08 - The Enemy by Lee Child

Author:Lee Child
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Crimes against
ISBN: 9780440423003
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-09-05T23:00:00+00:00

"You sound like my brother. He wants me to make a plan."

"Everything is going to change."

"They'll always need cops," I said.

"Cops who go AWOL?"

"All we need is a result," I said. "Mrs. Kramer, or Carbone. Or Brubaker, maybe. We've got three bites of the cherry. Three chances."

She said nothing.

"Relax," I said. "We're out of the world for forty-eight hours. Let's enjoy ourselves. Worrying isn't going to get us anywhere. We're in Paris."

She nodded. I watched her face. Watched her try to get past it. Her eyes were expressive in the candlelight. It was like she had troubles in front of her, maybe piled high into stacks, like cartons. I saw her shoulder her way around them, to the quiet place in the back of the closet.

"Drink your wine," I said. "Have fun."

My hand was resting on the table. She reached out and squeezed it and picked up her glass.

"We'll always have North Carolina," she said.

We ordered three courses each off the fixed-price page of the menu. Then we took three hours to eat them. We kept the conversation away from work. We talked about personal things instead. She asked me about my family. I told her a little about Joe, and not much about my mother. She told me about her folks, and her brothers and sisters, and enough cousins that I lost track about who was who. Mostly I watched her face in the candlelight. Her skin had a copper tone mixed behind pure ebony black. Her eyes were like coal. Her jaw was delicate, like fine china. She looked impossibly small and gentle, for a soldier. But then I remembered her sharpshooter badges. More than I had.

"Am I going to meet your mom?" she said.

"If you want to," I said. "But she's very sick."

"Not just a broken leg?"

I shook my head.

"She has cancer," I said.

"Is it bad?"

"As bad as it gets."

Summer nodded. "I figured it had to be something like that. You've been upset ever since you came over here the first time."

"Have I?"

"It's bound to bother you."

I nodded in turn. "More than I thought it would."

"Don't you like her?"

"I like her fine. But, you know, nobody lives forever. Conceptually these things don't come as a surprise."

"I should probably stay away. It wouldn't be appropriate if I came. You should go with Joe. Just the two of you."

"She likes meeting new people."

"She might not be feeling good."

"We should wait and see. Maybe she'll want to go out for lunch."

"How does she look?"

"Terrible," I said.

"Then she won't want to meet new people."

We sat in silence for a spell. Our waiter brought the check. We counted our cash and paid half each and left a decent tip. We held hands all the way back to the hotel. It felt like the obvious thing to do. We were alone together in a sea of troubles, some of them shared, some of them private. The guy with the top hat opened the door for us and wished us bonne nuit. Good night. We rode up in the elevator, side by side, not touching.

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