Because the woman she grew into lived in a different world, where money bought straight teeth and gold crowns. Good luck or hard work or perhaps the attention of the right man had lifted her to far more comfortable circumstances. But the poverty of her childhood was still carved in her bones, in the bowing of her legs, and in the trough in her chest.
There was evidence of pain as well, a catastrophic event that had shattered her left leg and spine, leaving her with two fused vertebrae and a steel rod permanently embedded in her thighbone.
“Judging by her extensive dental work, and by her probable socioeconomic status, this is a woman whose absence would be noted,” said Dr. Isles. “She’s been dead at least two months. Chances are, she’s in the NCIC database.”
“Yeah, her and about a hundred thousand others,” said Korsak.
The FBI’s National Crime Information Center maintained a missing persons file, which could be crosschecked against unidentified remains to produce a list of possible matches.
“We have nothing local?” asked Pepe. “No open missing persons cases that might be a match?”
Rizzoli shook her head. “Not in the state of Massachusetts.”
Exhausted as she was that night, she could not sleep. She got out of bed once to recheck the locks on her door and the latch on the window leading to the fire escape. Then, an hour later, she heard a noise and imagined Warren Hoyt walking up the hallway toward her bedroom, a scalpel in his hand. She grabbed her weapon from the nightstand and dropped to a crouch in the darkness. Drenched in sweat, she waited, gun poised, for the shadow to materialize in her doorway.
She saw nothing, heard nothing, except the drumming of her own heart and the throb of music from a car passing on the street below.
At last she eased into the hallway and switched on the lights.
No intruder.
She moved into the living room, flipped on another light. In one quick glance she saw the door chain was in place, the fire escape window latched tight. She stood gazing at a room that was exactly as she’d left it and thought: I’m losing my mind.
She sank onto the couch, put down her gun, and dropped her head in her hands, wishing she could squeeze all thoughts of Warren Hoyt from her brain. But he was always there, like a tumor that could not be excised, metastasizing into every waking moment of her life. In bed, she had not been thinking of Gail Yeager or the unnamed woman whose bones she had just examined. Nor had she been thinking of Airplane Man, whose file remained on her desk at work, staring at her in silent reproach for her neglect. So many names and reports demanded her attention, but when she lay down at night and stared into the darkness, only Warren Hoyt’s face came to mind.
The phone rang. She snapped straight, her heart battering against her chest. It took her a few breaths to calm down enough to pick up the receiver.
“Rizzoli?” said Thomas Moore. It was not a voice she’d expected to hear, and she was caught off guard by a sudden sense of longing. Only a year ago, she and Moore had worked together as partners during the Surgeon investigation. Though their relationship had never gone beyond that of two colleagues, they had trusted each other with their lives, and in some ways that was a level of intimacy as deep as any marriage could be. Hearing his voice now reminded her how much she missed him. And how much his marriage to Catherine still stung her.
“Hey, Moore,” she said, her casual reply revealing none of these emotions. “What time is it over there?”
“It’s nearly five. I’m sorry for calling you at this hour. I didn’t want Catherine to hear this.”
“It’s okay. I’m still awake.”
A pause. “You’re having trouble sleeping, too.” Not a question but a statement. He knew the same ghost was haunting them both.
“Marquette called you?” she said.
“Yes. I was hoping that by now-”
“There’s nothing. It’s been nearly twenty-four hours, and there hasn’t been a single goddamn sighting.”
“So the trail’s gone cold.”
“The trail was never there to begin with. He kills three people in the O.R., turns into the invisible man, and walks out of the hospital. Fitchburg and State Police canvassed the whole neighborhood, set up roadblocks. His face is all over the evening news. Nothing.”
“There’s one place he’ll be drawn to. One person…”
“Your building’s already staked out. Hoyt goes anywhere near it, we’ve got him.”
There was a long silence. Then Moore said, quietly: “I can’t bring her home. I’m keeping her right here, where I know she’s safe.”
Rizzoli heard fear in his voice, not for himself but for his wife, and she wondered, with a twinge of envy: What would it be like to be loved so deeply?
“Does Catherine know he’s out?” she asked.
“Yes. I had to tell her.”
“How’s she taking it?”
“Better than I am. If anything, she’s trying to calm me down.”
“She’s already faced the worst, Moore. She’s beaten him twice. Proven she’s stronger than he is.”
“She thinks she’s stronger. That’s when things get dangerous.”
“Well, she has you now.” And I have only myself. The way it had always been and probably always would be.
He must have heard the note of weariness in her voice, for he said: “This has got to be hell on you, too.”
“I’m okay.”
“Then you’re handling it better than I am.”
She laughed, a sharp and startling sound that was all bluster. “Like I’ve got time to worry about Hoyt. I’m riding herd on a new task force. We found a body dump over at Stony Brook Reservation.”
“How many victims?”
“Two women, plus a man he killed during the abduction. It’s another bad one, Moore. You know it’s bad when Zucker gives him a nickname. We’re calling this unsub the Dominator.”
“Why the Dominator?”
“It’s what he seems to get off on. The power trip. The absolute control over the husband. Monsters and their sick rituals.”
“It sounds like a replay of last summer.”
Only this time you’re not here to watch my back. You’ve got other priorities.
“Any progress?” he asked.
“Slow. We’ve got multiple jurisdictions involved, multiple players. Newton P.D.‘s on it, and-get this-the friggin’ Bureau’s stepped in.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Some fibbie named Gabriel Dean. Says he’s an adviser, but his hands are all over this case. You ever had that happen before?”
“Never.” A pause. “Something’s not right, Rizzoli.”
“I know.”
“What does Marquette say?”
“He’s rolled over and playing dead, ‘cause OPC’s ordered us to cooperate.”
“What’s Dean’s story?”
“We’re talking tight-lipped here. You know, the if-I-tell-you-then-I’ll-have-to-kill-you kind of guy.” She paused, remembering Dean’s gaze, his eyes as piercing as shards of blue glass. Yes, she could imagine him pulling a trigger without even flinching. “Anyway,” she said, “Warren Hoyt’s not my number one concern right now.”
“But he’s mine,” said Moore.
“If there’s any news, you’ll be the first one I call.”
She hung up, and in the silence the bravado she’d felt, talking to Moore, instantly collapsed. Once again she alone with her fears, sitting in an apartment with the door barred and the windows latched and only a gun to keep her company.
Maybe you’re the best friend I have, she thought. And she picked up the weapon and carried it back to her bedroom.
NINE
“Agent Dean came to see me this morning,” said Lieutenant Marquette. “He has doubts about you.”