Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,48

to recoil at my words, presumably the “David or not” part, as if I’ve committed an act of treason by allowing for the possibility that the bomber might, in fact, be David. I still believe in my heart that this couldn’t have been his work. But apparently I’m going to have to deal with Elizabeth Ashland from now on, and I’m going to need unfettered access to her, so there’s no point in going out of my way to alienate her.

Ashland looks at her phone. “Assistant Director Ross is calling me. I have to take this.” She walks away, leaving me alone in front of the computer.

“Confirmation bias, Rabbit,” I say to her. “A good reminder for me too.” It’s a problem in our line of work. When you have preconceived notions about an outcome, you fit the data in line with that outcome and ignore alternative possibilities. An open mind is critical in data analysis. Rabbit has been doing this a lot longer than I have, so she knows this. But it’s not always easy to remember.

Rabbit rubs her face.

“Hey, girl,” I say, “go home and get some rest. You’ve plugged in all the data to the algorithms. Let it work. You’ve been at this for sixteen hours. You and Pully need to rotate. Go get a few hours’ sleep. Then Pully can sleep.”

“Pully’s been at this as long as I have,” she says.

“Yeah, but Pully’s, like, fifteen years old.” I’m exaggerating by ten years, but Pully is thirty years younger than Rabbit. “And you look like you’re about to fall over, kiddo. So for the first time since we’ve known each other, I’m going to issue an order. Go home and sleep.”

I sign off with Rabbit and find Ashland, who’s typing on her phone. The ASAC, Wilson, reaches her at the same time I do.

“Apparently,” says Wilson, “they can’t find this guy Mayday.”

46

ELIZABETH ASHLAND and I, exhausted to the bone, trudge through the doors of a chain hotel a few blocks away. I don’t care how long you’re in the business or what you’ve witnessed, seeing what we saw today takes its toll.

“Mayday could’ve been one of the homeless in the Horizon Hotel,” Ashland says as the clerk passes her a room key.

“But the cops said he didn’t stay there. So we can hope.” I hand my information over to the hotel clerk. “I’m going to review the surveillance footage tonight.”

“Make sure you sleep a little,” she says, waving her room key. “One thing I’ve learned, you can’t do the job without sleep.”

Same thing I told Rabbit a few hours ago; I hope she took my advice.

Ashland lingers for a moment, looking at me like she’s about to say something else. Our relationship has been going on all of one very long day thus far. It didn’t begin well, and it hasn’t improved much. But we’ve worked intensely alongside a mass grave. We’ve witnessed unspeakable horror. We’ve smelled death. We’ve breathed the oily fire’s remnants, tasted it in our mouths. We share something now.

“Anyway,” she finally says, “see you in a few hours.”

I go to my hotel room and drop my bag. I want to do nothing more than sleep, but I head to the bathroom. It’s the first time I’ve seen myself in a mirror all day, and I’m not a pretty sight; I’ve got soot and grime on my face and caked in my hair. I turn on the shower and scrub my face until it hurts. I shampoo my hair three times, my fingers digging into my scalp. I brush my teeth over and over again and scour my tongue to remove the taste of chemicals and smoke. It takes soap and a towel at the sink before I can finally rid my face of all traces of the oily grunge. At last, I’m back to myself—a road map of scars on my body, red streaks across my face, but myself.

Then I sit down on the toilet and burst into tears, deep, heaving sobs, as if I’m suffering all of the tragedy and horror that those poor victims must have experienced. They were people who needed help, mentally ill or addicted to drugs, people who struggled for basic things that I take for granted. All they wanted was a place to sleep in peace. And for that, they were incinerated and crushed like human garbage.

I wrap my arms around myself, shivering but not from the cold, realizing how desperately I want someone else’s arms around