Tripwire by Lee Child Page B

“No.”
    “But are you happy?”
    “I’m always happy,” he said. “Always was, always will be.”
    “Doing what?”
    He shrugged.
    “Nothing much,” he said.
    He glanced over the top of her head and scanned the faces in the crowd. Subdued busy people, substantial lives, big careers, all of them moving steadily from A to Z. He looked at them and wondered if they were the fools, or if he was. He recalled the expression on Costello’s face.
    “I was just in the Keys,” he said. “Digging swimming pools with a shovel.”
    Her face didn’t change. She tried to squeeze his forearm with her hand, but her hand was too small and his arm was too big. It came out as a gentle pressure from her palm.
    “Costello find you down there?” she asked.
    He didn’t find me to invite me to a funeral, he thought.
    “We need to talk about Costello,” he said.
    “He’s good, isn’t he’?”
    Not good enough, he thought. She moved away to circulate through the crowd. People were waiting to offer their second-layer condolences. They were getting loose from the wine, and the buzz of talk was getting louder and more sentimental. Reacher drifted over to a patio, where a long table with a white cloth held food. He loaded a paper plate with cold chicken and rice and took a glass of water. There was an ancient patio furniture set, ignored by the others because it was all spotted with little gray-green botanical droppings from the trees. The sun umbrella was stiff and faded white. Reacher ducked under it and sat quietly in a dirty chair on his own.
    He watched the crowd as he ate. People were reluctant to leave. The affection for old Leon Garber was palpable. A guy like that generates affection in others, maybe too much to express to his face, so it has to all come out later. Jodie was moving through the crowd, nodding, clasping hands, smiling sadly. Everybody had a tale to tell her, an anecdote about witnessing Garber’s heart of gold peeping out from under his gruff and irascible exterior. He could add a few stories. But he wouldn’t, because Jodie didn’t need it explained to her that her father had been one of the good guys. She knew. She was moving with the serenity of a person who had loved the old guy all her life, and had been loved back. There was nothing she had neglected to tell him, nothing he had neglected to tell her. People live, and then they die, and as long as they do both things properly, there’s nothing much to regret.
    THEY FOUND A place on the same road that was obviously a weekend cottage, closed up tight and unoccupied. They backed the Tahoe around behind the garage where it was hidden from the street, but ready for pursuit. They took the nine-millimeters out of the glove box and stowed them in their jacket pockets. Walked back down to the road and ducked into the undergrowth.
    It was hard going. They were just sixty miles north of Manhattan, but they might as well have been in the jungles of Borneo. There were ragged vines tangled everywhere, grabbing at them, tripping them, whipping their faces and hands. The trees were second-growth native broadleafs, growing wild, basically weeds, and their branches came out of them at crazy low angles. They took to walking backward, forcing their way through. When they got level with the Garber driveway, they were panting and gasping and smeared with moss and green pollen dust. They pushed through onto the property and found a depression in the ground where they were concealed. They ducked left and right to get a view of the pathway leading up from the backyard. People were heading out, getting ready to leave.
    It was becoming obvious which one was Mrs. Jacob. If Hobie was right and this was her place, then she was the thin blond shaking hands and saying good-bye like all these departing people had been her guests. They were leaving, she was staying. She was Mrs. Jacob. They watched her, the center of attention, smiling bravely, embracing, waving. People filed up the