05 - Echo Burning by Lee Child

Author:Lee Child
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Texas
ISBN: 9780515143829
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2007-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Hack Walker was packing up for the day. He was on his feet with his jacket on and he was latching his briefcase closed. It was after six o'clock and his office windows were growing dim with dusk. They told him that Eugene was dead and watched the color drain out of his face. His skin literally contracted and puckered under a mask of sweat. He clawed his way around his desk and dumped himself down in his chair. He said nothing for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.

"I guess I always knew," he said. "But I was, you know, hoping."

He turned to look down at the photograph.

"I'm very sorry," Reacher said.

"Do they know why?" Walker asked. "Or who?"

"Not yet."

Walker paused again. "Why did they tell you about it before me?"

"Reacher figured out where they should look," Alice said. "He told them, effectively."

Then she went straight into his two-for-three theory. The deal, the dangerous knowledge. The warning. Walker sat still and listened to it. His color came back, slowly. He stayed quiet, thinking hard. Then he shook his head.

"Can't be right," he said. "Because the deal was really nothing at all. Sloop caved in and undertook to pay the taxes and the penalties. That was all. Nothing more. He got desperate, couldn't stand the jail time. It happens a lot. Al contacted the IRS, made the offer, they didn't bat an eye. It's routine. It was handled at a branch office. By junior-grade personnel. That's how routine it was. The federal prosecutor needed to sign off on it, which is where I came in. I hustled it through, is all, a little faster than it might have gone without me. You know, the old boys' club. It was a routine IRS matter. And believe me, nobody gets killed over a routine IRS matter."

He shook his head again. Then he opened his eyes wide and went very still.

"I want you to leave now," he said.

Alice nodded. "We're very sorry for your loss. We know you were friends."

But Walker just looked confused, like that wasn't what he was worrying about.

"What?" Reacher said.

"We shouldn't talk anymore, is what," Walker said.

"Why not?"

"Because we're going around in a circle, and we're finishing up in a place where we don't want to be."

"We are?"

"Think about it, guys. Nobody gets killed over a routine IRS matter. Or do they? Sloop and Al were fixing to take the trust money away from Carmen and give most of it to the government. Now Sloop and Al are dead. Two plus two makes four. Her motive is getting bigger and better all the time. We keep talking like this, I've got to think conspiracy. Two deaths, not one. No choice, I've got to. And I don't want to do that."

"There was no conspiracy," Reacher said. "If she'd already hired people, why did she pick me up?"

Walker shrugged. "To confuse the issue? Distance herself?"

"Is she that smart?"

"I think she is."

"So prove it. Show us she hired somebody."

"I can't do that."

"Yes, you can.

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