'What changed?'
'Things I heard. Just snippets. It became clear to me they were shipping people. Even then I thought it was just regular illegals. Like restaurant workers and so on.'
'Until?'
'Until nothing. I never knew for sure, until today. I promise you that. But I was getting more and more suspicious. There was too much money. And too much excitement. They were practically drooling. Even then I didn't believe it. Especially with Seth. I thought he would find that kind of thing totally repulsive, because he had suffered it himself. I didn't want to think it could cut the other way. But I guess it did. I suppose ultimately it was all he knew. And all he ever enjoyed.'
Reacher said, 'I'm no psychologist either.'
'I'm so ashamed,' Eleanor said. 'I'm not going back. They think I am, but I'm not. I can't face them. I can't be there ever again.'
'So what are you going to do?'
'I'm going to give this truck to whoever helps the people in it. Like a donation. Like a bribe. Then I'm going somewhere else. California, maybe.'
'How?'
'I'm going to hitchhike, like you. Then I'm going to start over.'
'Take care on the road. It can be dangerous.'
'I know. But I don't care. I feel like I deserve whatever I get.'
'Don't be too hard on yourself. At least you called the cops.'
She said, 'But they never came.'
Reacher didn't answer.
She said, 'How do you know I called the cops?'
'Because they came,' Reacher said. 'In a manner of speaking. That's the one thing no one ever asked me. No one put two and two together. Everyone knew I was hitchhiking, but no one ever wondered why I had been let out at a crossroads that didn't lead anywhere. Why would a driver stop there? Either he wouldn't have gotten there at all, or he would have carried on south for another sixty miles at least.'
'So who was he?'
'He was a cop,' Reacher said. 'State Police, in an unmarked car. He didn't say so, but it was pretty obvious. Nice enough guy. He picked me up way to the north. Almost in South Dakota. He told me he would have to drop me off in the middle of nowhere, because all he was doing was heading down and back. We didn't talk about reasons, and I didn't know he meant he was going back immediately. But that's what he did. He pulled over, he let me out, and then two seconds later he turned around and took off again, right back the way we had come.'
'Why would he?'
'GPS and politics,' Reacher said. 'That was my first guess. A big state like Nebraska, I figured there could be bitching and moaning about which parts get attention, and which don't. So I thought maybe they were defending themselves in advance. They could come out with still frames from their GPS systems to show they've been everywhere in the state at one time or another. Cop cars all have trackers now, and all that kind of stuff can be subpoenaed if they get called in front of a committee. Then a little later on I changed my mind. I wondered if they'd had a bullshit call from someone, and they knew they weren't going to do anything about it, but they still needed to cover their asses by being able to prove they had showed up, at least. Then later still I wondered if it hadn't been such a bullshit call after all, and whether it was you who had made it.'
'It was me. Four days ago. And it wasn't a bullshit call. I told them everything I was thinking. Why didn't the guy even get out of his car?'
'Prejudice and local knowledge,' Reacher said. 'I bet you mentioned Seth beat you.'
'Well, yes, I did. Because he did.'
'Therefore they ignored everything else you said. They put it down to a wronged wife making stuff up to get her husband in trouble. Cops can be like that sometimes. It ain't right, but that's how it is. And they certainly weren't going to tackle the domestic issue itself. Not against the Duncans. Because of local knowledge. Dorothy Coe told me some neighbourhood kids join the State Police. So either they were asked, or else the story had already gotten around some other way, but in either case the message was the same, which was, in that corner of that county, you can't mess with the Duncans.'
'I don't believe it.'
'You tried,' Reacher said. 'Along with everything else, you have to remember that. You tried to do the right thing.'
They drove on and blew through what counted as the downtown area, past the Chamber of Commerce billboard, past the aluminium coach diner, past the gas station with its Texaco sign and its three service bays, past the hardware store, and the liquor store, and the bank, and the tyre shop and the John Deere dealership and the grocery and the pharmacy, past the water tower, past McNally Street, past the signpost to the hospital, and onward into territory Reacher hadn't seen before. The van's engine muttered low, and the tyres hummed, and from time to time Reacher thought he heard sounds from the load space behind him, people moving around, talking occasionally, even laughing. Beside him Eleanor Duncan concentrated on the dark road ahead, and he watched her in the corner of his eye.
Then an hour and sixty miles later they saw bright vapour lights at the highway cloverleaf, and big green signs pointing west and east. Eleanor slowed and stopped and Reacher got out and waved her away. She used the first ramp, west towards Denver and Salt Lake City, and he walked under the bridge and set up on the eastbound ramp, one foot on the shoulder and one in the traffic lane, and he stuck out his thumb and smiled and tried to look friendly.