No, no, no!
Panic seized her. Arms flailing, she hit barriers in every direction. She clawed at the wood, splinters digging into her fingers. Heard shrieks but did not recognize her own voice. Everywhere, walls. She bucked, thrashed, her fists pummeling blindly until her hands were bruised and torn, her limbs too exhausted to move. Slowly her shrieks faded to sobs. Finally, to stunned silence.
A box. I am trapped in a box.
She took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of her own sweat, her own fear. Felt the baby squirm inside her, another prisoner trapped in a small space. She thought of the Russian dolls her grandmother had once given her. A doll inside a doll inside a doll.
We’re going to die in here. We’re both going to die, my baby and me.
Closing her eyes, she fought back a fresh wave of panic. Stop. Stop this right now. Think, Mattie.
Hand trembling, she reached toward her right side, touched one wall. Reached to her left. Touched another wall. How far apart was that? Maybe three feet wide, maybe more. And how long? She reached behind her head and felt a foot of space. Not so bad in that direction. A little room there. Her fingers brushed against something soft, just behind her head. She tugged it closer and realized it was a blanket. As she unrolled it, something heavy thudded onto the floor. A cold metal cylinder. Her heart was pounding again, this time not with panic, but with hope.
A flashlight.
She found the switch and flicked it on. Released a sharp breath of relief as a beam of light slashed the darkness. I can see, I can see! The beam skimmed across the walls of her prison. She aimed it toward the ceiling and saw there was barely enough head room for her to sit up, if she kept her head cocked.
Big-bellied and clumsy, she had to squirm to push herself up to a sitting position. Only then could she see what was at her feet: a plastic bucket and a bed pan. Two large jugs of water. A grocery sack. She wriggled toward the sack and looked inside. That’s why I smelled chocolate, she thought. Inside were Hershey bars, packets of beef jerky, and saltine crackers. And batteries—three packages of fresh batteries.
She leaned back against the wall. Heard herself suddenly laugh. A crazy, frightening laugh that wasn’t hers at all. It was a madwoman’s. Well, this is dandy. I have everything I need to survive except …
Air.
Her laughter died. She sat listening to the sound of her own breathing. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. Cleansing breaths. But oxygen runs out eventually. A box can hold only so much. Didn’t it already seem staler? Plus she had panicked—all that thrashing around. She had probably used up most of the oxygen.
Then she felt the cool whisper in her hair. She looked up. Aiming the flashlight just over her head, she saw the circular grate. It was only a few inches in diameter, but wide enough to bring in fresh air from above. She stared at that grate, bewildered. I am trapped in a box, she thought. I have food, water, and air.
Whoever had put her in here wanted to keep her alive.
NINE
Rick Ballard had told her that Dr. Charles Cassell was wealthy, but Jane Rizzoli had not expected this. The Marblehead estate was surrounded by a high brick wall, and through the bars of the wrought-iron gate, she and Frost could see the house, a massive white Federal surrounded by at least two acres of emerald lawn. Beyond it glittered the waters of Massachusetts Bay.
“Wow,” said Frost. “This is all from pharmaceuticals?”
“He started off by marketing a single weight-loss drug,” said Rizzoli. “Within twenty years, he built up to that. Ballard says this is not the kind of guy you ever want to cross.” She looked at Frost. “And if you’re a woman, you sure as hell don’t leave him.”
She rolled down her window and pushed the intercom button.
A man’s voice crackled over the speaker: “Name, please?”
“Detectives Rizzoli and Frost, Boston PD. Here to see Dr. Cassell.”
The gate whined open, and they drove through, onto a winding driveway that brought them to a stately portico. She parked behind a fire-engine-red Ferrari—probably the closest her old Subaru would ever get to celebrity cardom. The front door swung open even before they could knock, and a burly man appeared, his gaze neither friendly nor unfriendly. Though dressed in a polo shirt and tan Dockers, there was nothing casual about the way this man was eyeing them.
“I’m Paul, Dr. Cassell’s assistant,” he said.
“Detective Rizzoli.” She held out her hand, but the man did not even glance at it, as though it was not worth his attention.
Paul ushered them into a house that was not at all what Rizzoli had expected. Though the exterior had been traditional Federal, inside she found the decor starkly modern, even cold, a white-walled gallery of abstract art. The foyer was dominated by a bronze sculpture of intertwining curves, vaguely sexual.
“You do know that Dr. Cassell just got home from a trip last night,” said Paul. “He’s jet-lagged and not feeling well. So if you could keep it short.”
“He was away on business?” said Frost.
“Yes. It was arranged over a month ago, in case you’re wondering.”
Which didn’t mean a thing, thought Rizzoli, except that Cassell was capable of planning his moves ahead of time.
Paul led them through a living room decorated in black and white, with only a single scarlet vase to shock the eye. A flat-screen TV dominated one wall, and a smoked-glass cabinet contained a dazzling array of electronics. A bachelor’s dream pad, thought Rizzoli. Not a single feminine touch, just guy stuff. She could hear music and she assumed it was a CD playing. Jazz piano chords melted together in a mournful walk down the keys. There was no melody, no song, just notes blending in wordless lament. The music grew louder as Paul led them toward a set of sliding doors. He opened them, and announced:
“The police are here, Dr. Cassell.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you like me to stay?”
“No, Paul, you can leave us.”
Rizzoli and Frost stepped into the room, and Paul slid the doors shut behind them. They found themselves in a space so gloomy that they could barely make out the man seated at the grand piano. So it had been live music, not a CD playing. Heavy curtains were drawn over the window, blocking out all but a sliver of daylight. Cassell reached toward a lamp and switched it on. It was only a dim globe shaded by Japanese rice paper, but it made him squint. A glass of what looked like whiskey sat on the piano beside him. He was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot—not the face of a cold corporate shark, but of a man too distraught to care what he looked like. Even so, it was an arrestingly handsome face, with a gaze so intense it seemed to burn its way into Rizzoli’s brain. He was younger than she had expected a self-made mogul to be, perhaps in his late forties. Still young enough to believe in his own invincibility.
“Dr. Cassell,” she said, “I’m Detective Rizzoli, Boston PD. And this is Detective Frost. You do understand why we’re here?”
“Because he sicced you on me. Didn’t he?”
“Who?”
“That Detective Ballard. He’s like a goddamn pit bull.”
“We’re here because you knew Anna Leoni. The victim.”
He reached for his glass of whiskey. Judging by his haggard appearance, it was not his first drink of the day. “Let me tell you something about Detective Ballard, before you go believing everything he says. The man is a genuine, class-A asshole.” He downed the rest of his drink in a single gulp.
She thought of Anna Leoni, her eye swollen shut, her cheek bruised purple. I think we know who the real asshole is.
Cassell set the empty glass down. “Tell me how it happened,” he said. “I need to know.”
“We have a few questions, Dr. Cassell.”
“First tell me what happened.”
This is why he agreed to see us, she thought. He wants information. He wants to gauge how much we know.
“I understand it was a gunshot wound to the head,” he said. “And she was found in a car?”
<
br /> “That’s right.”
“That much I already learned from The Boston Globe. What kind of weapon was used? What caliber bullet?”
“You know I can’t reveal that.”
“And it happened in Brookline? What the hell was she doing there?”
“That I can’t tell you, either.”
“Can’t tell me?” He looked at her. “Or you don’t know?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was anyone with her when it happened?”
“There were no other victims.”
“So who are your suspects? Aside from me?”
“We’re here to ask you the questions, Dr. Cassell.”
He rose unsteadily to his feet and crossed to a cabinet. Took out a bottle of whiskey and refreshed his glass. Pointedly he did not offer his visitors a drink.
“Why don’t I just answer the one question you came to ask,” he said, settling back onto the piano bench. “No, I did not kill her. I haven’t even seen her in months.”
Frost asked: “When was the last time you saw Ms. Leoni?”
“It would have been sometime in March, I think. I drove by her house one afternoon. She was out on the sidewalk, getting her mail.”
“Wasn’t that after she took out the restraining order against you?”
“I didn’t get out of my car, okay? I didn’t even speak to her. She saw me and went right into the house without saying a word.”
“So what was the point of that drive-by?” said Rizzoli. “Intimidation?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I just wanted to see her, that’s all. I missed her. I still …” He paused and cleared his throat. “I still miss her.”
Now he’s going to say that he loved her.
“I loved her,” he said. “Why would I hurt her?”
As if they’d never heard a man say that before.
“Besides, how could I? I didn’t know where she was. After she moved, that last time, I couldn’t find her.”
“But you tried?”
“Yes, I tried.”
“Did you know she was living in Maine?” asked Frost.
A pause. He looked up, frowning. “Where in Maine?”
“A little town called Fox Harbor.”
“No, I didn’t know that. I assumed she was somewhere in Boston.”
“Dr. Cassell,” said Rizzoli, “where were you last Thursday night?”
“I was here, at home.”
“All night?”
“From five P.M. on. I was packing for my trip.”
“Can anyone verify that you were here?”
“No. Paul had the night off. I freely admit I have no alibi. It was just me here, alone with my piano.” He banged the keyboard, playing a dissonant chord. “I flew out the next morning. Northwest Airlines, if you want to check.”
“We will.”
“The reservations were made six weeks ago. I had meetings already planned.”
“That’s what your assistant told us.”
“Did he? Well, it’s true.”
“Do you keep a gun?” asked Rizzoli.
Cassell went very still, his dark eyes searching hers. “Do you honestly think I did it?”
“Could you answer the question?”
“No, I do not have a gun. Not a pistol or a rifle or a pop-gun. And I didn’t kill her. I didn’t do half the things she accused me of.”
“Are you saying she lied to the police?”
“I’m saying she exaggerated.”
“We’ve seen the photo of her taken in the ER, the night you gave her a black eye. Did she exaggerate that charge as well?”
His gaze dropped, as though he could not bear her accusatory look. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t deny hitting her. I regret it. But I don’t deny it.”
“What about repeatedly driving past her house? Hiring a private detective to follow her? Showing up on her doorstep, demanding to speak to her?”
“She wouldn’t answer any of my calls. What was I supposed to do?”
“Take a hint, maybe?”
“I don’t sit back and just let things happen to me, Detective. I never have. That’s why I own this house, with that view out there. If I really want something, I work hard for it. And then I hold on to it. I wasn’t going to just let her walk out of my life.”
“What was Anna to you, exactly? Just another possession?”
“Not a possession.” He met her gaze, his eyes naked with loss. “Anna Leoni was the love of my life.”
His answer took Rizzoli aback. That simple statement, said so quietly, had the honest ring of truth to it.
“I understand you were together for three years,” she said.
He nodded. “She was a microbiologist, working in my research division. That’s how we met. One day she walked into a board meeting to give us an update on antibiotic trials. I took one look at her, and I thought: She’s the one. Do you know what it’s like, to love someone so much, and then watch them walk away from you?”
“Why did she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have an idea.”
“I don’t. Look at what she had here! This house, anything she wanted. I don’t think I’m ugly. Any woman would’ve been thrilled to be with me.”
“Until you started hitting her.”
A silence.
“How often did that happen, Dr. Cassell?”
He sighed. “I have a stressful job …”
“Is that your explanation? You slapped your girlfriend because you had a hard day at the office?”
He did not answer. Instead he reached for his glass. And that, no doubt, was part of the problem, she thought. Mix a hard-driving executive with too much booze, and you get a girlfriend with black eyes.
He set the glass down again. “I just wanted her to come home.”
“And your way of convincing her was to cram death threats in her door?”
“I didn’t do that.”
“She filed multiple complaints with the police.”
“Never happened.”
“Detective Ballard says it did.”
Cassell gave a snort. “That moron believed everything she told him. He likes playing Sir Galahad, it makes him feel important. Did you know he showed up here once, and told me that if I ever touched her again, he’d beat the shit out of me. I think that’s pretty pitiful.”
“She claimed you slashed her window screens.”
“I didn’t.”
“Are you saying she did it herself?”
“I’m just saying I didn’t.”
“Did you scratch her car?”
“What?”
“Did you mark up her car door?”
“That’s a new one to me. When did that supposedly happen?”
“And the dead canary in her mailbox?”
Cassell gave an incredulous laugh. “Do I look like somebody who’d do something that perverted? I wasn’t even in town when that supposedly happened. Where’s the proof it was me?”
She regarded him for a moment, thinking: Of course he denies it, because he’s right; we can’t prove he slashed her screens or scratched her car or put a dead bird in her mailbox. This man didn’t get where he is by being stupid.
“Why would Anna lie about it?” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But she did.”
TEN
By noon Maura was on the road, yet one more weekender caught in traffic as it streamed north like migratory salmon out of a city where the streets were already shimmering with heat. Trapped in their cars, their children whining in backseats, vacationers could only inch grimly northward toward the promise of cool beaches and salt air. That was the vision Maura held on to as she sat in traffic, gazing at a line of cars that stretched all the way to the horizon. She had never been to Maine. She knew it only as a backdrop in the L.L. Bean catalogue, where tanned men and women wore parkas and hiking boots while, at their feet, golden retrievers lolled
on the grass. In the world of L.L. Bean, Maine was the land of forests and misty shores, a mythical place too beautiful to exist except as a hope, a dream. I am sure to be disappointed, she thought as she stared at sunlight glaring off the unending line of cars. But that’s where the answers lie.
Months ago, Anna Leoni had made this same journey north. It would have been a day in early spring, still chilly, the traffic not nearly as heavy as today. Driving out of Boston, she too would have crossed the Tobin Bridge and then headed north on Route 95, toward the Massachusetts–New Hampshire border.
I am following in your footsteps. I need to know who you were. It’s the only way I’ll learn who I am.
At two, she crossed from New Hampshire into Maine, where the traffic magically dissolved, as though the ordeal up till then had been merely a test, and now the gates were opening to admit the worthy. She stopped only long enough to pick up a sandwich at a rest stop. By three, she had left the interstate and was traveling on Maine’s Route 1, hugging the coast as she continued north.
You came this way, too.
The views Anna saw would have been different, the fields just turning green, the trees still bare. But surely Anna had passed that same lobster roll shack, had glanced at the same junk dealer’s yard where eternally rusting bed frames were displayed on the lawn, and had reacted, like Maura, with an amused shake of the head. Perhaps she too had pulled off the road in the town of Rockport to stretch her legs and had lingered beside the statue of André the seal while she gazed over the harbor. Had shivered as the wind blew in a chill from the water.
Maura climbed back into her car and continued north.
By the time she passed the coastal town of Bucksport and turned south, down the peninsula, sunlight was already slanting lower over the trees. She could see fog rolling in over the sea, a gray bank of it, advancing toward shore like a hungry beast swallowing up the horizon. By sunset, she thought, my car will be enveloped in it. She had made no hotel arrangements in Fox Harbor, had left Boston with the quaint idea that she could simply pull into a seaside motel somewhere and find a bed for the night. But she saw few motels along this rugged stretch of coast, and those she did pass all displayed NO VACANCY signs.
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 11-Book Bundle Page 102
