Worth Dying For

somewhere. In the tall grass. Just lying there. That’s what happens on the television shows. Like a clue. With a footprint, or maybe the guy had dropped a piece of paper or something. But it didn’t happen that way. Everything was a dead end.’
    ‘So what was your bottom line at the time?’ Reacher asked. ‘On the Duncans? Guilty or not guilty?’
    ‘Not guilty,’ the woman said. ‘Because facts are facts, aren’t they?’
    ‘Yet you still stood by Dorothy.’
    ‘Partly because of the way I felt. Feelings are different than facts. And partly because of the aftermath. It was horrible for her. The Duncans were very self-righteous. And people were starting to wake up to the power they had over them. It was like the thought police. First Dorothy was supposed to apologize, which she wouldn’t, and then she was supposed to just shut up and carry on like nothing had ever happened. She couldn’t even grieve, because somehow that would have been like accusing the Duncans all over again. The whole county was uneasy about it. It was like Dorothy was supposed to take one for the team. Like one of those old legends, where she had to sacrifice her child to the monster, for the good of the village.’
    There was no more talk. Reacher collected the three empty coffee cups and carried them out to the kitchen, partly to be polite, partly because he wanted to check the view through a different window. The landscape was still clear. Nothing coming. Nothing happening. After a minute the doctor joined him in the room, and asked, ‘So what are you going to do now?’
    Reacher said, ‘I’m going to Virginia.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘With two stops along the way.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘I’m going to drop in on the county cops. Sixty miles south of here. I want to see their paperwork.’
    ‘Will they still have it?’
    Reacher nodded. ‘A thing like that, lots of different departments cooperating, everyone on best behaviour, they’ll have built a pretty big file. And they won’t have junked it yet. Because technically it’s still an open case. Their notes will be in storage somewhere. Probably a whole cubic yard of them.’
    ‘Will they let you see them? Just like that?’
    ‘I was a cop of sorts myself, thirteen years. I can usually talk my way past file clerks.’
    ‘Why do you want to see it?’
    ‘To check it for holes. If it’s OK, I’ll keep on running. If it’s not, I might come back.’
    ‘To do what?’
    ‘To fill in the holes.’
    ‘How will you get down there?’
    ‘Drive.’
    ‘Showing up in a stolen truck won’t help your cause.’
    ‘It’s got your plates on it now. They won’t know.’
    ‘My plates?’
    ‘Don’t worry, I’ll swap them back again. If the paperwork’s OK, then I’ll leave the truck right there near the police station with the proper plates on it, and sooner or later someone will figure out whose it is, and word will get back to the Duncans, and they’ll know I’m gone for good, and they’ll start leaving you people alone again.’
    ‘That would be nice. What’s your second stop?’
    ‘The cops are the second stop. First stop is closer to home.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘We’re going to drop in on Seth Duncan’s wife. You and me. A house call. To make sure she’s healing right.’

TWENTY-FIVE
    T HE DOCTOR WAS IMMEDIATELY DEAD SET AGAINST THE IDEA . I T was a house call he didn’t want to make. He looked away and paced the kitchen and traced his facial injuries with his fingertips and pursed his lips and ran his tongue over his teeth. Then eventually he said, ‘But Seth might be there.’
    Reacher said, ‘I hope he is. We can check he’s healing right, too. And if he is, I can hit him again.’
    ‘He’ll have Cornhuskers with him.’
    ‘He won’t. They’re all out in the fields, looking for me. The few that remain, that is.’
    ‘I don’t know about this.’
    ‘You’re a doctor. You took an oath. You have obligations.’
    ‘It’s dangerous.’
    ‘Getting out of bed in the morning is dangerous.’
    ‘You’re a crazy man, you know that?’
    ‘I prefer to think of myself as conscientious.’
    Reacher and the doctor climbed into the pick-up truck and headed back to the county two-lane and turned right. They cameout on the road a couple of miles south of the motel and a couple of miles north of the three Duncan houses. Two minutes later the doctor stared at them as they passed by. Reacher took a look, too. Enemy territory. Three white houses, three parked