And what happened?’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘Anything bad?’
    She looked straight at him. ‘You mean, was I interfered with?’
    He asked, ‘Were you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Did you feel in any danger?’
    ‘A little.’
    ‘Was there any inappropriate behaviour at all?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘So what was it made you stand by Dorothy when the kid went missing?’
    ‘Just a feeling.’
    ‘What kind of a feeling?’
    ‘I was fourteen, OK? I didn’t really understand anything. But I knew I felt uncomfortable.’
    ‘Did you know why?’
    ‘It dawned on me slowly.’
    ‘What was it?’
    ‘They were disappointed that I wasn’t younger. They made me feel I was too old for them. It creeped me out.’
    ‘You felt too old for them at fourteen?’
    ‘Yes. And I wasn’t, you know, very mature. I was a small girl.’
    ‘What did you feel would have happened if you had been younger?’
    ‘I really don’t want to think about it.’
    ‘And you told the cops about how you felt?’
    ‘Sure. We all told them everything. The cops were great. It was twenty-five years ago, but they were very modern. They took us very seriously, even the kids. They listened to everybody. They told us we could say anything, big or small, important or not, truth or rumour. So it all came out.’
    ‘But nothing was proved.’
    The doctor’s wife shook her head. ‘The Duncans were clean as a whistle. Pure as the driven snow. I’m surprised they didn’t get the Nobel prize.’
    ‘But still you stood by Dorothy.’
    ‘I knew what I felt.’
    ‘Did you think the investigation was OK?’
    ‘I was fourteen. What did I know? I saw dogs and guys in FBI jackets. It was like a television show. So yes, I thought it was OK.’
    ‘And now? Looking back?’
    ‘They never found her bike.’
    The doctor’s wife said that most farm kids started driving their parents’ beat-up pick-up trucks around the age of fifteen, or even a little earlier, if they were tall enough. Younger or shorter than that, they rode bikes. Big old Schwinn cruisers, baseball cards in the spokes, tassels on the handlebars. It was a big county. Walking was too slow. The eight-year-old Margaret had ridden away from the house Reacher had seen, down the track Reacher had seen, all knees and elbows and excitement, on a pink bicycle bigger than she was. Neither she nor the bike was ever seen again.
    The doctor’s wife said, ‘I kept on expecting them to find the bike. You know, maybe on the side of a road