Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,61
in the living room, feeling like a stranger in my own apartment. This was my refuge, where I lived and where I worked. It was my comfort zone. Now it’s been invaded.
Nice week I’ve had—I’ve lost the man I love and the sanctity of my home. I’m alternating between heartbreak and fear.
Thirty minutes later, Pully walks in and sits down next to me. “Well, you’ve definitely been hacked,” he says. “I can’t tell who or when, but definitely a hack job. Your desktop and your laptop. He cloned them and downloaded everything.” He keeps his voice down, as if he thinks he might be overheard.
“So he has everything I’ve done on my computers, and he can see everything I do?”
“In real time. Yeah. You do a Google search for single white female seeking Ukrainian-midget porn star and he’ll see it. You click on a link for sex-starved thirty-somethings and he’ll know you clicked on it and he’ll see what you see.”
“So if I’m searching for his latest victim, he’ll know it.”
“Yeah.”
“Will he see what I type on a word-processing document?”
“Sure. Everything, girl. If you type I secretly yearn for Pully and his sexual charisma, he’ll be reading right along.”
So he’s basically taken away my personal computers. They’ve become useless.
I push back my hair and look up at the ceiling. Then a spark of an idea, and I turn to him. “Can you trace it back to him? Is there some signal he’s sending that we could trace—”
“No, no, sorry.” He waves his hand, fanning out the flames. “He’s fully encrypted.”
“Are you sure? Isn’t it even worth a shot?”
“Emmy, if we tried, he’d know we were trying. It wouldn’t work, and you’d show your hand.” He pats my knee in a friendly, nonsuggestive way. “You need a new computer, Miss E. One he hasn’t compromised.”
But even if I start using another computer going forward, Darwin knows I’m hunting him. He knows everything I know about him. “Thanks, Pully,” I say as he starts to go. I suppress the urge to ask him to stay, but I dread being here alone. “And, hey—Ukrainian-midget porn stars?”
“Don’t be judgmental. They’re people too.” He points at the door. “We’ll need to update your home security too.”
But…I feel like I’m missing something somehow. The hacking of my computers, however creepy and however much it has set us back…maybe it can provide some kind of opportunity too.
“Hey, Pully,” I say as he reaches for the doorknob. “Hold on a sec. I have an idea.”
59
EVEN SEVERAL days after Chicago, he is still glowing from the triumph.
He’s not given to self-congratulation, but he must admit, it was a work of art—the toppled building, the fiery, smoky graveyard. And he took out more of those worthless drains on society in one weekend than he could have in one year under his old method.
All thanks to Citizen David providing him the perfect cover.
And the next one’s going to be even bigger and better.
The café has few customers as darkness falls, as closing time nears. He sits protected against a wall, his laptop screen visible only to him, looking for all the world like a harmless army vet in a wheelchair enjoying a cup of coffee and a scone while he catches up with the latest news.
He should be spending time on his next project—projects, plural—but he can’t help pulling up news accounts of Chicago. Profiles of some of the dead homeless people. Citizen David, publicly denying involvement on social media. The FBI, tight-lipped but seemingly with no leads. And nary a mention of yet another homeless man, dead not from the bomb but from natural causes a few blocks away, a man known as Mayday.
He opens his clone laptop to monitor Emmy’s nightly work. It’s only just past nine, and Emmy typically works until the wee hours of the morning, but what she’s already begun tonight catches his attention. It’s a Word document entitled “Personal Notes—CD,” her personal observations on Citizen David, that she created months ago and updates regularly.
She’s been quiet since the bombing. He’s been dying to know her reaction, but she hasn’t updated this document, and he admits to himself that a small sliver of worry had begun to creep into his thoughts.
But she’s back at it tonight, and he reads as she types:
The use of the Garfield the Cat watch as the timer in the Chicago explosion points to only one suspect—Citizen David. That detail has never been made public. Only David would know.