Tess Gerritsen - The Apprentice

“Fitchburg P.D. and the State Police have this under control.”

“Do they? To them, he’s just another con on the run. They’ll expect him to make the same mistakes all the others do. But he won’t. He’ll slip right through their net.”

“You don’t give them enough credit.”

“They don’t give Hoyt enough credit. They don’t understand what they’re dealing with,” she said.

But I do. I understand perfectly.

Outside, the parking lot shimmered white-hot under the glaring sun and the wind that blew from the street was thick and sulfurous. By the time she climbed into her car, her shirt was already soaked with sweat. Hoyt would like this heat, she thought. He thrived on it, the way a lizard thrives on the baking desert sand. And like any reptile, he knew how to quickly slither out of harm’s way.

They won’t find him.

As she drove toward Fitchburg, she thought of the Surgeon, loose in the world again. Imagined him walking city streets, the predator back among the prey. She wondered if she still had the fortitude to face him. If, having defeated him once, she had used up her lifetime quota of courage. She did not think of herself as a coward; she had never backed away from a challenge and had always plunged headlong into any fray. But the thought of confronting Warren Hoyt left her shaking.

I fought him once, and it almost killed me. I don’t know if I can do it again. If I can wrestle the monster back into his cage.

The perimeter was unmanned. Rizzoli paused in the hospital corridor, glancing around for a uniformed officer, but saw only a few nurses standing nearby, two of them embracing each other for comfort, the others huddled together and spoke in low tones, faces gray with shock. She ducked under the drooping yellow tape and walked unchallenged through the double doors, which automatically hissed open to admit her into the O.R. reception area. She saw the smears and busy tango steps of bloody footprints on the floor. A CST was already packing up his kit. This was a cold scene, picked over and trampled on, just waiting to be released for cleanup.

But cold as it was, contaminated though it was, she could still read what had happened in this room, for it was written on the walls in blood. She saw the dried arcs of arterial spray released from a victim’s pulsing artery. It traced a sine wave across the wall and splattered the large erasable board where the day’s surgery schedule had been written, listing the O.R. room numbers, patients’ names, surgeons’ names, and operative procedures. A full day’s schedule had been booked. She wondered what had happened to the patients whose operations were abruptly canceled because the O.R. was now a crime scene. She wondered what the consequences were of a postponed cholecystectomy-whatever that was. That full schedule explained why the crime scene had been processed so quickly. The needs of the living must be served. One could not indefinitely shut down the town of Fitchburg’s busiest O.R.

The arcs of spurted blood continued across the schedule board, around a corner, and onto the next wall. Here the peaks were smaller as the systolic pressure fell, and the pulsations began to trail downward, sliding toward the floor. They ended in a smeared lake next to the reception desk.

The phone. Whoever died here was trying to reach the phone.

Beyond the reception area, a wide corridor lined by sinks led past the individual operating rooms. Men’s voices, and the crackle of a portable radio, drew her toward an open doorway. She walked along the row of scrub sinks, past a CST who scarcely gave her a glance. No one challenged her, even as she stepped into O.R. #4 and halted, appalled by the evidence of carnage. Though no victims remained in the room, their blood was everywhere, spattering walls, cabinets, and countertops and tracked across the floor by all those who had come in murder’s wake.

“Ma’am? Ma’am?”

Two men in plainclothes stood by the instrument cabinet, frowning at her. The taller one crossed toward her, his paper shoe covers sucking against the sticky floor. He was in his mid-thirties, and he carried himself with that cocky air of superiority that all heavily muscled men exhibited. Masculine compensation, she thought, for his rapidly receding hairline.

Before he could ask the obvious question, she held out her badge. “Jane Rizzoli, Homicide. Boston P.D.”

“What’s Boston doing here?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know your name,” she answered.

“Sergeant Canady. Fugitive Apprehension Section.”

A Massachusetts State Police officer. She started to shake his hand, then saw he was wearing latex gloves. He didn’t seem inclined to offer her the courtesy, in any event.

“Can we help you?” Canady asked.

“Maybe I can help you .”

Canady did not seem particularly thrilled by the offer. “How?”

She looked at the multiple streamers of blood flung across the wall. “The man who did this-Warren Hoyt-”

“What about him?”

“I know him very well.”

Now the shorter man joined them. He had a pale face and ears like Dumbo’s, and although he, too, was obviously a cop, he did not seem to share Canady’s sense of territoriality. “Hey, I know you. Rizzoli. You’re the one put him away.”

“I worked with the team.”

“Naw, you’re the one cornered him out in Lithia.” Unlike Canady, he was not wearing gloves and he gave her a handshake. “Detective Arlen. Fitchburg P.D. You drive all the way out here just for this?”

“As soon as I heard.” Her gaze drifted back to the walls. “You realize who you’re up against, don’t you?”

Canady cut in: “We have things under control.”

“Do you know his history?”

“We know what he did here.”

“But do you know him ?”

“We have his files from Souza-Baranowski.”

“And the guards there had no idea who they were dealing with. Or this wouldn’t have happened.”

“I’ve never failed to bring one back,” said Canady. “They all make the same mistakes.”

“Not this one.”

“He’s only had six hours.”

“Six hours?” She shook her head. “You’ve already lost him.”

Canady bristled. “We’re canvassing the neighborhood. Set up roadblocks and vehicle checks. Media’s been alerted, and his photo’s been broadcast on every local TV station. As I said, it’s under control.”

She didn’t respond but turned her attention back to the ribbons of blood. “Who died in here?” she asked softly.

It was Arlen who answered. “The anesthetist and the O.R. nurse. Anesthetist was lying there, at that end of the table. The nurse was found over here, by the door.”

“They didn’t scream? They didn’t alert the guard?”

“They would have had a hard time making any noise at all. Both women were slashed right through the larynx.”

She moved to the head of the table and looked at the metal pole where a bag of I.V. solution hung, the plastic tube and catheter trailing toward a pool of water on the floor. A glass syringe lay shattered beneath the table.

“They had his I.V. going,” she said.

“It was started in the E.R.,” said Arlen. “He was moved directly here, after the surgeon examined him downstairs. They diagnosed a ruptured appendix.”

“Why didn’t the surgeon come up with him? Where was he?”

“He was seeing another patient in the E.R. Came up probably ten, fifteen minutes after all this happened. Walked through the double doors, saw the dead MCI guard lying out in the reception area, and ran straight for the phone. Practically the entire E.R. staff rushed up, but there was nothing they could do for any of the victims.”

She looked at the floor and saw the swipes and smears of too many shoes, too much chaos to ever be interpreted.