Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,115

he was certain it was Elizabeth. He thought he was about to close the loop on the leak investigation, and maybe more. Instead, he’s back to square one.

“But Agent Bookman, I do not owe you or anyone else an apology for what I do with my personal life. I love Betsy dearly and I’ve been very, very good to her. She wants for nothing. She never will. You have no idea what it’s like to love someone who wants to love you back but can’t.”

With that, Books raises his head and looks over at his mentor. Actually, he thinks, I do know what that’s like.

He opens the door and leaves the town car.

117

I STARE at the computer screen, at the vehicle registration of the one car whose license plate was captured at all three bombing sites: the bank in Seymour, Connecticut, accused of racial discrimination in lending; the fast-food restaurant in Pinellas Park, Florida, its parent company accused of animal cruelty; the city hall in Blount County, Alabama, that wouldn’t marry same-sex couples.

A license plate that was scrubbed from the bulk data, deleted forever, so that when Rabbit organized and collated it, we’d never see it.

My phone buzzes. Books. I reach for the phone, but my hand is shaking so hard I don’t think I can lift it. The buzzing stops. My phone beeps a minute later with a voice mail. Without lifting the phone, I push the button to listen to the message.

“Emmy, it’s not Elizabeth Ashland. She’s not the mole.”

I know she isn’t.

“She’s having an affair with Director Moriarty. They’ve been meeting at the Payton Club. He’s been paying her cash so she can put everything on her credit cards and he can hide the bills from Betsy.”

My brain is telling me this is a wow moment, but I’m not wowed. I couldn’t care less about Elizabeth Ashland right now. Though this must be what she meant when she was talking about her complicated love life on the airplane.

Books isn’t done, but I get the point. I turn off the phone when Bonita Sexton comes rushing down the aisle. “Okay, what’s up?” she says. “What happened?”

“Hey, Rabbit.” I gesture to my computer. “Somebody hacked into the bulk data for the Citizen David investigation.”

“What? Somebody messed with my data?”

I nod. “I re-created the file,” I tell her. “From the original data.”

“You did?” she says. “That’s my job.”

I throw up my hands. “Well, Rabbit, what can I say? I did it.” My eyes are blurry with tears.

“Well, okay, then. Let me run it for a compatibility anal—”

“I did that too,” I say. “See for yourself.” I nod toward the computer screen. She turns and looks at the license registration I pulled up.

“No,” she says.

I stand and leave my cubicle, not feeling my legs, moving as if I’m floating. I reach Rabbit’s cubicle and pick up the framed photographs, joined together, of her boys, Mason and Jordan. I hear her come up behind me.

“Jordan, I assume—it was when you were in New Haven visiting him,” I say. “Not that hard to drive over to Seymour and blow up that bank. Mason? In Tampa? Pinellas Park isn’t too far away. Plant a bomb at the fast-food restaurant and make the chain pay for being cruel to the chickens that are in its sandwiches.”

Rabbit doesn’t say anything. I can hear her heavy breathing, nothing more.

“The city hall in Alabama? That one would have been harder. But by then,” I say, turning to her, “you knew you were in charge of the data for the Citizen David investigation. You didn’t need to be careful anymore. You could just scrub yourself out of the data.”

Her eyes are cast down; her chest is heaving.

“What about Chicago?” I say. “Was that—”

“Chicago wasn’t me, and you know it,” she hisses. “I never killed a single person. I never would have. That’s why it made me…” She shakes her head.

“That’s why the Chicago bombing sickened you so much,” I finish. “Because someone was taking your crusade and bastardizing it, bombing people you genuinely care about.” I remember now how upset Rabbit was after Chicago, how personally she took it. I hadn’t realized how personal it was to her.

Rabbit lets out a big sigh. She’s relieved, probably, in a weird way. How this must have weighed on her.

“If you’re waiting for an apology,” she says, “you aren’t going to get one. Everyone I hit had it coming. Banks that deny loans to black and brown people? Screw them. Restaurant chains