Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,13

the sound of harp strings won’t stop. My head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds as I lift it off the pillow and try to bring the clock into focus; strips of sunlight glare at me through the blinds.

I hit Accept. Words come through the receiver. “Hello? Emmy Dockery? Hello?”

I try to speak into the phone, but all that comes out is a gravelly growl. I clear my throat and try again.

“My name is Nadia Jacobius,” she says. “I’m a reporter with the Times-Picayune.”

But…who knows I’m here? I haven’t exactly advertised my visit. I don’t advertise anything about my whereabouts these days.

I blink, give myself a moment to wake up.

“Would you care to comment on your investigation into Nora Connolley’s death? Is this another serial killer you’re chasing?”

“I…don’t talk to reporters,” I manage.

“Don’t hang up. I know you don’t talk to reporters. I get that. But just listen, okay? No harm in listening, is there?”

I can’t fault the logic in that.

“I know you’re here to investigate her death. I know you think this is the work of a serial killer. Let me help you get it out to the world. Shouldn’t the public know that another Graham is on the loose?”

I sit up in bed. Yes, of course, when the time is right, everybody should know about him. When the time is right, I will shout it from the mountaintops. But the time isn’t right. I have no profile of this guy. What can I tell people right now? If you live in a single-story house with easy access from a garage that’s close to public transportation, watch out? It’s too vague, too early. All that will do is tip him off that I’m investigating him. All that will do is risk the lives of other cops. I convinced Joe Halsted to open an investigation into Laura Berg’s death and suddenly he had a heart attack. I can’t let the same thing happen to Robert Crescenzo down here in New Orleans.

“Background only,” I say.

“Okay, background.”

“Hold your story,” I say. “Because there’s nothing to report right now.”

“I have twenty paragraphs already.”

“But no details, I’ll bet. You couldn’t. Because I don’t have any details. You’ll endanger lives.”

“How’s that? How could I possibly be endangering people by telling them there’s a serial killer on the loose?”

I can’t give her more. Not even on background.

“I’m running the story with or without you,” she says. “I’m giving you the chance to control it. Wouldn’t it be—”

“Hold it,” I say, “and I’ll give you an exclusive when there are details to report. When the moment comes, I’ll go to you and you only.”

A pause. She’s considering the hook I’ve thrown her.

“How long are we talking? Weeks? Months?”

“I wish I knew.”

Another pause.

“No chance you’ll tell me anything on the record right now?”

“No chance,” I say. “So do we have a deal?”

A loud exhale through the phone. “No promises,” she says.

14

THE FLIGHT back from New Orleans is nice, if nice includes being in the middle seat in the back row of a packed plane between an overweight lawyer who eats spicy peanuts and spreads colorful legal briefs across his tray and onto mine on one side and an elderly woman who is pleasant enough but begins snoring the moment the airplane takes off and who apparently ate a lot of garlic recently on the other.

I have notes and research in my lap, but my eyes glaze over and I think of Books, our short phone call last night. I lied about my reason for going to New Orleans, and then I lied again last night about the fun I was having with my unnamed college friends.

The guilt, I can handle. I can tell myself that I’m protecting Books by keeping him from worrying about me, that once I have enough to get the Bureau to officially investigate, I’ll explain what I did and why I chose not to tell him.

But it’s not the guilt that swims through my stomach. It’s the feeling that I’m screwing things up with Books, that by withholding anything from him for whatever reason, I’m laying the first bricks in a wall between us. I can justify my actions all I want, but the truth is I am keeping a secret from Books, and it doesn’t matter why.

Lord knows, he deserves better than this, better than me.

A memory: Walking along F Street after work, the air warm and breezy, the two of us side by side, our arms grazing, our conversation pleasant but