Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,38

the hits number in the thousands and cover all sorts of topics, most of them completely irrelevant. But not all of them. He pulls up articles that bring back memories. He feels a tightness in his neck, a constriction in his brain as he fights them away. Images, not full scenes.

Images of Fergie, the guy behind the desk of the State Park Hotel, the unshaven face, the cigar stub, the clutter everywhere, reminding Mama about the “visitor fee.”

Mama telling him to stay with Fergie, telling him she’d be right back, although he knew it might be hours before she returned, then leaving him in a corner of Fergie’s office, sitting on an overturned milk crate with a small pile of comic books that she’d dug out of a dumpster and a Walkman on which he listened to the local radio stations or, when the reception was bad, the cassette tape of American Fool by John Cougar. Preferring to hear “Hurts So Good” and “Jack and Diane” over Fergie’s comments (“Your ma, she’s a popular lady, know what I mean?”) and recycled jokes (“Know why they call this the State Park Hotel? Because the state parks all its nutcases here”).

Mama, returning, looking different, something gone from her eyes, handing some cash to Fergie, stuffing the rest in her purse, scooping him up, asking him if he was hungry. He was. He was always hungry.

Breathe in, breathe out. Focus on your project.

Three hours pass. A glance at the clone computer shows that Emmy’s still up, still searching through her articles. His own search has narrowed. He has found many candidates, but it must be perfect, it must thread the needle.

He keeps going back to Google Earth, checking street-level views, satellite views, angles and alleys and dimensions and escape routes.

It’s not exciting or sexy work—it never is—but the feeling of homing in on a target brings a rush better than anything else he’s ever felt.

“Yes,” he says, touching the computer screen, petting it. “There you are. I’ve found you.”

This counts as sex for him. And the foreplay—the search and execution and thrill of anticipation—is over. It’s time for the climax. He’ll map out the route tonight and start gathering supplies.

Before the weekend, he’ll be in Chicago.

36

MICHELLE FONTAINE sits on the soft waiting-room couch, three minutes early for her first day. The door pops open and a man rushes in, startling her. He’s wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans and torn leather moccasins, no socks.

“So you’re the newbie,” he says. He takes a clipboard off a cluttered desk and reviews something, then puts it down and fixes his eyes on her. “Michelle?” He extends a hand. “I’m Tom Miller, your co-therapist, I guess you’d say. We’ll share the same patients.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, shaking his hand.

Tom checks his watch, then claps his hands together once. “We have just a few minutes before our first adventure.”

“Our first adventure?”

“Every patient’s an adventure. You know this is mostly a private-pay facility, right?”

“Yeah.”

He raises a shoulder. “Private payers tend to be more demanding. It’s their own money, so they feel like they’re the boss.”

Tom takes her through the first morning at the rehab facility.

There’s Mrs. Persoon, the forty-eight-year-old stroke victim who moves with difficulty, using the walker while Tom braces her, gently prodding her and reminding her about her annual Christmas trip to California to see her children—it’s a good six months away, but that’s her motivation to regain full mobility.

And Mr. Oakley, age seventy-eight, who’s bedridden and struggling to do leg lifts. Tom jokes with him about his sex life. All locker-room, politically incorrect humor.

And Mrs. Coxley, age eighty-two, who broke her hip and is in the early stages of dementia. She doesn’t respond to humor. Tom keeps her animated by asking about her children. “She’ll talk all day about her kids or gardening,” Tom tells Michelle afterward.

Michelle scribbles notes on each patient.

“The older women will be the hardest for you,” Tom tells her between sessions. “They tend to respond better to older men than young women. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is. You just have to be gentle but forceful.” He looks her over. “What are you, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-four,” she says.

“I’m forty,” he says. “I know, it’s hard to believe.” He does a mock GQ-model pose. Tom isn’t bad-looking. He has receding hair that he keeps short on the sides and he doesn’t have much of a chin, but he’s in good physical condition, and his most prominent wrinkles are smile lines