Tess Gerritsen - Die Again

“I have been for years, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.” Maura looked around at the spotless countertops, the scrubbed sink. “Unless some miracle man suddenly appears.”

“Hey, that’s what you should call him,” said Jane, pointing to the cat. “Miracle Man.”

“That is not going to be his name.” The kitchen timer beeped, and Maura opened the oven to check on the casserole.

“Smells good.”

“It’s eggplant Parmesan. I couldn’t stomach the thought of eating meat tonight. Are you hungry? There’s enough here for two of us.”

“I’m going to my mom’s for dinner. Gabriel’s still in DC, and Mom can’t stand the thought of me and Regina by ourselves.” Jane paused. “Maybe you want to join us, just for the company?”

“It’s nice of you to ask, but my dinner’s already heated up.”

“Not necessarily tonight, but in general. Anytime you need a family to hang out with.”

Maura gave her a long look. “Are you adopting me?”

Jane pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. “Look, I feel we still need to clear the air between us. We haven’t talked much since the Teddy Clock case, and I know the last few months have been tough on you. I should have asked you to dinner a long time ago.”

“I should have invited you, too. We’ve both been busy, that’s all.”

“You know, it really worried me, Maura, when you said you were thinking about leaving Boston.”

“Why would it worry you?”

“After all we’ve been through together, how can you just walk away? We’ve lived through things no one else could possibly understand. Like that .” Jane pointed to Maura’s computer, where the photo of entrails was still on screen. “Tell me, who else am I gonna talk to about guts in a trash can? It’s not something that normal people would do.”

“Meaning, I’m not normal.”

“You don’t honestly think that I am, do you?” Jane laughed. “We’re both sick and twisted. That’s the only explanation for why we’re in this business. And why we make such a good team.”

It was something Maura could not have predicted when she’d first met Jane.

She’d earlier heard of Jane’s reputation, muttered by the male cops: Bitch. Ballbuster. Always on the rag . The woman who strode onto the crime scene that day had certainly been blunt, focused, and relentless. She was also one of the best detectives Maura had ever encountered.

“You once told me you didn’t have anything keeping you here in Boston,” said Jane. “I’m just reminding you it’s not true. You and I, we’ve got a history together.”

“Right.” Maura snorted. “Of getting into trouble.”

“And getting ourselves out of it, together. What’s waiting for you in San Francisco?”

“I did get an offer from an old colleague there. A teaching position at UC.”

“What about Julian? You’re the closest thing to a mother that boy has. You go off to California, he’ll feel like you’re abandoning him here.”

“I hardly get a chance to see him as it is. Julian’s seventeen, and he’ll be applying for college. Who knows where he’ll end up, and there are some fine schools in California. I can’t hitch my life to a boy who’s just starting his own.”

“This job offer in San Francisco. Does it pay better? Is that it?”

“That’s not why I’d take it.”

“It’s about running away, isn’t it? Getting the hell out of Dodge.” Jane paused. “Does he know you might leave Boston?”

He . Abruptly Maura turned away and refilled her wineglass. Driven to drink, just by the mention of Daniel Brophy. “I haven’t spoken to Daniel in months.”

“But you see him.”

“Of course. When I walk onto a crime scene, I never know if he’ll be there. Comforting the family, praying for the victim. We move in the same circles, Jane. The circle of the dead.” She took a deep sip of wine. “It would be a relief to escape it.”

“So going to California is all about avoiding him.”

“And temptation,” Maura said softly.

“To go back to him?” Jane shook her head. “You made your decision. Stick with it and move on. That’s what I would do.”

And that’s what made them so different from each other. Jane was quick to act, and always certain about what needed to be done. She wasted no sleep second-guessing herself. But uncertainty was what kept Maura awake at night, mulling over choices, considering their consequences. If only life were like a mathematical formula, with just one answer.

Jane stood up. “Think about what I said, okay? It’d be way too much work for me to break in another ME. So I’m counting on you to stay.” She touched Maura’s arm and added quietly: “I’m asking you to stay.” Then, in typical Jane Rizzoli fashion, she brusquely turned to leave. “See you tomorrow.”

“Autopsy’s in the morning,” said Maura as they walked to the front door.

“I’d rather skip it. I’ve seen more than enough maggots, thank you.”

“Surprises might turn up. You wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“The only surprise,” Jane said as she stepped outside, “will be if Frost shows up.”

Maura locked the door and returned to the kitchen, where the eggplant casserole had cooled. She slid it back into the oven to reheat. The cat had once again jumped onto the table and draped himself over the laptop keyboard, as if to say: No more work tonight . Maura snatched him up and dropped him to the floor. Someone had to exert authority in this house, and it most certainly was not going to be a cat. He’d reawakened the screen, which was now lit with the last image she’d been studying. It was the photo of the viscera, the undulated surface emphasized by shadows cast in the slanting light. She was about to close the laptop when she focused on the liver. Frowning, she zoomed in and stared at the surface curves and fissures. It was not just a trick of the light. Nor was it distortion caused by bacterial swelling.

This liver has six lobes .

She reached for the phone.

BOTSWANA

“WHERE IS HE?” SYLVIA IS SCREAMING. “WHERE’S THE REST OF HIM?”

She and Vivian stand a few dozen yards away, under the trees. They are staring down at the ground, at something hidden from my view by knee-high grass. I step over the camp’s perimeter wire, where the bells still hang, bells that gave no warning clang in the night. Instead it is Sylvia who has given the alarm, her shrieks pulling us out of our tents in various states of undress. Mr. Matsunaga is still zipping up his trousers as he lurches out through his tent flap. Elliot doesn’t even bother to pull on pants, but stumbles out into the cold dawn wearing only boxer shorts and sandals. I’ve managed to snatch up one of Richard’s shirts and I pull it over my nightdress as I wade into the grass, my boots still untied, a trapped pebble biting into my bare sole. I spot a bloody shred of khaki, tangled like a snake around the branch of a bush. Another few steps closer, and I see more ripped cloth, and a clump of what looks like black wool. I take another few steps, and I see what the girls are staring at. Now I know why Sylvia is screaming.

Vivian turns and throws up into the bushes.

I am too numb to move. Even as Sylvia whimpers and hyperventilates beside me, I am studying the various bones scattered in that flattened area of grass, feeling strangely remote, as if I am inhabiting someone else’s body. A scientist’s, perhaps. An anatomist, who looks at bones and feels compelled to fit them together, to announce: This is the right fibula and that is the ulna and that is from the fifth right toe. Yes, definitely the right toe . Although in truth I can identify almost nothing of what I’m looking at, because there is so little left, and it is all in pieces. All I can be sure of is that there is a rib, because it looks like ribs that I have eaten, slathered in sauce. But this is not a pork rib, oh no, this gnawed and splintered bone is human, and it belonged to someone I knew, someone I spoke to not nine hours ago.