Invisible (Invisible, #1)

by James Patterson

whatever it is that you’re doing to further your goal, you have to sell it. I mean, sell it all the way, from start to finish, go all out, everything you have.

It never gets old. I wish you could feel this rush I’m feeling, the joyous pump of my heart and the electricity that fills my veins, this euphoria that overcomes me. I mean, you get it, don’t you? This isn’t about hate. This is about love.

“That there isn’t a body left to autopsy,” says Sophie.

I am, in a word, a connoisseur.

Question: what is your favorite color? I’ll bet you think my favorite color is red, don’t you? Well, close. It’s purple. Purple is such a twisted, complex color—it conveys the passion of red, the sadness of blue, the depravity of black. Purple is neither happy nor sad. It is pain and despair but longing, too—fiery desire, beaten and bruised but struggling onward, determined to overcome, to move forward rather than retreat.

but I haven’t set you on fire. Now, don’t lose your head over this, Curtis—I will burn you up when this is over. But that’s just so our fun is kept a secret.

What is a lie? It’s a distortion of reality, presented as reality. We say it’s a bad thing. We teach kids not to lie. We even put people in prison for lying. And yet there are lies all around us, and half the time we don’t even really try to disguise it.

Don’t tell the truth if it’s going to hurt someone’s feelings. Those lies are okay, too—desirable, in fact.

Lying is easy, but being good at it is hard.

First: lie no more than you have to.

Second: be no more specific in your lie than is absolutely necessary. The vaguer you are, the more rope you give yourself.

I lied no more than I had to, and I locked myself down as little as possible.

But to be the best, to reach the pinnacle, requires self-denial, sacrifice, discipline, humility, and preparation. You have to hurt yourself, scold yourself, analyze yourself, recognize your weaknesses at the same time you try to eliminate them. And those weaknesses you can’t eliminate must be minimized. You must create a plan that highlights your strengths and hides your flaws. You have to do more than simply want to win. Everybody wants to win, for goodness’ sake. But precious few of us are willing to prepare to win. You must do things that are difficult, unpleasant, painful.

You must do today what nobody else will do, so tomorrow you can accomplish what others can’t.

Why I’m recording these thoughts for you? I’m doing it because you think you know me, but you don’t. You don’t know anybody, really.

You don’t share those thoughts because you’re afraid your extremes will define you, that people will let those little nuggets overpower everything else they know about you, that finely honed image you’ve constructed. So you hide. You put on a mask. But don’t you see? Nobody can really know you unless they know your extremes. If all they know is the gooey, creamy center and not the ragged edges, the outer reaches of your personality, then they have an incomplete picture, a series of snapshots.

“Why stop at second-degree?” She gives a rueful smile. “If it were a third-degree burn, all her nerve cells would have died, and there would be no pain. A large second-degree burn, on the other hand, is a constant source of agony. Have you ever been to a hospital burn unit? That kind of pain will test your sanity and your will to live.”

“I don’t know how you ever discovered this monster or connected these two murders. Whatever you did, I applaud your excellent work. Because these are the closest things to a perfect crime that I’ve ever seen. And they are also, I must say, among the most hideous

“A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.” “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” “People are at their most honest when they are born and when they die.”

I’m a girl standing in a tornado, pretending like it isn’t even windy, like I can compartmentalize every emotion, switch off my heart and divert every ounce of my energy into my brain, that I can be the girl who’s all about the data, all about the clues, all about the puzzle, and forget about anything that makes me human.

It shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t be like this. This isn’t right. This isn’t fair. I’m not what you think I am. But you’ll never understand. You’ll never even try to understand. I’m finished trying to help you understand. I’m done.

Please understand, Mary—please!—that I have no choice, I have no choice but to do this, because no matter how much you might love me back they’ll turn you and make you tell them things about me and I can’t let them do that to you. If I could leave you here I would but I can’t, I don’t have a choice. You see that, don’t you? I don’t have a choice. It’s outside my control.

You won’t love me if you hear what they say. You won’t love me if you know the truth. You never would have, I guess. No, I guess not. Nobody would love me! How could they? How could anyone…now hush, Mary. Hush now. You’re my special Mary, my dear, dear Mary Laney and I’ll always love you and always remember you, and that will have to be enough.

“My point is, freak is in the eye of the beholder, Mary. You’re no freak. You’ve overcome incredible obstacles. You’ll overcome this one, too.”

That’s the life of an addict, I suppose, always on the roller coaster, always living one step from the brink.