Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,10

why only owners of single-story homes?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.”

Sergeant Robert Crescenzo looks at the house, mulling it over. Probably considering his huge backlog of cases and knowing how little time he has for a wild-goose chase.

“Let me think about it,” he says.

10

FOLLOWING A late dinner at a place down the street, Books returns to the closed store and spends hours balancing the ledgers, switching out inventory, reviewing catalogs, tallying up the day’s receipts. These are the more tedious aspects of owning a business, but he dives into them, hoping to lose himself in the details.

Trying not to focus on what’s coming next tonight.

He kills the lights in the front of the store and heads into the inventory room.

In the corner, his homeless friend Petty is curled up on a sofa that Books moved here from his house, a duffel bag holding all his possessions resting next to him. He’s reading The Art of War.

“I’m out, Sergeant Petty,” he says. He doesn’t know much about Petty other than that he reached the rank of gunnery sergeant serving two tours of duty in Desert Storm. He doesn’t even know his first name. Name’s Petty. Sergeant Petty, the man said the first time they met, on a cold winter day about six months ago. He’d been sitting outside the store, and Books had bent down to talk with him. Petty’s eyes glaze over whenever he gets into any kind of detail about his service overseas, when he talks about the blazing heat or the pressure or the heavy weight of fear, so Books never pushes it.

“Yes, sir, Agent Bookman.” Petty looks over his reading glasses—cheap ones, cheaters from Walgreens—and gives a grateful nod. Books told him long ago to stop thanking him for letting him sleep here, that Petty was doing Books a favor by watching over the store a few nights a week. They both pretended to believe that that was true.

“The Art of War, eh?” he says to Petty. “‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?”

Petty makes a noise, something like a chuckle. He’s wearing his army jacket over a blue T-shirt advertising some street festival. He looks down at his book. “‘He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not will be victorious.’ Yeah, this guy Sun Tzu’s got some good lines.”

But the way Petty says it, with a touch of disdain in his voice, you can tell that for him, they are only lines, just words on paper, that he knows it’s different when you’re the one in the war, weapon in hand, awaiting an enemy who will kill you without hesitation.

Books feels a pang of sympathy for Petty in moments like this, when he sees a trace of the man’s lucidity. He’s a smart man who should have been able to make it out in the world, but something must have broken inside him while he was overseas, and it prevented him from rejoining society in any constructive way. Something had been disconnected or had died.

“See you in the morning,” Petty says to Books, as if he senses his pity and doesn’t want it. “I’m good here.”

Good is probably not the right word, but he has a comfortable, warm, safe place to sleep and a clean bathroom. It’s all relative.

Books leaves out the back door and starts up his car, wishing he could do more for Petty. He took him to a mental-health clinic a couple of times, but Petty wouldn’t stay. He’s taken him to job fairs; he even tried to put him to work in the store, not with customers but with inventory in the back room—something, anything to give him a sense of purpose and a few bucks in his pocket—but it just didn’t stick. Petty, for some reason that Books will never fully understand and that Petty will never share with him, is destined to live on the street. He has gratefully accepted the offer to sleep inside a few times a week, and, yes, he appreciates the coffee, but he won’t take anything else.

Traffic is light this time of night. Alexandria is dark and sleepy and the highway’s nearly empty, so the entire trip takes less than twenty minutes. Books pulls his car up to the curb and kills the engine. When he does, four men emerge from the car in front of him, getting out almost in sync.

The guy who came from the back seat on the driver’s side