Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,28
move away from him, the tears streaming down my face, my body quivering. I remove the engagement ring from my finger and place it on the kitchen counter next to him.
I gather my things and go to the door, crying into my purse, then onto my keys, my hands shaking so hard I can’t even put the strap of my pocketbook over my shoulder.
“Emmy.” Books, his voice flat, drained of emotion. Altogether different than it usually is. I turn to him.
But he is not looking at me. He squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m not supposed to—but I—I can’t not tell you…”
I wipe my face. This is something else entirely.
He lets out a sigh and opens his eyes, but he’s still looking far off, not at me.
“The Bureau thinks someone’s leaking secrets on the Citizen David investigation.”
How would he—why would he—
But it comes to me quickly. Moriarty. The director thinks of Books like a son. Begged him not to leave the Bureau.
“I know,” I manage.
“They—they think it’s you, Emmy.”
I put the strap of my bag over my shoulder. Take one last long look at the man I love.
“I know,” I say, and I walk out the door.
27
I SIT at my desk as dusk falls, as the lights begin to go out on another weekend, trying to do my job, trying to push aside everything else and keep banging away at my search for a serial killer nobody else thinks exists, knee-deep in the irony that this hunt, this project, was so important to me that I was willing to lose Books over it but now I can’t focus on it because all I can do is think of him.
I stare at data. I stare at theories about serial killers scribbled on sheets papering the walls of my home office. I stare at article after article on my computer screen reporting recent deaths that appear to be accidental or natural or suicides.
I stare but I don’t see. The words rush past me like landscape on a highway drive. The only thing that holds my focus, gripping it like a boa constrictor and refusing to let go, is the photo of Books in a simple silver frame on my desk.
He hadn’t wanted me to take the picture. He was unshowered, his hair sticking up, wearing a flannel shirt over sweatpants, and holding a cup of coffee. It was a lazy Sunday morning just like this one had been before it went down in flames like the Hindenburg.
It isn’t fair, I tell myself. If a child was drowning and he asked you to choose between rescuing the child and marrying him, would you let the child die?
No, of course not, I answer myself, anger and bitterness gripping me.
But what if there was a child drowning every day? What if all you did, every waking moment of every day, was save drowning children? Would it be fair to expect him to stick around while you’re wrapped up in your little world, throwing him crumbs of attention only when you can spare a moment?
No, of course not. Tears blur my vision.
Another e-mail lands in my in-box. Another inquiry from a reporter, greedily latching onto the story in today’s New Orleans Times-Picayune that there might be another monster out there eluding detection, and do I have any comment, is this another Graham, has the FBI assembled a task force—
My phone beeps. A text from Dwight Ross telling me to be in his office at noon tomorrow. He saw the article out of New Orleans, of course. It rippled across the internet in hours. This is all he needs. If he wants to run me out of the Bureau, this will be more than enough.
I should care about that.
And then my phone starts buzzing. If it’s Ross, I’m not picking up. He can yell at me tomorrow.
But it’s not. It’s my mother. Right. She would be done with her daily happy hour right about now. This is when she usually calls me, when she’s nursing a slight buzz, when her emotions are most raw, when she misses me, her only living daughter, the one she was never really able to relate to, the odd duck who was so different than her cheerleader-popular-girl twin sister.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetie.” A puffing sound. The faint noise of automobile traffic. She never smokes inside her condo, only on the balcony and usually, these days, only after drinks with her other tanned, retired friends. “And how was your weekend?” she sings.