Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,81
killers or fires or tragedy, but about a strong, gentle, decent, handsome man who always seems to find me, who always makes things right, who makes my heart pound like a drum, who makes me melt when he touches me.
When I crawl out of bed and walk down the hallway, I find him still sleeping, curled up on the couch in his polo shirt and khakis, lightly snoring, oblivious to the stripes of sunlight peeping through the blinds. I feel everything else drain away. I want nothing more than to curl up with him, to give myself to him and let everything else go…
I could. I could walk away from all of this and be with him.
So what are you waiting for?
But I know the answer. I’m waiting until I catch Darwin. And there’ll be another one after him.
Later, dressed and showered, I crouch down next to Books, still in peaceful slumber. “Hey, sleepyhead,” I whisper. His eyes pop open, then he blinks himself awake and sits up, moaning. “I made coffee,” I tell him.
“Morning.” He rubs his eyes. He didn’t get much more sleep than I did, plus he was sleeping on the couch.
I search my refrigerator and freezer. Frozen veggies and some hummus, eggs that should probably be thrown out. “I know I have bread and peanut butter,” I say.
“Hey.”
I turn to him. He’s holding up his phone, his reading glasses perched on his nose.
“The Washington Post,” he says. “Shaindy Eckstein has the headline. ‘Citizen David Not a Suspect in Chicago Bombing.’” He looks at me over his glasses. “That didn’t take long.”
“Does it give up Darwin?” I ask, rushing over to him. “Please tell me—”
“No, doesn’t look like it,” he says, scrolling through the article. “‘Sources close to the investigation say that the bombing was the work of a copycat.’ The rest is just filler from old stories about the bombing.”
“Okay. Nothing about a wheelchair or—”
“Nothing like that at all. Here.”
I sit down next to him and read Shaindy Eckstein’s article. He’s right. The only news is that Citizen David has been ruled out as a suspect.
“Our Elizabeth works fast,” says Books. “It must have happened last night, when I followed her.”
“But we don’t know that,” I say. “She briefed the entire task force about Darwin yesterday. It could have been any of them.”
“Of course she briefed the entire task force,” he says. “She made sure everyone within the Bureau knew first, then she leaked. So the suspicion wouldn’t automatically fall on her. So someone like you or I would say, ‘It could have been any of them.’”
He’s right. Books is in command here, back in his old role as the straitlaced guy who wouldn’t dream of breaking the law himself but who, when on the job, resides comfortably inside the minds of the criminals he chases.
He’ll have his hands full trying to catch Elizabeth, though. Proving she’s the leak. She’s no dummy either. But I have someone different to catch. “I have to go,” I say.
He turns to me, only inches away, and loses his smirk. A moment passes in which I’m certain his face inches ever closer to mine…and mine to his…
“So, anyway.” I clap my hands on my knees and rise from the couch.
“Yeah, right,” he says, like he’s agreeing with the decision I just made, or at least resigned to it.
When I reach the door, he says, “I’ll be back tonight. Let me know when you’re getting home from work. I’ll be here. Don’t thank me.”
Which is what I was about to do. He gets inside my head just like he gets in the heads of those criminals.
“If you find him today,” he says, “let me know. I’m going to be there when we catch him.”
“You’re a bookseller,” I remind him, “on a special, deputized assignment to identify a leak in the Bureau.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“You’re not my protector, Books,” I say, though I can hardly say it with a straight face, given that he’s playing precisely that role at the moment.
“You need someone you can trust,” he says. “And it’s not Elizabeth Ashland.”
81
BOOKS MAKES it back to his town house, the feeling of emptiness already blossoming, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that he’ll see Emmy again tonight. He’s staying with her temporarily for all the right reasons—she truly is at risk, both at home from Darwin and at work from a diabolical superior—even if plenty of wrong reasons have slipped in there too.