Tess Gerritsen - Die Again

“A lot of circumstantials.” Crowe waved his arm at the sterile-looking living room. “I gotta say, I don’t see anything here that screams Leopard Man .”

“Maybe that’s significant. There’s not a whole lot here, period. There are no photos, no pictures, not even a DVD or a CD to tell us about his personal tastes. The books and magazines are all related to his work. The only medicine in his bathroom is aspirin. And you know what’s missing?”

“What?”

“Mirrors. There’s only one small shaving mirror in the upstairs bathroom.”

“Maybe he doesn’t care how he looks. Or are you going to tell me he’s a vampire?”

She turned away at his laughter. “A giant blank, that’s what this house is. It’s like he tried to keep it a sterile zone, a place just for show.”

“Or this is exactly who he is. A totally dull guy with nothing to hide.”

“There’s got to be something here. We just haven’t found it yet.”

“And if you don’t?”

She refused to consider the possibility, because she knew she was right. She had to be right.

But as the afternoon slid into evening and a team of criminalists scoured the house for evidence, her stomach knotted tighter and tighter with uncertainty. She could not believe she’d made a mistake, but it was beginning to look like one. They’d invaded the home of a man with no known criminal past. They’d broken a window, pulled apart his house, and found nothing to tie him to the murders, not even a fragment of nylon cord. They’d also attracted the attention of keenly curious neighbors, and those neighbors had nothing bad to say about Alan Rhodes, although no one admitted to knowing him well. He was quiet and polite. Never seemed to have any girlfriends. Liked to garden, always hauling home bags of mulch .

That last remark sent Jane out to take another look at Rhodes’s backyard. She had already walked the entire property, which was nearly three-quarters of an acre and abutted a wooded conservation easement. In the darkness she scanned the ground by flashlight, her beam moving across shrubs and grass. She tramped to the far edge of the lot, where a fence marked the property line. Here a sharply sloping hillock had been planted with rosebushes, their canes now spindly and bare. She stood frowning at that odd landscaping feature, wondering about that hillock. In a yard that was otherwise level, it stood out like a volcano thrust up from a plain. She was so focused on that peculiar mound that she didn’t notice Maura crossing toward her until the flashlight beam flared in her eyes.

“Have you found anything?” said Maura.

“No dead bodies for you to look at, anyway.” She frowned at Maura. “So what brings you here?”

“I couldn’t stay away.”

“You have got to get yourself a better social life.”

“This is my social life.” Maura paused. “Which is pathetic.”

“Well, nothing’s happening here,” Jane said in disgust. “As Crowe keeps pointing out to me.”

“It’s got to be Rhodes, Jane. I know he’s the one.”

“Based on what? Are you talking gestalt again? Because I don’t have a damn thing to use in court.”

“He would have been only twenty when he killed Natalie Toombs. She may have been his only Boston victim until he killed Gott. The reason we had trouble seeing the pattern is because he’s too intelligent to hunt in the same place. Instead he expanded his territory, to Maine. To Nevada and Montana. It made his signature almost impossible to spot.”

“How do we explain Leon Gott and Jodi Underwood? Those were reckless killings, both in the same day. Within ten miles of each other.”

“Maybe he’s accelerating. Losing control.”

“I don’t see any sign of that in this house. Did you look around inside? Everything’s in perfect order. There’s no hint of the monster.”

“Then he has another place. A lair, where that monster lives.”

“This is the only property Rhodes owns, and we can’t even find a piece of rope here.” In frustration, Jane kicked at the mulch and frowned at the rosebush that she’d just knocked askew. She gave the bare bush a tug, and felt only minimal resistance from the roots. “This was planted recently.”

“It’s odd, this mound of dirt.” Maura swept her flashlight around the yard, across grass and shrubs and a gravel walkway. “There don’t seem to be any other recent plantings. Just here.”

Jane stared at the hillock and suddenly felt a chill when she realized what it represented. Dirt. Where did all this dirt come from? “It’s here, under our feet,” she said. “His lair.” She moved onto the lawn, searching for an opening, a seam, anything that might indicate a hatchway leading underground, but the yard was obscured by shadow. It could take them days to dig it all up, and what if they found nothing? She could imagine the ridicule from Crowe about that .

“Ground-penetrating radar,” said Maura. “If there’s a chamber under here, that would be the quickest way to locate it.”

“Let me check with CSU. See if we can get a GPR unit here in the morning.” Jane walked back to the house and had just stepped inside when she heard the chime announcing a text message on her phone.

It was from Gabriel, who was in DC and wouldn’t be home till tomorrow. CHECK YOUR EMAIL. INTERPOL REPORT.

She’d been so focused on searching Rhodes’s house, she hadn’t read her email all afternoon. Now she scrolled through an inbox stuffed with the trivial and annoying before she found the message. It had arrived three hours earlier, sent by Henk Andriessen.

She squinted at a screen filled with dense text. As she scanned the document, words leaped out at her. Skeletonized remains found, outskirts of Cape Town. White male, multiple skull fractures. DNA match .

She stared at the newly identified name of the deceased. This makes no sense, she thought. This cannot be true.

Her phone rang. Gabriel again.

“Did you read it?” he asked.

“I don’t understand this report. It’s got to be a mistake.”

“The man’s remains were found two years ago. They were fully skeletonized, so the bones could have been lying there much longer. It took them a while to finally run the DNA and make the ID, but now there’s no doubt about who he is. Elliot Gott didn’t die on safari, Jane. He was murdered. In Cape Town.”

I AM NO LONGER OF INTEREST TO THE POLICE. THE KILLER THEY’RE HUNTING for isn’t Johnny, but a man named Alan Rhodes, who has always lived in Boston. This is what Dr. Isles told me just before she left the house this evening, to join Detective Rizzoli at a crime scene. What a different world these people inhabit, a twisted universe that we ordinary people aren’t aware of until we read about it in the newspapers, or see it on the TV news. While most of us go about our everyday lives, someone, somewhere, is committing an unspeakable act.

And that’s when Rizzoli and Isles go to work.

I’m relieved to be escaping their world. They needed something from me, but I couldn’t deliver, so tomorrow I go home. Back to my family and Touws River. Back to my nightmares.

I pack for the morning flight, tucking shoes into the corner of my suitcase, folding wool sweaters that I won’t need when I land in Cape Town. How I’ve missed the bright colors of home and the smell of flowers. My time here has felt like hibernation, bundled in sweaters and coats against the cold and the gloom. I lay a pair of pants on top of the sweaters and as I fold a second pair, the gray cat suddenly jumps into my suitcase. During my entire stay, this cat has completely ignored me. Now here he is, purring and rolling around on my clothes, as if he wants me to bring him home. I pick him up and drop him on the floor. He climbs right back into the suitcase and begins meowing.