Tess Gerritsen - Body Double

“He’s the one you should talk to,” said Rizzoli.

They walked together to the front door, Maura still in control of her emotions, still playing the proper hostess. She stood on the porch long enough to give a good-bye wave, then she shut the door and went into the living room. Stood there, listening as Rizzoli’s car drove away, leaving only the quiet of a suburban street. All alone, she thought. Once again I’m all alone.

She went into the living room. From the bookshelf, she pulled down an old photo album. She had not looked at its pages in years, not since her father’s death, when she’d cleaned his house a few weeks after the funeral. She had found the album on his nightstand, and had imagined him sitting in bed on the last night of his life, alone in that big house, gazing at the photos of his young family. The last images he would have seen, before turning off the light, would have been happy faces.

She opened the album and gazed at those faces now. The pages were brittle, some of the photos nearly forty years old. She lingered over the first one of her mother, beaming at the camera, a dark-haired infant in her arms. Behind them was a house that Maura did not remember, with Victorian trim and bow windows. Underneath the photo, her mother, Ginny, had written in her characteristically neat hand: Bringing Maura home.

There were no pictures taken in the hospital, none of her mother in pregnancy. Just this sudden, sharp image of Ginny smiling in the sunshine, holding her instant baby. She thought of another dark-haired baby, held in another mother’s arms. Perhaps, on that very same day, a proud father in another town had snapped off a photo of his new daughter. A girl named Anna.

Maura turned the pages. Saw herself grow from a toddler to a kindergartener. Here on a brand-new bicycle, steadied by her father’s hand. There at her first piano recital, dark hair gathered back with a green bow, her hands poised on the keys.

She turned to the last page. Christmas. Maura, about seven years old, standing flanked by her mother and father, their arms intertwined in a loving weave. Behind them was a decorated tree, sparkling with tinsel. Everyone smiling. A perfect moment in time, thought Maura. But they never last; they arrive and then they vanish, and we can’t bring them back; we can only make new ones.

She’d reached the end of the album. There were others, of course, at least four more volumes in the history of Maura, every event recorded and catalogued by her parents. But this was the book her father had chosen to keep beside his bed, with the photos of his daughter as an infant, of himself and Ginny as energetic parents, before the gray had crept into their hair. Before grief, and Ginny’s death, had touched their lives.

She gazed down at her parents’ faces and thought: How lucky I am that you chose me. I miss you. I miss you both so much. She closed the album and stared through tears at the leather cover.

If only you were here. If only you could tell me who I really am.

She went into the kitchen and picked up the business card that Rizzoli had left on the table. On the front was printed Rick Ballard’s work number at the Newton PD. She flipped over the card and saw he’d written his home number as well, with the words: “Call me anytime. Day or night. -R.B.”

She went to the phone and dialed his home number. On the third ring, a voice answered: “Ballard.” Just that one name, spoken with crisp efficiency. This is a man who gets right down to business, she thought. He’s not going to welcome a call from a woman in emotional meltdown. In the background she could hear a TV commercial playing. He was at home, relaxing; the last thing he’d want was to be bothered.

“Hello?” he said, now with a note of impatience.

She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to call you at home. Detective Rizzoli gave me your card. My name is Maura Isles, and I…” And I what? Want you to help me get through this night?

“I was expecting you to call, Dr. Isles,” he said.

“I know I should have waited till morning, but-”

“Not at all. You must have a lot of questions.”

“I’m having a really hard time with this. I never knew I had a sister. And suddenly-”

“Everything’s changed for you. Hasn’t it?” The voice that had sounded brusque only a moment before was now so quiet, so sympathetic, that she found herself blinking back tears.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“We should probably meet. I can see you any day next week. Or if you want to meet in the evening-”

“Could you see me tonight?”

“My daughter’s here. I can’t leave right now.”

Of course he has a family, she thought. She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight-”

“So why don’t you come here, to my house?”

She paused, her pulse hammering in her ear. “Where do you live?” she asked.

He lived in Newton, a comfortable suburb west of metropolitan Boston, scarcely four miles from her home in Brookline. His house was like all the other homes on that quiet street, undistinguished but well kept, yet another boxy home in a neighborhood where none of the houses were particularly remarkable. From the front porch, she saw the blue glow of a TV screen and heard the monotonous throb of pop music. MTV-not at all what she expected a cop to be watching.

She rang the bell. The door swung open and a blond girl appeared, dressed in ripped blue jeans and a navel-baring T-shirt. A provocative outfit for a girl who could not be much older than fourteen, judging by the slim hips and the barely-there breasts. The girl didn’t say a thing, just stared at Maura with sullen eyes, as though guarding the threshold from this new interloper.

“Hello,” said Maura. “I’m Maura Isles, here to see Detective Ballard.”

“Is my dad expecting you?”

“Yes, he is.”

A man’s voice called out: “Katie, it’s for me.”

“I thought it was Mom. She’s supposed to be here by now.”

Ballard appeared at the door, towering over his daughter. Maura found it hard to believe that this man, with his conservative haircut and pressed Oxford shirt, could be the father of a pubescent pop-tart. He held out his hand to shake hers in a firm grip. “Rick Ballard. Come in, Dr. Isles.”

As Maura stepped into the house, the girl turned and walked back to the living room, flopping down in front of the TV.

“Katie, at least say hello to our guest.”

“I’m missing my show.”

“You can take a moment to be polite, can’t you?”

Katie sighed loudly, and gave Maura a grudging nod. “Hi,” she said, and fixed her gaze back on the TV.

Ballard eyed his daughter for a moment, as though debating whether it was worth the effort to demand some courtesy. “Well, turn down the sound,” he said. “Dr. Isles and I need to talk.”

The girl grabbed the remote and aimed it like a weapon at the TV. The volume barely dropped.

Ballard looked at Maura. “Would you like some coffee? Tea?”

“No, thank you.”

He gave an understanding nod. “You just want to hear about Anna.”

“Yes.”

“I have a copy of her file in my office.”

If the office reflected the man, then Rick Ballard was as solid and reliable as the oak desk that dominated the room. He chose not to retreat behind that desk; instead he pointed her toward a sofa, and he sat in an armchair facing her. No barriers stood between them except a coffee table, on which a single folder rested. Through the closed door, they could still hear the manic thump of the TV.

“I have to apologize for my daughter’s rudeness,” he said. “Katie’s been going through a hard time, and I’m not quite sure how to deal with her these days. Felons, I can handle, but fourteen-year-old girls?” He gave a rueful laugh.