Jane was looking at the face of Victim Zero, the woman who got away.
The photo of Medea Sommer was from the yearbook of Stanford University, where Medea had been a student twenty-seven years earlier. She’d been a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty with finely sculpted cheekbones and a haunting resemblance to her daughter, Josephine. You were the one Bradley Rose really wanted, thought Jane. The woman he and his partner Jimmy Otto could never catch. So they collected substitutes, women who looked like Medea. But none of their victims was Medea; none could match the original. They kept hunting, kept searching, but Medea and her daughter managed to stay one step ahead of them.
Until San Diego.
A warm hand settled onto her shoulder, and she snapped straight in her chair.
“Wow.” Her husband, Gabriel, laughed. “A good thing you aren’t armed, or you might have just shot me.” He set Regina down on the kitchen floor, and she toddled off to play with her favorite pot lids.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” said Jane. “That was a short trip to the playground.”
“The weather doesn’t look so good out there. It’s going to start raining any minute.” He leaned over her shoulder and saw the photo of Medea. “That’s her? The mother?”
“I tell you, this woman is a real Madam X. There’s not much I can dig up on her except her college records.”
Gabriel sat down and scanned the few documents that Boston PD had been able to gather so far about Medea, and they provided only the barest sketch of a young woman who seemed more shadow than substance. Gabriel slipped on his glasses and sat back to read Medea’s Stanford University records. His horn-rimmed spectacles were new, and they made him look more like a banker than an FBI agent who knew his way around a gun. Even after a year and a half of marriage, Jane had not grown tired of watching him-and admiring him, the way she did now. Despite the thunder rumbling outside, despite the racket in the kitchen where Regina banged pot lids, he focused like a laser on the pages.
Jane went into the kitchen and scooped up Regina, who squirmed, impatient to escape. Won’t you ever be content just to rest quietly in my arms? Jane wondered as she hugged her wriggling daughter, as she breathed in the scents of shampoo and warm baby skin, the sweetest smells in the world. Every day, Jane saw more of herself in Regina, in the girl’s dark eyes and exuberantly curly hair, and in her fierce independence as well. Her daughter was a fighter, and there would be battles between them to come. But as she looked into Regina’s eyes, Jane also knew that theirs was a bond that could never be broken. To keep her daughter safe, Jane would risk anything, endure anything.
Just as Josephine did for her mother.
“This is a puzzling life story,” said Gabriel.
Jane set her daughter down on the floor and looked up at her husband. “Medea’s, you mean?”
“Born and raised in Indio, California. Stellar grades at Stanford University. Then she abruptly drops out in her senior year to have a baby.”
“And soon afterward, they both vanish from the record.”
“And become other people.”
“Repeatedly,” said Jane. She sat down at the table again. “Five name changes, as far as Josephine remembers.”
He pointed to a police report. “This is interesting. In Indio, she filed complaints against both Bradley Rose and Jimmy Otto. They were already engaged in cooperative stalking. Like a wolf pack, moving in on their kill.”
“What’s even more interesting is that Medea abruptly dropped all charges against Bradley Rose and left Indio. And since she didn’t stay to testify against Jimmy Otto, the charges against him never went anywhere.”
“Why would she drop the charges against Bradley?” he asked.
“We’ll never know.”
Gabriel set down the report. “Being the target of stalkers could explain why she’d run and hide. It would make her keep changing her name, just to stay safe.”
“But her own daughter doesn’t remember it that way. Josephine claims Medea was running from the law.” Jane sighed.
“And that leads to another mystery.”
“What?”
“There are no outstanding warrants for Medea Sommer. If she committed any crime, no one seems to know about it.”
The annual neighborhood cookout at the Rizzoli house was a tradition going back nearly twenty years, and neither black clouds nor approaching thunderstorms could derail the event. Every summer, Jane’s father, Frank, would proudly fire up his outdoor grill, slap on steaks and chicken, and assume the role of chef for a day-the only day all year that he wielded a cooking utensil of any kind.
Today, though, it wasn’t Frank but retired detective Vince Korsak who’d assumed the role of barbecue chef, in carnivore nirvana as he flipped steaks, splashing grease on the extra-large apron draped over his generous belly. This was the first time Jane had seen any man but her father in charge of the backyard grill, a reminder that nothing lasted forever, not even her parents’ marriage. A month after Frank Rizzoli had walked out on his wife, Vince Korsak had waltzed in. By the way he assumed control of the grill, he was making it clear to the neighborhood that he was the new man in Angela Rizzoli’s life.
And the new master of the barbecue tongs was not about to abandon his post.
As thunder rumbled and clouds darkened overhead, guests scrambled to bring all the dishes inside before an imminent lightning strike. But Korsak stayed by the grill.
“No way am I gonna let nice little filets like these get ruined,” he said.
Jane looked up as the first raindrops began to fall. “Everyone’s going inside. We could finish those steaks under the broiler.”
“Are you kidding? When you go to all the trouble of buying aged beef and wrapping it in bacon, you gotta cook it right.”
“Even if it means getting hit by lightning?”
“Like I’m scared of lightning?” He laughed. “Hey, I already died once. Another jolt to the chest can’t hurt the ol’ ticker.”
“But that bacon sure will,” she said, watching the grease drip onto the flames. Two years ago, a heart attack had forced Korsak into retirement, but it hadn’t scared him off his butter and beef. And Mom hasn’t helped matters any, thought Jane, glancing at the patio picnic table, where Angela was retrieving the mayonnaise-cloaked potato salad.
Korsak waved as Angela headed inside through the screen door. “Your ma changed my life, you know,” he said. “I was starving to death on that stupid fish-and-salad diet. Then she taught me just to go for the gusto in life.”
“Isn’t that a beer commercial?”
“She’s a real firecracker. Man, ever since we started going out, I can’t believe the things she talks me into! Last night, she got me to try octopus for the first time. Then there was that night we went skinny-dipping-”
“Hold on. I don’t need to hear this.”
“It’s like I’ve been born again. I never thought I’d meet a woman like your ma.” He picked up a steak and flipped it over. Fragrant smoke sizzled up from the grill, and she remembered all the earlier summer meals her father had cooked on that same barbecue. But now it was Korsak who’d proudly carry in the platter of steaks, who’d be uncorking the wine bottles. This is what you gave up, Dad. Is the new girlfriend worth it? Or do you wake up every morning and wonder why the hell you left Mom?
“I tell ya,” said Korsak, “your dad was a moron, letting her go. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me.” He suddenly stopped. “Oh. That was not a sensitive thing to say, was it? I just can’t help myself. I’m so friggin’ happy. ”
Angela came out of the house with a clean platter for the meat. “What are you so happy about, Vince?” she asked.
“Steak,” said Jane.
Her mother laughed. “Oh, does this one have an appetite!” She gave him a provocative bump with her hip. “In more ways than one.”