Worth Dying For

about the missing girl?’
    ‘That other old question? Lord knows I’m not blind to Seth’s faults, or his family’s, but as I understand it they were cleared after an investigation by a federal agency. Isn’t that good enough for people?’
    ‘You weren’t here at the time?’
    ‘No, I grew up in Illinois. Just outside of Chicago. Seth was twenty-two when I met him. I was trying to be a journalist. The only job I could find was at a paper out of Lincoln. I was doing a story about corn prices, of course. That’s all that was in that paper, that and college sports. Seth was the new CEO of Duncan Transportation. I interviewed him for the story. Then we had a cocktail. At first, I was bowled over. Later, not so much.’
    ‘Are you going to be OK?’
    ‘Are you? With two tough guys looking for you?’
    ‘I’m leaving,’ Reacher said. ‘Heading south and then east, to Virginia. You want to ride along? You could hit the Interstate and never come back.’
    Eleanor Duncan said, ‘No.’
    ‘You sure?’
    ‘I am.’
    ‘Then I can’t help you.’
    ‘You helped me already. More than I can say. You broke his nose. I was so happy.’
    Reacher said, ‘You should come with me. You should get the hell out. It’s crazy to stay, talking like that. Feeling like that.’
    ‘I’ll outlast him,’ the woman said. ‘That’s my mission, I think, to outlast them all.’
    Reacher said nothing more. He just looked around the kitchen, at the stuff she would inherit if she succeeded in outlasting them all. There was a lot of stuff, all of it expensive and high quality, a lot of it Italian, some of it German, some of it American. Including a Cadillac key in a glass bowl.
    ‘Is that Seth’s key?’ Reacher asked.
    Eleanor said, ‘Yes, it is.’
    ‘Does he keep his car gassed up?’
    ‘Usually. Why?’
    ‘I’m going to steal it,’ Reacher said.

TWENTY-SIX
    R EACHER SAID, ‘I’ VE GOT AT LEAST AN HOUR ’ S DRIVE AHEAD OF ME . I could use something more comfortable than a truck. And the doctor should keep the truck, anyway. He might need it around here. For his job.’
    Eleanor Duncan said, ‘You won’t get away with it. You’ll be driving a stolen car straight through where the county police are based.’
    ‘They won’t know it’s stolen. Not if Seth doesn’t tell them.’
    ‘But he will.’
    ‘Tell him not to. Tell him if he does, I’ll come back here and break his arms. Tell him to keep quiet and pick it up tomorrow. I’ll leave it somewhere along the way.’
    ‘He won’t listen.’
    ‘He will.’
    ‘He doesn’t listen to anyone.’
    ‘He listens to those two out-of-towners.’
    ‘Because he’s scared of them.’
    ‘He’s scared of me, too. He’s scared of everybody. Believe me, that’s how Seth is.’
    Nobody spoke. Reacher took the Cadillac key from the bowl, and gave the pick-up key to the doctor, and headed for the door.
    Seth Duncan was at his father’s kitchen table, opposite the old man himself, elbow to elbow with his uncle Jonas on one side and his uncle Jasper on the other. The four men were still and subdued, because they weren’t alone in the room. Roberto Cassano was there, leaning on the sink, and Angelo Mancini was there, leaning on the door. Cassano had made a point of smoothing his shirt into the waistband of his pants, even though it was already immaculate, and Mancini had opened his coat and pressed the heels of his hands into the small of his back, as if it was aching from driving, but really both men’s gestures had been designed to show off their pistols in their shoulder holsters. The pistols were Colt Double Eagles. Stainless steel semi-automatics. A matched pair. The Duncans had seen the weapons and gotten the point, and so they were sitting quiet and saying nothing.
    Cassano said, ‘Tell me again. Explain it to me. Convince me. How is this stranger disrupting the shipment?’
    Jacob Duncan said, ‘Do I tell your boss how to run his business?’
    ‘I guess not.’
    ‘Because it’s his business. Presumably it has a thousand subtleties that I don’t fully understand. So I stay well out of it.’
    ‘And Mr Rossi stays well out of your business. Until he gets inconvenienced.’
    ‘He’s welcome to find an alternative source.’
    ‘I’m sure he will. But right now there’s a live contract.’
    ‘We’ll deliver.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘As soon as this stranger is out of our hair.’
    Cassano just shook his head in frustration.
    Mancini said, ‘You guys