Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,77

on his computer. Bad luck for Emmy, good for Charlie.

The black-and-white photo, digitally enhanced, of the arm of a wheelchair, zoomed in to show the American-flag decal on the left armrest. The very wheelchair in which he currently sits.

He crumples the paper into a ball in his hands and squeezes it as if to pulverize it, his whole body quaking with anger.

“I should take you violently,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “I should hold you down by the throat, use my knife to slice you open, and make you watch me all the while, knowing you’ve been defeated, knowing that I defeated you. I should watch your pain, hear your cries and pleas.”

He nods. Yes.

“And only after it’s over would I decapitate you. I would place your head on a spike and drive it into the frontage of the Hoover Building, displaying the slain warrior for all to see, for all to salute.”

He smiles.

“I should violate you first,” he says. “Violate you, let you feel me inside you, doing whatever I please, before I rip your body open. Let you know that I’ve defeated you in every conceivable way.”

He checks the GPS. Emmy’s vehicle is close, only a few blocks from here; she’s on her way home. She’s been spending long nights at the Hoover Building, a change for her recently. She used to stay home to the point of reclusiveness, but now it’s day and night at the office. Why? Did something happen at the office? Did someone tell her she could no longer work from home?

It doesn’t matter anymore.

A car comes toward him down the street, make and model uncertain from the front, the headlights on. The GPS tells him who it is. The vehicle turns into the parking lot next to the apartment building. Emmy is getting home just before midnight, a modern-day Cinderella.

He watches her rush from her car to the front of her apartment building, compensating for the slight hitch in her stride from her injuries, looking about nervously.

She has struggled physically and emotionally. That much was chronicled in that PBS documentary they did on Emmy and the serial killer Graham. Also her recovery from the horrific injuries. The pain meds. The rush to the emergency room—and the corresponding question, asked only a year ago: Did Emmy Dockery try to kill herself?

After tonight, in the days and weeks to come, that documentary will receive thousands, if not millions, of hits online as people ask that question again.

“It’s not fair to either of us,” he says. “You deserve a grander, violent death. And with all you’ve put me through, I deserve to inflict it on you.” He sighs. “But no, Emmy, that won’t do. You’ll have to go out with a whimper. With an overdose, deemed accidental or suicidal. Fading away instead of standing and fighting.”

He reaches down from his wheelchair, picks up the bag, unzips it.

Taser. Plastic bag. Hairpins. The Repressor Ultimate, the handheld UHF transmitter to suppress her security alarm.

“It doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun first,” he says.

77

I REACH into my bag and remove the Glock, a firearm I once swore I would never carry. I drop my work bag quietly on the hallway floor outside my apartment. Put my ear against my apartment door and listen. I hear nothing save for the thumping of my pulse in my temples.

I unlock the door and push it open, stepping back, gun trained inside. The alarm lets out its shrill call. I flip on the nearby lights, then rush over to the kitchen and switch on those lights too, bathing the entire front of my apartment in full-wattage illumination—my heart pounds, but I’m seeing nothing, hearing nothing but that alarm’s cry. Then I flip on the lights in the hallway, poke my head into my bedroom, turn on those lights, rush to my office, flip that switch too, then do the same for the bathroom—

I return to the alarm pad by the door and disable it just before the thirty seconds have expired, just before it would have turned into a full-blaring siren and led to a call from the security company.

I bend over and take a breath. This is my life now—I’m scared to enter my own apartment, and I leave the alarm on until I’ve turned on every light in the place. My own apartment, once my sanctuary, the principal place I did my work, the only place I felt safe, has been stolen from me, first by Dwight Ross, who insisted