Without Fail Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothing.
    “Been nice meeting you,” he said, and moved away.
    “Wait,” she called.
    He turned back.
    “Can we talk?” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
    He nodded. “We could talk in the car. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
    She was still for a second longer, with her eyes locked on his face. Then she moved suddenly and opened the passenger door.
    “Please,” she said. He climbed in and she walked around the hood and climbed in on her side. Started the engine to run the heater, but didn’t go anywhere.
    “I knew your brother very well,” she said. “We dated, Joe and I. More than dated, really. We were pretty serious for a time. Before he died.”
    Reacher said nothing. The woman flushed.
    “Well, obviously before he died,” she said. “Stupid thing to say.”
    She went quiet.
    “When?” Reacher asked.
    “We were together two years. We broke up a year before it happened.”
    Reacher nodded.
    “I’m M. E. Froelich,” she said.
    She left an unspoken question hanging in the air: did he ever mention me? Reacher nodded again, trying to make it like the name meant something. But it didn’t. Never heard of you , he thought. But maybe I wish I had .
    “Emmy?” he said. “Like the television thing?”
    “M. E.,” she said. “I go by my initials.”
    “What are they for?”
    “I won’t tell you that.”
    He paused a beat. “What did Joe call you?”
    “He called me Froelich,” she said.
    He nodded. “Yes, he would.”
    “I still miss him,” she said.
    “Me too, I guess,” Reacher said. “So is this about Joe, or is it about something else?”
    She was still again, for another beat. Then she shook herself, a tiny subliminal quiver, and came back all business.
    “Both,” she said. “Well, mainly something else, really.”
    “Want to tell me what?”
    “I want to hire you for something,” she said. “On a kind of posthumous recommendation from Joe. Because of what he used to say about you. He talked about you, time to time.”
    Reacher nodded. “Hire me for what?”
    Froelich paused again and came up with a tentative smile.
    “I’ve rehearsed this line,” she said. “Couple of times.”
    “So let me hear it.”
    “I want to hire you to assassinate the Vice President of the United States.”

2
    “Good line,” Reacher said. “Interesting proposition.”
    “What’s your answer?” Froelich asked.
    “No,” he said. “Right now I think that’s probably the safest all-around response.”
    She smiled the tentative smile again and picked up her purse.
    “Let me show you some ID,” she said.
    He shook his head.
    “Don’t need it,” he said. “You’re United States Secret Service.”
    She looked at him. “You’re pretty quick.”
    “It’s pretty clear,” he said.
    “Is it?”
    He nodded. Touched his right elbow. It was bruised.
    “Joe worked for them,” he said. “And knowing the way he was, he probably worked pretty hard, and he was a little shy, so anybody he dated was probably in the office, otherwise he would never have met them. Plus, who else except the government keeps two-year-old Suburbans this shiny? And parks next to hydrants? And who else but the Secret Service could track me this efficiently through my banking arrangements?”
    “You’re pretty quick,” she said again.
    “Thank you,” he said back. “But Joe didn’t have anything to do with Vice Presidents. He was in Financial Crimes, not the White House protection detail.”
    She nodded. “We all start out in Financial Crimes. We pay our dues as anticounterfeiting grunts. And he ran anticounterfeiting. And you’re right, we met in the office. But he wouldn’t date me then. He said it wasn’t appropriate. But I was planning on transferring across to the protection detail as soon as I could anyway, and as soon as I did, we started going out.”
    Then she went a little quiet again. Looked down at her purse.
    “And?” Reacher said.
    She looked up. “Something he said one