The Rizzoli & Isles Series 11-Book Bundle

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Jet lag. It’s six P.M. Boston time, and my body refuses to be fooled.” She takes a sip and doesn’t flinch in the least at the bite of the scotch. “Thank you again for offering your guest room.”

  “We couldn’t have you driving all the way back to Cape Town tonight. Not after the hours you spent with me. I hope you don’t have to fly back to the States right away. It’d be a shame if you didn’t see some of the country.”

  “We get one more night in Cape Town tomorrow.”

  “Only one?”

  “I had a tough enough time convincing my boss to approve this trip. We’re all about cost cutting these days. God forbid we have any fun on their dime.”

  I look down at my scotch, which gleams like liquid amber. “Do you actually like your work?”

  “It’s what I always wanted to do.”

  “Catch killers?” I shake my head. “I don’t think I’d be able to stomach it. Seeing the things you see. Coming face-to-face every day with what people are capable of.”

  “That’s something you’ve already seen firsthand.”

  “And I never want to see it again.” I tip the rest of the drink into my mouth and swallow it in one gulp. Suddenly it’s not enough, not nearly enough to settle my nerves. I get up to pour myself a refill.

  “I used to have nightmares, too,” she says.

  “No wonder, with your line of work.”

  “I got over them. You can, too.”

  “How?”

  “The same way I did. Slay the monster. Put him away where he can’t hurt you or anyone else.”

  I laugh as I recork the bottle. “Do I look like a policewoman?”

  “You look like a woman who’s terrified of just going to sleep.”

  I set the bottle down on the counter and turn to her. “You didn’t live through what I did. You may hunt killers, but they aren’t hunting you.”

  “You’re wrong, Millie,” she says quietly. “I know exactly what you’re living through. Because I’ve been hunted, too.” She fixes me with a steady gaze as I sink back into the chair.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “It was several years ago, around the time I met my husband. I was searching for a man who’d killed a number of women. Considering what this killer did to them, I’m not sure I’d call him human, but some other species. A creature who fed off pain and fear. Who took pleasure in their terror. The more afraid you were, the more he desired you.” She lifts the glass to her lips, takes a deep swallow. “And he knew I was afraid.”

  I’m surprised she admits it, this woman who projects such fearlessness. Over dinner she’d described how she’d kicked down her first door, how she had chased killers across rooftops and into dark alleys. Now, sitting in her T-shirt and boxer shorts, with her messy mop of dark hair, she looks like any other woman. Small, vulnerable. Defeatable.

  “You were his target?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Lucky me.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because he’d trapped me once before. Had me right where he wanted me.” She raises her hands and shows me her scarred palms. “He did this. With scalpels.”

  Earlier today, I had noticed those peculiarly placed scars, like healed wounds of a crucifixion. I stare at them in horror because I now know how those wounds were inflicted.

  “Even after he went to prison, even though I knew he couldn’t reach me, I had nightmares about what he almost did to me. How could I forget, when I carry these permanent reminders of him on my hands? The bad dreams did start to fade, though. After a year, I hardly dreamed of him at all, and that should have been the end of it. It would have been the end of it.”

  “Why wasn’t it?”

  “Because he escaped.” She meets my gaze, and I see my own fear reflected in her eyes. I see a woman who knows what it means to live in a killer’s crosshairs, without any idea when the trigger will be pulled. “That’s when my nightmares started again.”

  I stand up and get the bottle of scotch. Bring it back to the table and set it between us. “For the nightmares,” I offer.

  “You can’t drink them away, Millie. No matter how many bottles you guzzle.”

  “What do you suggest I do?”

  “The same thing I did. Hunt down the monster who’s been chasing you in your dreams. Cut him to pieces and bury him. Then, and only then, will you sleep soundly again.”

  “And do you sleep soundly?”

  “Yes. But only because I chose not to run and hide. I knew that as long as he was out there, circling me, I’d never rest easy. So I became the hunter. Gabriel knew I was putting myself at risk and he tried to keep me off the case, but I had to be part of it. For my own sanity, I had to be in the fight, not hiding behind locked doors, waiting for the attack.”

  “And your husband didn’t try to stop you?”

  “Oh, we weren’t married then, so he couldn’t stop me.” She laughs. “Not that he can now, either. Though he tries his hardest to keep me in line.”

  I think of Chris, peacefully snoring in our bed. How he bundled me up and brought me to this farm to keep me safe. “That’s what my husband tries to do.”

  “Keep you behind a locked door?”

  “To protect me.”

  “Yet you don’t feel safe. Even six years later.”

  “I do feel safe here. At least, I did. Until you brought it back into my life.”

  “I’m just doing my job, Millie. Don’t blame me. I didn’t put those nightmares in your head. I’m not the one who made you a prisoner.”

  “I’m not a prisoner.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  We stare at each other across the table. She has dark, luminous eyes. Dangerous eyes that see straight through my skull, to the deepest folds of my brain where I hide my secret terrors. I can’t deny anything she’s said. I am a prisoner. I’m not merely avoiding the world; I’m cowering from it.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” she says.

  I don’t answer at first. Instead I look down at the glass, which I’m cradling with both hands. I want to take another sip, but I know it will ease the fear for only a few hours. Like anesthesia, it eventually wears off.

  “Tell me how you did it,” I say. “How you fought back.”

  She shrugs. “I didn’t have a choice, in the end.”

  “You chose to fight.”

  “No, I mean I really didn’t have a choice. You see, after he escaped from prison, I knew I had to hunt him down. Gabriel, my colleagues at Boston PD, they all tried to keep me out of it, but I couldn’t be sidelined. I knew that killer better than anyone else did. I’d looked into his eyes, and I’d seen the beast. I understood him—what thrilled him, what he craved, how he stalked his prey. The only way I’d sleep soundly again was to hunt him down. The problem was, he was also hunting me. We were two enemies locked in mortal combat, and one of us had to go down.” She pauses, takes a sip of scotch. “He struck first.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was cornered when I least expected it. Taken to a place where no one would ever find me. The worst part was, he wasn’t alone. He had a friend.”

  Her voice is so soft I have to lean in to hear her. Outside, insects sing in the night garden, but in my kitchen it is quiet, so quiet. I think of all my fears multiplied by two. Two Johnnys hunting me. I don’t know how this woman can sit here so calmly and tell me her story.

  “They had me where they wanted me,” she says. “There was no one to rescue me, no one who’d swoop in to save the day. It was me against them.” She took a breath and straightened in her chair. “And I won. Just like you can, Millie. You can kill that monster.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “He might as well be dead. My bullet severed his spinal cord, and now he’s trapped in a place he’ll never escape—his own body. Paralyzed from the neck down. And his friend is rotting in a grave.” Her smile is weirdly at odds with what she’s just described, but when you’ve triumphed over monsters, you deserve a grin of
victory. “And that night, I slept better than I had in a year.”

  I hunch at the table, saying nothing. Of course I know why she’s told me her story, but it doesn’t work on me. You can’t force a person to be brave if they don’t already have it in them. I’m alive merely because I was too terrified to die, which makes me a coward, really. The woman who kept walking and walking, past elephants and crocodiles, the woman blessed with a sturdy pair of legs and more than her share of luck.

  She yawns and stands up. “I think I’ll head back to bed. I hope we can talk more about this tomorrow.”

  “I won’t change my mind. I can’t come to Boston.”

  “Even though you could make a difference? You know this killer better than anyone else does.”

  “And he knows me. I’m the one who escaped, the one he’s searching for. I’m his unicorn, the creature doomed to be hunted into extinction.”

  “We’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

  “Six years ago, in the bush, I found out what it’s like to die.” I shake my head. “Don’t ask me to die again.”

  DESPITE ALL THE SCOTCH I downed, or maybe because of it, I dream once again about Johnny.

  He stands before me, reaching out to me with both hands, begging me to run to him. All around us are lions closing in for the kill, and I must make my choice. How I want to trust Johnny, as I trusted him once before! I never truly believed he was a killer, and now he stands before me, broad-shouldered and golden-haired. Come to me, Millie. I’ll keep you safe. In joy I run to him, hungry for his touch. But just as I step into his arms, his mouth transforms into jaws that open wide, baring bloody teeth ready to devour me.

  I lurch awake, screaming.

  I sit up on the side of the bed, my head in my hands. Chris rubs my back, trying to calm me. Even as the sweat cools, chilling my skin, my heart is still hammering inside my chest. He murmurs, “You’re fine, Millie, you’re safe,” but I know I am not fine. I am a cracked porcelain doll ready to shatter apart with the lightest tap. The passage of six years has not made me whole again, and it’s clear to me that I will never be whole. Not until Johnny is in prison—or dead.

  I lift my head and look at Chris. “I can’t go on like this. We can’t.”

  He gives a deep sigh. “I know.”

  “I don’t want to, but I have to do this.”

  “Then we’ll all go with you to Boston. You won’t be alone.”

  “No. No. I don’t want Violet anywhere near him. I want her right here, where I know she’s safe. And you’re the only one I trust to take care of her.”

  “But who’ll take care of you?”

  “They will. You heard them say they won’t let anything happen to me.”

  “And you trust them?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because you’re just a tool for them, a means to an end. They don’t care about you. They only want to catch him.”

  “That’s what I want, too. I can help them do it.”

  “By letting him catch a whiff of your scent? What if they can’t capture him? What if he turns the tables and follows you back here?”

  That’s a possibility I hadn’t considered. I think of the nightmare I just awoke from. Johnny beckoning, promising safety, just before his jaws open wide. It’s my subconscious warning me to stay away. But if I do stay away, nothing changes, nothing heals. I will always be that cracked porcelain doll.

  “I have no choice,” I say. “I have to trust them.”

  “You can choose not to go.”

  I reach for his hand. It’s a farmer’s hand, large and callused, strong enough to wrestle sheep to the ground and gentle enough to comb a little girl’s hair. “I need to finish this, darling. I’m going to Boston.”

  CHRISTOPHER HAS A LIST of demands, and he presents them to Detective Rizzoli and Agent Dean with the glow of brimstone in his eyes.

  “You will check in with me every day, so I know she’s fine,” he orders them. “I want to know that she’s healthy and safe. I want to know if she’s homesick. I want to know if she sneezes.”

  “Please, Chris.” I sigh. “I’m not going to the moon.”

  “The moon might be safer.”

  “You have my word, we’ll look after her, Mr. DeBruin,” says Detective Rizzoli. “We’re not asking her to strap on a gun. She’s merely consulting with our team of detectives and our forensic psychologist. She’ll be away for a week, maybe two at the most.”

  “I don’t want her sitting alone in some hotel room. I want her to stay with someone. A proper home, where she won’t feel isolated.”

  Detective Rizzoli glances at her husband. “I’m sure we can come up with some sort of arrangement.”

  “Where?”

  “I need to make a phone call first. Find out if the home I’m thinking of will work out.”

  “Whose home?”

  “Someone I trust. A friend.”

  “Before Millie gets on that plane, I want you to confirm it.”

  “We’ll have all the details arranged before we leave Cape Town.”

  Chris studies their faces for a moment, searching for reasons not to trust them. My husband is innately skeptical of people; it comes from growing up with an unreliable father and a mother who abandoned him when he was seven. He always fears he’ll lose the people he loves, and now he’s afraid of losing me.

  “Everything will be fine, darling,” I say, sounding more confident than I actually feel. “They know exactly what they’re doing.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  BOSTON

  MAURA SET A VASE OF YELLOW ROSES ON THE DRESSER AND TOOK one last glance around her guest bedroom. The white duvet was freshly laundered, the Turkish rug thoroughly vacuumed, and the bathroom supplied with fluffy white towels. The last time anyone had slept in this room was in August, when seventeen-year-old Julian Perkins had visited during his summer break from school. Since his departure, she’d hardly stepped into this room. Now she gave it a critical once-over, to confirm that all was ready for her houseguest. The window had a view of her back garden, but on this late-November afternoon, what she saw was a dreary landscape of bare perennials and brown grass. At least there was a bright touch of spring in the painting of luscious pink peonies hanging over the bed, and on the dresser with that vase of yellow roses. A cheerful welcome for a guest on a grim mission.

  Jane had emailed to explain the situation, and Maura had read Millie’s file, so she knew what to expect. But when the doorbell rang and she laid eyes on Millie for the first time, she was taken aback by how haggard the woman looked. It was a long journey from Cape Town and Jane looked bedraggled as well, but Millie appeared frail as ectoplasm, her eyes hollow, her thin frame almost lost in her oversized sweater.

  “Welcome to Boston,” said Maura as they came into the house, Jane carrying Millie’s suitcase. “I apologize for the weather.”

  Millie managed a wan smile. “I didn’t expect it to be so cold.” She looked down sheepishly at her enormous sweater. “I bought this at the airport. I think I could fit another woman in here.”

  “You must be exhausted. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “That would be lovely, but first I think I need to use the toilet.”

  “Your room’s down the hall, on the right, and you have your own bathroom. Please, take your time to get settled in. The tea can always wait.”

  “Thank you.” Millie took her suitcase. “I’ll be a few minutes.”

  Maura and Jane waited until they heard Millie’s bedroom door close. Then Jane said: “You sure this is okay? I tried to come up with another solution, but our apartment’s too small.”

  “It’s perfectly fine, Jane. You said it’s only for a week, and you can’t stick that poor woman in a hotel.”

  “Well, I do appreciate it. The only alternative was my mom’s house, but it’s a loony bin these days, with Dad driving her nuts.”

  “How are things with your mother?”

  “Besides her being psychotically
depressed?” Jane shook her head. “I’m waiting for her to get up the nerve and kick him out. The trouble is, she tries so hard to make everyone else happy, she forgets all about herself.” Jane sighed. “My mom, the saint.”

  Something my mother will never be, thought Maura. She thought about the last time she’d visited Amalthea in prison. Remembered the woman’s soulless eyes, her calculating gaze. Even then the tumor must have been incubating inside Amalthea, evil within evil, like poisonous nesting dolls. With cancer now consuming her, had she come to feel remorse? For such a creature, was redemption even possible? In a few months, six at the most, those eyes would go dark forever. And I will always wonder.

  Jane looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go. Tell Millie I’ll pick her up around ten tomorrow, for the team meeting. I’ve asked Brookline PD to send a cruiser by your house every so often, to keep an eye on things.”

  “Is that necessary? No one knows she’s here.”

  “It’s all about making her feel safe. It was a struggle just to get her here, Maura. As far as she’s concerned, we’ve brought her straight to the beast’s lair.”

  “It may be true.”

  “But we need her. We just have to keep her comfortable, so she doesn’t jump on a plane home.”

  “I don’t mind a houseguest,” said Maura. She glanced down at the cat, who chose that instant to jump onto the coffee table. “Although this particular houseguest I’d love to get rid of.” She plucked up the cat and dropped him back on the floor.

  “You two still not bonding, huh?”

  “Oh, he’s bonded all right. To my can opener.” In disgust, Maura clapped cat hair from her hands. “So what do you make of her?”

  Jane glanced toward the hallway and said quietly: “She’s scared, and I can’t blame her. She’s the only one who walked out alive, the only one who can ID him in court. Six years later, he’s still giving her nightmares.”

  “It’s not hard to understand. You and I have been in her shoes.” She didn’t need to elaborate; they both knew what it was like to be hunted, to lie sleepless in your own bed, listening for the shattering of a window, the turn of the doorknob. They were part of the same unfortunate sisterhood of women who have been stalked by killers.