The Affair by Lee Child Page B

first a sheriff’s daughter and then a sheriff herself.
    “OK,” I said. “Five minutes.”
    She wound up her window again and reversed away and turned around, in a slower version of the same maneuver the two guys in the truck had used. She switched her headlights back on and drove away. I saw her brake lights flare red and she turned into Main Street. I followed on foot, in the weeds, between the pavement and the ditch.
*   *   *
    I got to the diner well inside the five minutes I had been given and found Elizabeth Deveraux’s cruiser parked at the curb outside. She herself was at the same table I had used. The old couple from the hotel had finally decamped. The place was empty apart from Deveraux and the waitress.
    I went in and Deveraux said nothing specific but used one foot under the table to shove the facing chair out a little. An invitation. Almost a command. The waitress got the message. She didn’t try to seat me elsewhere. Clearly Deveraux had already ordered. I asked the waitress for a slice of her best pie and another cup of coffee. She went through to the kitchen and silence claimed the room.
    Up close and personal I was prepared to concede that Elizabeth Deveraux was a seriously good looking woman. Truly beautiful. Out of the car she was relatively tall, and her hair was amazing. There must have been five pounds of it in her ponytail alone. She had all the right parts in all the right proportions. She looked great in her uniform. But then, I liked women in uniform, possibly because I had known very few of the other kind. But best of all was her mouth. And her eyes. Together they put a kind of wry, amused animation into her face, as if whatever happened to her she would stay cool and calm and collected through it all, and then she would find some quality in it to make her smile. There was still light in her eyes. Not just a reflection from the Caprice’s speedometer.
    She said, “Pellegrino told me you’ve been in the army.”
    I paused a beat. Undercover work is all about lying, and I hadn’t minded lying to Pellegrino. But for some unknown reason I found myself not wanting to lie to Deveraux. So I said, “Six weeks ago I was in the army,” which was technically true.
    “What branch?”
    “I was with an outfit called the 110th, mostly,” I said. Also true.
    “Infantry?”
    “It was a special unit. Combined operations, basically.” Which was true, technically.
    “Who’s your local friend?”
    “A guy called Hayder,” I said. An outright invention.
    Deveraux said, “He must have been infantry. Kelham is all infantry.”
    I nodded.
    “The 75th Ranger Regiment,” I said.
    “Was he an instructor?” she asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    She nodded. “They’re the only ones who are here long enough to want to stick around afterward.”
    I said nothing.
    She said, “I’ve never heard of him.”
    “Then maybe he moved on again.”
    “When might he have done that?”
    “I’m not sure. How long have you been sheriff?”
    “Two years,” she said. “Long enough to get to know the locals, anyway.”
    “Pellegrino said you’d been here all your life. I mean, as far as getting to know the locals is concerned.”
    “Not true,” she said. “I haven’t been here all my life. I was here as a kid, and I’m here now. But there were years in between.”
    There was something wistful about her tone. There were years in between . I asked her, “How did you spend those years?”
    “I had a rich uncle,” she said. “I toured the world at his expense.”
    And at that point I suspected I was in trouble. At that point I suspected my mission was about to fail. Because I had heard that answer before.

Chapter
    12
    The waitress brought out Elizabeth Deveraux’s main course and my dessert both together. Deveraux had ordered the same thing I had eaten, the fat cheeseburger and the squirrel’s nest of fries. My pie was peach and the slice I got was about half the size of a Major League home plate. It