Джеймс Паттерсон: Unsolved

“And what was injected? What did the tox screens reveal?”

I let out a breath. “I can’t get anybody to investigate. Because each of the cases in isolation looks like Nora’s case. The easy explanation is the one the police choose. I don’t blame them,” I say, registering the look on Robert’s face. “It makes sense. But you start putting all these together, and there’s a pattern.”

“Okay, so investigate it yourself,” he says. “You’re the FBI. You can cross state lines.”

I do one of those double-blinks Robert has perfected.

“Oh.” He steps back from me. “Your own agency won’t green-light this.”

“That’s correct, Sergeant.”

“But I should, huh?”

“Yes,” I say, trying to control my frustration. “You should. Because it’s the right thing to do. Just do a preliminary look, Robert. What’s the harm? Check her credit cards. Find out if she went out that day. See if she ate dinner that evening. Do a tox screen and find out what was injected into her body.”

The sergeant chews on his lip.

“I think he knew all about her from researching her online,” I say. “He knew she had a single-story. He knew the interior. He knew her habits. So he traveled here and followed her during the day. He subdued her. Then he drove her back in her own car and forgot to readjust the car seat. He dragged her through wet grass and had to clean up the patio afterward. He slammed her head against the tub to make her death look like an accident. And then he left and took the bus back to wherever his car was.” I nod. “Yes. I think all of that. And he’s counting on you saying, ‘That’s going to an awful lot of trouble,’ or ‘That’s a real stretch, Emmy.’ He’s counting on local cops seeing nothing amiss and moving on.”

“And why is he killing these people? And why only owners of single-story homes?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.”

Sergeant Robert Crescenzo looks at the house, mulling it over. Probably considering his huge backlog of cases and knowing how little time he has for a wild-goose chase.

“Let me think about it,” he says.

10

FOLLOWING A late dinner at a place down the street, Books returns to the closed store and spends hours balancing the ledgers, switching out inventory, reviewing catalogs, tallying up the day’s receipts. These are the more tedious aspects of owning a business, but he dives into them, hoping to lose himself in the details.

Trying not to focus on what’s coming next tonight.

He kills the lights in the front of the store and heads into the inventory room.

In the corner, his homeless friend Petty is curled up on a sofa that Books moved here from his house, a duffel bag holding all his possessions resting next to him. He’s reading The Art of War .

“I’m out, Sergeant Petty,” he says. He doesn’t know much about Petty other than that he reached the rank of gunnery sergeant serving two tours of duty in Desert Storm. He doesn’t even know his first name. Name’s Petty. Sergeant Petty, the man said the first time they met, on a cold winter day about six months ago. He’d been sitting outside the store, and Books had bent down to talk with him. Petty’s eyes glaze over whenever he gets into any kind of detail about his service overseas, when he talks about the blazing heat or the pressure or the heavy weight of fear, so Books never pushes it.

“Yes, sir, Agent Bookman.” Petty looks over his reading glasses—cheap ones, cheaters from Walgreens—and gives a grateful nod. Books told him long ago to stop thanking him for letting him sleep here, that Petty was doing Books a favor by watching over the store a few nights a week. They both pretended to believe that that was true.

“ The Art of War, eh?” he says to Petty. “‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?”

Petty makes a noise, something like a chuckle. He’s wearing his army jacket over a blue T-shirt advertising some street festival. He looks down at his book. “‘He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not will be victorious.’ Yeah, this guy Sun Tzu’s got some good lines.”

But the way Petty says it, with a touch of disdain in his voice, you can tell that for him, they are only lines, just words on paper, that he knows it’s different when you’re the one in the war, weapon in hand, awaiting an enemy who will kill you without hesitation.

Books feels a pang of sympathy for Petty in moments like this, when he sees a trace of the man’s lucidity. He’s a smart man who should have been able to make it out in the world, but something must have broken inside him while he was overseas, and it prevented him from rejoining society in any constructive way. Something had been disconnected or had died.

“See you in the morning,” Petty says to Books, as if he senses his pity and doesn’t want it. “I’m good here.”

Good is probably not the right word, but he has a comfortable, warm, safe place to sleep and a clean bathroom. It’s all relative.

Books leaves out the back door and starts up his car, wishing he could do more for Petty. He took him to a mental-health clinic a couple of times, but Petty wouldn’t stay. He’s taken him to job fairs; he even tried to put him to work in the store, not with customers but with inventory in the back room—something, anything to give him a sense of purpose and a few bucks in his pocket—but it just didn’t stick. Petty, for some reason that Books will never fully understand and that Petty will never share with him, is destined to live on the street. He has gratefully accepted the offer to sleep inside a few times a week, and, yes, he appreciates the coffee, but he won’t take anything else.

Traffic is light this time of night. Alexandria is dark and sleepy and the highway’s nearly empty, so the entire trip takes less than twenty minutes. Books pulls his car up to the curb and kills the engine. When he does, four men emerge from the car in front of him, getting out almost in sync.

The guy who came from the back seat on the driver’s side is the leader, Special Agent Lee Homer from the FBI’s tactical operations unit at Quantico.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Homer says.

Books hadn’t been sure either until he drove here. He is filled with dread; his stomach has been in knots all day, and he’s had a throbbing pain in his shoulders since he woke up this morning. When he was an agent, he’d had to make some tough decisions, do some things that felt wrong, but he’d always told himself he was doing it for the greater good. What he’s about to do now—he’s not so sure there’s a greater good behind it.

This may be the worst thing he’s ever done. And it may change his life forever.

Special Agent Homer hands Books a Kevlar vest. Books doesn’t bother to protest.

“Let’s get this over with,” Books says.

11

A QUIET residential street in Lincolnia, Virginia, at midnight. The brick three-story condo building fits right in. The perfunctory waist-high metal gate, unlocked, is more for delineating boundaries than for security. The front door of the building, however, is a security door that you can access only if you’re buzzed in or have a key.

Books has a key. His stomach churning, he slips the key into the lock. I can’t believe I’m doing this, he thinks as he pushes the door open.

Agents of the FBI’s tactical operations unit file in, one after the other, and take the stairs to the second floor, Books following.

Faintly, from above, there is music, probably on the third floor. Someone is still awake at this hour. Not terribly surprising.

The team members step noiselessly down the hallway. They appear to be walking casually, as if there is nothing unusual about their presence here, but Books knows they are moving on the balls of their feet, minimizing the sound of their footfalls. Anyone who is sleeping will not be awakened. Anyone who sneaks a glance through a peephole—well, that person might have some questions.