Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,29

lost the only man I’ve ever loved, and my off-the-record investigation is now known to my superiors at the Bureau. Tomorrow’s gonna be even better—that’s when they’ll fire me! Give me another week or two, and I’ll probably be indicted for leaking sensitive information. Other than that, things are great!

“It was fine,” I say.

“Are you still at Harrison’s?”

I’ve never understood why she likes to call him by his first name. “No, I’m home.”

“I don’t know why you don’t just marry him. Or at least move in with him. Don’t you think it’s time you stopped fooling around?”

I touch my face. “You’re right.” The easiest path with my mother is swift surrender.

But she won’t let me surrender. “Listen, kiddo, once you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible. Take it from me.”

Or from Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. My mother’s advice usually comes from old movies or country songs. Next she’s going to tell me that I’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.

I seem to know when to walk away and when to run. Just ask Books.

“I’m serious now, Em. Listen to your mother. It’s time to marry that man before he gets tired of waiting.”

I grip the phone so tightly that if I had any strength right now, it would burst into pieces. “That’s good advice,” I manage.

“Take it from me,” she says, and I know she’s not going to quote some old movie or song. This time, she’s going to speak from personal experience.

“You don’t want to be alone,” she says.

28

BOOKS STRUGGLES to stay alert on the dark, predawn drive to Maryland. He’s normally a morning person, but when you haven’t slept the previous night, when you tossed and turned and paced back and forth and watched snippets of wretched movies and passed your eyes over the latest must-read novel, getting out of bed in the morning feels like starting a ten-mile run after having just completed a marathon.

He can’t focus. He was halfway through his first cup of coffee this morning before he realized he was drinking coffee-flavored hot water, that he had forgotten to put coffee grounds in the coffeemaker.

A cup of coffee without coffee. Books without Emmy.

He parks his vehicle on the curb behind the black SUV with Secret Service agents inside. The kitchen light is on in the imposing brick Victorian. Bill Moriarty is a creature of habit, and apparently nothing has changed since Books left the Bureau. The director still leaves for work at five thirty a.m., and Books would bet his modest pension that right now, Moriarty is having the single cup of coffee he allows himself along with a bowl of cornflakes lightly dusted with a sugar substitute from a blue packet.

Books waves to the agents, including Dez, the director’s head of security, and walks up the cobblestone path to the house. The FBI director, showered and scrubbed and dressed in a suit and tie, greets him at the door.

“Good God, Harry, what happened to you?”

This takes Books back to his first case with the new FBI director. When he told Moriarty that he went by the name Books, the director seemed amused and stuck with Harry for a time. When Moriarty finally started calling him Books, Books felt like he had passed some test.

“Long night,” says Books. “This won’t take long. Hi, Betsy.”

Books waves to the director’s wife, now wheelchair-bound after a stroke five or six years ago that left her brain intact but her legs weakened enough that she cannot reliably walk. Bill built a ground-floor master bedroom and installed an elevator lift on the stairs.

Betsy is up at this ungodly hour because this is probably the only time she sees her husband all day. She waves at Books, then retreats to the kitchen. This is not the first time someone has stopped by at dawn on official business, and she knows enough to withdraw on those occasions.

Bill directs Books to the sitting room, the kind of room that children would not be allowed to play in, with elaborate crown molding on the walls and custom shelving, photos and awards and trophies everywhere. Bill has lived in this house for over thirty years. He has been married to Betsy for over thirty years. He has been in public service for over thirty years. Books feels a twinge of envy for the director’s stability,