Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

in the psychology class.

    I got a refill of coffee and Jacob Mark picked up a packet of sugar and turned it over and over in his fingers so that the powder fell from one end of the paper rectangle to the other, repeatedly, like in an hourglass. I could see his head working like a cop and his heart working like a brother. It was all right there in his face. Dig deeper. It won’t bring her back.
    He asked, ‘What else?’
    ‘There was a passenger who took off before the NYPD got to him.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Just a guy. The cops figured he didn’t want his name in the system. They figured he was maybe cheating on his wife.’
    ‘Possible.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Possible.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Both the feds and the private guys asked me if your sister had handed me anything.’
    ‘What kind of anything?’
    ‘They didn’t specify. I’m guessing something small.’
    ‘Who were the feds?’
    ‘They wouldn’t say.’
    ‘Who were the private guys?’
    I hitched up off the bench and took the business card out my back pocket. Cheap stock, already creased, and already rubbed a little blue from my jeans. New pants, fresh dye. I put it on the table and reversed it and slid it across. Jake read it slowly, maybe twice. Sure and Certain, Inc. Protection, Investigation, Intervention . The telephone number. He took out a cell and dialled. I heard a delay and a chirpy little three-note ding-dong tone and a recorded message. Jake closed his phone and said, ‘Not in service. Phony number.’

THIRTEEN

    I TOOK A SECOND REFILL OF COFFEE. JAKE JUST STARED AT THE waitress like he had never heard of the concept. Eventually she lost interest and moved away. Jake slid the business back to me. I picked it up and put it in my pocket and he said, ‘I don’t like this.’
    I said, ‘I wouldn’t like it, either.’
    ‘We should go back and talk to the NYPD.’
    ‘She killed herself, Jake. That’s the bottom line. That’s all they need to know. They don’t care how or where or why.’
    ‘They should.’
    ‘Maybe so. But they don’t. Would you?’
    ‘Probably not,’ he said. I saw his eyes go blank. Maybe he was re-running old cases in his head. Big houses, leafy roads, lawyers living the high life on their clients’ escrow money, unable to make good, ducking out ahead of shame and scandal and disbarment. Or teachers, with pregnant students. Or family men, with boyfriends in Chelsea or the West Village. The local cops, full of tact and rough sympathy, large and intrusive in the neat quiet dwelling, checking the scenes, establishing the facts, typing reports, closing files, forgetting, moving on to the next thing, not caring how or where or why.
    He said, ‘You got a theory?’
    I said, ‘It’s too early for a theory. All we got so far is facts.’
    ‘What facts?’
    ‘The Pentagon didn’t entirely trust your sister.’
    ‘That’s a hell of a thing to say.’
    ‘She was on a watch list, Jake. She must have been. As soon as her name hit the wires, those feds saddled up. Three of them. That was a procedure.’
    ‘They didn’t stay long.’
    I nodded. ‘Which means they weren’t very suspicious. They were being cautious, that’s all. Maybe they had some small thing on their minds, hut they didn’t really believe it. They came up here to rule it out.’
    ‘What kind of thing?’
    ‘Information,’ I said. ‘That’s all the Human Resources Command has got.’
    ‘They thought she was passing information?’
    ‘They wanted to rule it out.’
    ‘Which means at some point they must have ruled it in.’
    I nodded again. ‘Maybe she was seen in the wrong office, opening the wrong file cabinet. Maybe they figured there was an innocent explanation, but they wanted to be sure. Or maybe something went missing and they didn’t know who to watch, so they were watching them all.’
    ‘What kind of information?’
    ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘Like a copied file?’
    ‘Smaller,’ I said. ‘A folded note, a computer memory.