Tess Gerritsen - The Apprentice

On-screen, Hoyt had walked out the exit and they saw only an empty hallway, a closed door. Canady shut off the TV and turned to her. “Looks like your boy’s anxious to go back to work.”

The chirp of her cell phone made her flinch. She could feel her heart hammering as she reached for her phone. The two men were watching her, so she stood and turned to the window before answering the call.

It was Gabriel Dean. “You’re aware the forensic anthropologist is meeting us at three o’clock?” he said.

She looked at her watch. “I’ll be there on time.” Barely.

“Where are you?”

“Look, I’ll be there, okay?” She hung up. Staring out the window, she drew in a deep breath. I can’t keep up, she thought. The monsters are stretching me too thin…

“Detective Rizzoli?” said Canady.

She turned to him. “I’m sorry. I have to get back to the city. You’ll call me the instant you hear anything about Hoyt?”

He nodded. Smiled. “We don’t think it’ll take long.”

The last person she felt like speaking to was Dean, but as she drove into the M.E.‘s parking lot she saw him stepping out of his car. She quickly pulled into a space and turned off her engine, thinking that if she just waited a few minutes, he would walk into the building first, and she could avoid any unnecessary conversation with him. Unfortunately, he had already spotted her, and he stood waiting in the parking lot, an unavoidable obstacle. She had no choice but to deal with him.

She stepped out into the wilting heat and walked toward him, at the pace of one with no time to waste.

“You never came back to the meeting this morning,” he said.

“Marquette called me into his office.”

“He told me about it.”

She stopped and looked at him. “Told you what?”

“That one of your old perps is out.”

“That’s right.”

“And that’s shaken you up.”

“Marquette told you that, too?”

“No. But since you didn’t come back to the meeting, I assumed you were upset.”

“Other matters required my attention.” She started to walk toward the building.

“You are the lead on this case, Detective Rizzoli,” he called after her.

She stopped, turned to look at him. “Why do you feel the need to remind me?”

Slowly he walked toward her, until he was close enough to be intimidating. Perhaps that was his intention. They now stood face-to-face, and although she would never give ground, she couldn’t help flushing under his gaze. It was not just his physical superiority that made her feel threatened; it was her sudden realization that he was a desirable man-an utterly perverse reaction, in light of her anger. She tried to suppress the attraction, but it had already planted its claws and she could not shake it off.

“This case is going to require your full attention,” he said. “Look, I do understand you’re upset about Warren Hoyt’s escape. It’s enough to rattle any cop. Enough to knock you off balance-”

“You hardly know me. Don’t try to be my shrink.”

“I just wonder if you’re feeling focused enough to head up this investigation. Or if you have other issues that will interfere.”

She managed to hold her temper. To ask, quite calmly: “Do you know how many people Hoyt killed this morning? Three, Agent Dean. A man and two women. He slashed their throats, and he walked away, just like that. The way he always manages to do.” She raised her hands, and he stared at her scars. “These are the souvenirs he gave me last year, just before he was about to cut my throat.” She dropped her hands and laughed. “So yeah, you’re absolutely right. I do have issues with him.”

“You also have a job to do. Right here.”

“I’m doing it.”

“You’re distracted by Hoyt. You’re letting him get in the way.”

“The only issue that keeps getting in my way is you . I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”

“Interagency cooperation. Isn’t that the party line?”

“I’m the only one cooperating. What are you giving me in return?”

“What is it you expect?”

“You could start by telling me why the Bureau’s involved. It’s never stepped in on any of my cases before. What makes the Yeagers different? What do you know about them that I don’t?”

“I know as much about them as you do,” he said.

Was it the truth? She didn’t know. She couldn’t read this man. Now sexual attraction had added to her confusion, scrambling any and all messages between them.

He looked at his watch. “It’s after three. They’re waiting for us.”

He started toward the building, but she didn’t immediately follow him. For a moment she stood alone in the parking lot, shaken by her reaction to Dean. At last she took a breath and walked into the morgue, bracing herself for another visit with the dead.

This one, at least, did not turn her stomach. The overpowering stench of putrefaction that had sickened her during the autopsy of Gail Yeager was largely absent from the second set of remains. Nevertheless, Korsak had taken his usual precautions and once again had smeared Vicks under his nose. Only a few bits of leathery connective tissue still adhered to the bones, and while the smell was certainly unpleasant, at least it did not send Rizzoli reeling for the sink. She was determined to avoid a repeat of last night’s embarrassing performance, especially with Gabriel Dean now standing directly across from her, able to watch every twitch on her face. She maintained a stoic front as Dr. Isles and the forensic anthropologist, Dr. Carlos Pepe, unsealed the box and carefully removed the skeletal remains, laying them on the sheet-draped morgue table.

Sixty years old and bent like a gnome, Dr. Pepe was as excitable as a child as he lifted out the box’s contents, eyeing each item as though it were gold. While Rizzoli saw only a random collection of dirt-stained bones, as featureless as twigs from a tree, Dr. Pepe saw radii and ulnas and clavicles, which he efficiently identified and placed in anatomical position. Disarticulated ribs and breastbone clattered against the covered stainless steel. Vertebrae, two of them surgically fused together, formed a knobby chain down the center of the table to the hollow ring of the pelvis, shaped like a macabre crown for a king. Arm bones formed spindly limbs that ended in clusters of what looked like dirty pebbles but were in reality the tiny bones that give human hands such miraculous versatility. Immediately obvious was evidence of an old injury: steel surgical pins in the left thigh bone. At the head of the table Dr. Pepe placed the skull and disarticulated jawbone. Gold teeth gleamed through crusted dirt. All the bones now lay displayed.

But the box was not yet empty.

He turned it over, pouring the last of the contents onto a cloth-draped tray. A shower of dirt and leaves and clumps of matted brown hair spilled out. He directed the exam light onto the tray and, with a pair of tweezers, began picking through the dirt. Within seconds, he found what he was looking for: a tiny black nugget, shaped like a fat grain of rice.

“Puparium,” he said. “Often mistaken as rat droppings.”

“That’s what I would’ve said,” said Korsak. “Rat poop.”

“There are lots of them in here. You just have to know what you’re looking for.” Dr. Pepe plucked out a few more black grains and set them aside in a small pile. “ Calliphoridae species.”

“What?” said Korsak.

Gabriel Dean said, “Blowflies.”

Dr. Pepe nodded. “These are the casings the blowfly larvae develop in. They’re like cocoons. It’s the exoskeleton for the third-stage larvae. They emerge from these as adult flies.” He moved the magnifier over the puparia. “These are all eclosed.”