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  “What’s a fibbie doing here?”

  “You got me.”

  She stood watching the man for a moment, disturbed by the arrival of a federal agent. As lead investigator, she wanted no blurring of the lines of authority, and this man, with his military bearing and businessman’s suit, already looked as though he owned the scene. She walked toward him, but he did not acknowledge her presence until she was standing right beside him.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I understand you’re FBI?”

  He snapped his cell phone shut and turned to face her. She saw strong, clean-cut features and a coolly impervious gaze.

  “I’m Detective Jane Rizzoli, the lead on this case,” she said. “May I see your I.D.?”

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out the badge. As she studied it, she could feel him watching her, sizing her up. She resented his silent appraisal, resented the way he put her on guard, as though he was the one in control.

  “Agent Gabriel Dean,” she said, handing back the badge.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “May I ask what the FBI’s doing here?”

  “I wasn’t aware we were on opposing teams.”

  “Did I say we were?”

  “You’re giving me the distinct feeling I shouldn’t be here.”

  “The FBI doesn’t usually turn up at our crime scenes. I’m just curious what brings you to this one.”

  “We received an advisory from Newton P.D. about the Yeager homicide.” It was an incomplete answer; he was leaving out too much, forcing her to fish. Withholding information was a form of power, and she understood the game he was playing.

  “I imagine you guys get a lot of routine advisories,” she said.

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Every homicide, isn’t that right?”

  “We’re notified.”

  “Is there something about this one that’s special?”

  He simply gazed at her with that impenetrable expression. “I think the victims would say so.”

  Her anger was working its way like a splinter to the surface. “This body was found only a few hours ago,” she said. “Are these advisories now instantaneous?”

  There was a faint twitch of a smile on his lips. “We’re not entirely out of the loop, Detective. We’d appreciate it if you kept us apprised of your progress. Autopsy reports. Trace evidence. Copies of all witness statements—”

  “That’s a lot of paperwork.”

  “I realize that.”

  “And you want it all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “A murder and abduction shouldn’t interest us? We’d like to follow this case.”

  As imposing as he was, she didn’t hesitate to challenge him by stepping closer. “When do you plan to start calling the shots?”

  “It remains your case. I’m only here to assist.”

  “Even if I don’t see the need for it?”

  His gaze shifted to the two attendants who’d emerged from the woods and were now loading the stretcher with the remains into the M.E.’s van. “Does it really matter who works the case?” he asked quietly. “As long as this unsub is caught?”

  They watched the van drive away, carrying the already desecrated corpse to further indignities beneath the bright lights of the autopsy suite. Gabriel Dean’s response had reminded her, with punishing clarity, just how unimportant were matters of jurisdiction. Gail Yeager did not care who took credit for the capture of her killer. All she demanded was justice, whoever might deliver it. Justice was what Rizzoli owed her.

  But she’d known the frustration of watching her own hard work claimed by her colleagues. More than once, she had seen men step forward and arrogantly assume command of cases she herself had painstakingly built from scratch. She would not allow it to happen here.

  She said, “I appreciate the Bureau’s offer of help. But at the moment, I think we’ve got all bases covered. I’ll let you know if we need you.” With that, she turned and walked away.

  “I’m not sure you understand the situation,” he said. “We’re part of the same team now.”

  “I don’t recall asking for FBI assistance.”

  “It’s been cleared through your unit commander: Lieutenant Marquette. Would you like to confirm it with him?” He held out his cell phone.

  “I have my own cell phone, thank you.”

  “Then I urge you to call him. So we don’t waste time on turf battles.”

  She was stunned by how easily he had stepped aboard. And by how accurately she had sized him up. This was a man who’d not stand quietly on the sidelines.

  She took out her own phone and began punching in numbers. But before Marquette answered, she heard Patrolman Doud call out her name.

  “Detective Sleeper’s on comm for you,” said Doud, and handed her his walkie-talkie.

  She pressed the transmit button. “Rizzoli.”

  Through a burst of static, she heard Sleeper say: “You might want to get back here.”

  “What have you got?”

  “Uh … you’d better see for yourself. We’re about fifty yards north of where the other one was found.”

  The other one?

  She thrust the walkie-talkie back at Doud and charged into the woods. She was in such a hurry, she did not immediately notice that Gabriel Dean was following her. Only when she heard the snap of a twig did she turn and see that he was right behind her, his face grim and implacable. She didn’t have the patience to argue with him, so she ignored him and plunged on.

  She spotted the men standing in a grim circle beneath the trees, like silent mourners with heads bowed. Sleeper turned and met her gaze.

  “They’d just finished their first sweep with the metal detector,” he said. “Crime scene tech was heading back to the golf course when the alarm went off.”

  She moved into the circle of men and crouched down to inspect what they had found.

  The skull had been separated from the body and lay isolated from the rest of the nearly skeletonized remains. A gold crown glinted like a pirate’s tooth from the row of dirt-stained teeth. She saw no clothing, no remnants of fabric, only exposed bones with leathery bits of decomposing flesh still adhering. Clumps of long brown hair were matted to leaves, suggesting that these remains were a woman’s.

  She straightened, her gaze scanning the forest floor. Mosquitoes lit on her face and fed off her blood, but she was oblivious to their sting. She focused only on the layers of dead leaves and twigs, the dense underbrush. A deeply sylvan retreat that she now regarded with horror.

  How many women are lying in these woods?

  “It’s his dump site.”

  She turned and looked at Gabriel Dean, who had just spoken. He was crouched a few feet away, sifting through the leaves with gloved hands. She had not even seen him pull on gloves. Now he stood up, his gaze meeting hers.

  “Your unsub has used this place before,” said Dean. “And he’ll probably use it again.”

  “If we don’t scare him off.”

  “And that’s the challenge. Keeping it quiet. If you don’t alarm him, there’s a chance he’ll come back. Not just to dump another body, but to visit. To recapture the thrill.”

  “You’re from the behavioral unit. Aren’t you?”

  He didn’t answer her question but turned to survey the array of personnel standing around in the woods. “If we can keep this out of the press, we might have a chance. But we’ve got to clamp down on it now.”

  We. With that one word, he had stepped into a partnership with her that she had never sought, had never consented to. Yet here he was, issuing edicts. What made it especially galling was the fact that everyone else was listening to their conversation and understood that her authority was now being challenged.

  Only Korsak, with his customary bluntness, dared step into the dialogue. “Excuse me, Detective Rizzoli,” he said. “Who is this gentleman?”

  “FBI,” she said, her gaze still fixed on De
an.

  “So could someone explain to me when this turned into a federal case?”

  “It hasn’t,” she said. “And Agent Dean is about to leave the site. Could somebody show him the way?”

  She and Dean gazed at each other for a moment. Then he tipped his head to her, a silent acknowledgment that he was conceding this round. “I can find my own way out,” he said. He turned and walked back toward the golf course.

  “What is it with these fibbies?” said Korsak. “Always think they’re king of the hill. What’s the Bureau doing here?”

  Rizzoli stared at the woods into which Gabriel Dean had just vanished, a gray figure blending into the dusk. “I wish I knew.”

  Lieutenant Marquette arrived on the scene a half hour later.

  The presence of brass was usually the last thing Rizzoli welcomed. She disliked having a superior officer look over her shoulder as she worked. But Marquette did not interfere and simply stood among the trees, silently appraising the situation.

  “Lieutenant,” she said.

  He responded with a curt nod. “Rizzoli.”

  “What’s with the Bureau? They had an agent here, expecting full access.”

  He nodded. “Request came through OPC.”

  So it had been approved at the top—the Office of the Police Commissioner.

  She watched as the CSU crew packed up their kits and headed back toward the van. Though they were standing within Boston city limits, this dark corner of Stony Brook Reservation felt as isolated as the deep woods. The wind tossed leaves into the air and stirred the smell of decay. Through the trees she saw Barry Frost’s flashlight bobbing in the darkness as he untied the crime scene tape, removing all traces of police activity. Tonight, the stakeout would begin, for an unsub whose craving for a whiff of decay might draw him back to this lonely park, to this silent grove of trees.

  “So I don’t have any choice?” she said. “I have to cooperate with Agent Dean.”

  “I assured OPC we would.”

  “What’s the Bureau’s interest in this case?”

  “Did you ask Dean?”

  “It’s like talking to that tree over there. You get nothing back. I’m not thrilled about this. We have to give him everything, but he doesn’t have to tell us squat.”

  “Maybe you didn’t approach him the right way.”

  Anger shot like a poison dart into her bloodstream. She understood the unspoken meaning of his statement: You’ve got an attitude, Rizzoli. You always tick off men.

  “You ever meet Agent Dean?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She gave a laugh laced with sarcasm. “Lucky you.”

  “Look, I’ll find out what I can. Just try to work with him, okay?”

  “Does someone say I haven’t?”

  “Phone call says. I hear you chased him off the site. That’s not exactly a cooperative relationship.”

  “He challenged my authority. I need to establish something right off the bat here. Am I in charge? Or am I not?”

  A pause. “You’re in charge.”

  “I trust Agent Dean will get that message, too.”

  “I’ll see he does.” Marquette turned and stared at the woods. “So now we’ve got two sets of remains. Both female?”

  “Judging by the skeletal size, and the clumps of hair, the second one looks like another female. There’s almost no soft tissue left. Postmortem scavenger damage, but no obvious cause of death.”

  “Are we sure there aren’t more of them out here?”

  “Cadaver dogs didn’t find any.”

  Marquette gave a sigh. “Thank God.”

  Her pager vibrated. She glanced down at her belt and recognized the phone number on the digital readout. The M.E.’s office.

  “It’s just like last summer,” murmured Marquette, still staring at the trees. “The Surgeon started killing around this time, too.”

  “It’s the heat,” said Rizzoli as she reached for her cell phone. “It brings the monsters out.”

  six

  I hold freedom in the palm of my hand.

  It comes in the shape of a tiny white pentagon with MSD 97 stamped on one side. Decadron, four milligrams. Such a pretty shape for a pill, not just another boring disk or torpedo-shaped caplet like so many other medicines. This design took a leap of imagination, a spark of whimsy. I picture the marketing folks at Merck Pharmaceuticals, sitting around a conference table, asking each other: “How can we make this tablet instantly recognizable?” And the result is this five-sided pill, which rests like a tiny jewel in my hand. I have been saving it, hiding it away in a small tear in my mattress, waiting for just the right time to use its magic.

  Waiting for a sign.

  I sit curled up on the cot in my cell, a book propped up on my knees. The surveillance camera sees only a studious prisoner reading The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. It cannot see through the cover of the book. It cannot see what I hold in my hand.

  Downstairs, in the well of the dayroom, a commercial blares on the TV and a Ping-Pong ball clacks back and forth on the table. Yet another exciting evening in Cell Block C. In an hour, the intercom will announce lights-out, and the men will climb the stairs to their cells, shoes clanging on metal steps. They will each walk into their cages, obedient rats minding their master in the squawk box. In the guard booth, the command will be typed into the computer, and all cell doors will simultaneously close, locking the rats in for the night.

  I curl forward, bending my head to the page, as though the print is too small. I stare with fierce concentration at “Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene Three: A street.

  Antonio and Sebastian approach …” Nothing to watch here, my friends. Just a man on his cot, reading. A man who suddenly coughs and reflexively puts his hand to his mouth. The camera is blind to the small tablet in my palm. It does not see the flick of my tongue, or the pill clinging to it like a bitter wafer as it’s drawn into my mouth. I swallow the tablet dry, needing no water. It is small enough to go down easily.

  Even before it dissolves in my stomach, I imagine I can feel its power swirling through my bloodstream. Decadron is the brand name for dexamethasone, an adrenocortical steroid with profound effects on every organ in the human body. Glucocorticoids such as Decadron affect everything from blood sugar, to fluid retention, to DNA synthesis. Without them, the body collapses. They help us maintain our blood pressure and stave off the shock of injury and infection. They affect our bone growth and fertility, muscle development and immunity.

  They alter the composition of our blood.

  When at last the cage doors slide shut and the lights go out, I lie on my cot, feeling my blood pulse through me. Imagining the cells as they tumble through my veins and arteries.

  I have seen blood cells numerous times through the microscope. I know the shape and function of each one, and with just a glance through the lens I can tell you if a blood smear is normal. I can scan a field and immediately estimate the percentages of different leukocytes—the white blood cells that defend us from infection. The test is called a white blood cell differential, and I have performed it countless times as a medical technician.

  I think of my own leukocytes circulating in my veins. At this very moment, my differential white count is changing. The tablet of Decadron, which I swallowed two hours ago, has by now dissolved in my stomach and the hormone is swirling through my system, performing its magic. A blood sample, drawn from my vein, will reveal a startling abnormality: an overwhelming host of white blood cells with multilobed nuclei and granular stippling. These are neutrophils, which automatically swarm into action when faced with the threat of overwhelming infection.

  When one hears hoofbeats, medical students are taught, one must think of horses, not zebras. But the doctor who sees my blood count will surely think of horses. He will arrive at a perfectly logical conclusion. It will not occur to him that, this time, it is truly a zebra galloping by.

  Rizzoli suited up in the autopsy suite’s changing room, donn
ing gown and shoe covers, gloves, and a paper cap. She’d had no time to shower since tramping around Stony Brook Reservation, and in this overcooled room sweat chilled like rime on her skin. Nor had she eaten dinner, and she was light-headed with hunger. For the first time in her career, she considered using a dab of Vicks under her nose to block out the smells of the autopsy, but she resisted the temptation. Never before had she resorted to its use, because she’d thought it a sign of weakness. A homicide cop should be able to deal with every aspect of the job, however unpleasant, and while her colleagues might retreat behind a menthol shield, she had stubbornly endured the undisguised odors of the autopsy suite.

  She took a deep breath, inhaling a last gulp of unfouled air, and pushed through the door into the next room.

  She had expected to find Dr. Isles and Korsak waiting for her; what she had not expected was to find Gabriel Dean in the room as well. He stood across the table from her, a surgical gown covering his shirt and tie. While exhaustion showed plainly on Korsak’s face and in the weary slump of his shoulders, Agent Dean looked neither tired nor bowed by the day’s events. Only the five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw marred his crisp good looks. He regarded her with the unabashed gaze of one who knows he has every right to be there.

  Under the bright exam lights, the body looked in far worse shape than when she had seen it, just hours ago. Purge fluid had continued to leak from the nose and mouth, trailing bloody streaks on the face. The abdomen was so bloated, it appeared to be in the advanced stages of pregnancy. Fluid-filled blisters ballooned beneath the skin, lifting it from the dermis in papery sheets. Skin was peeling away entirely from areas of the torso and had bunched like wrinkled parchment under the breasts.

  Rizzoli noted that the fingerpads had been inked. “You’ve already taken prints.”

  “Just before you got here,” said Dr. Isles, her attention focused on the tray of instruments that Yoshima had just wheeled to the table. The dead interested Isles more than the living did, and she was oblivious, as usual, to the emotional tensions vibrating in the room.