The woman was looking at Jane’s pregnant belly.
“I’m having my first baby,” said Jane.
The woman looked up at the clock on the wall. She was waiting for something. Counting the minutes as they ticked by.
Jane decided to dip her toe further into conversational waters. “What—what is your name?” she ventured.
“Why?”
“I just wanted to know.” So I can stop calling you the Crazy Lady.
“It makes no difference. I am dead already.” The woman looked at her. “So are you.”
Jane stared into those burning eyes, and for one frightening moment she thought: What if it’s true? What if we are already dead, and this is just a version of hell?
“Please,” the receptionist murmured. “Please let us go. You don’t need us. Just let us open the door and walk out.”
The woman began to pace again, her bare feet intermittently treading across the fallen chart. “You think they will let you live? After you have been with me? Everyone who is with me dies.”
“What’s she talking about?” Dr. Tam whispered.
She’s paranoid, thought Jane. Having delusions of persecution.
The woman suddenly came to a stop and stared down at the manila folder near her feet.
Don’t open it. Please don’t open it.
The woman picked it up, eyeing the name on the cover.
Distract her, now!
“Excuse me,” she said. “I really—I really need to use the bathroom. Being pregnant and all.” She pointed to the waiting room toilet. “Please, can I go?”
The woman dropped the chart down on the coffee table where it landed just out of Jane’s reach. “You do not lock the door.”
“No. I promise.”
“Go.”
Dr. Tam touched Jane’s hand. “Do you need help? Do you want me to go with you?”
“No. I’m okay,” said Jane and she rose on unsteady legs. Wanted desperately to sweep up the medical chart as she moved past the coffee table, but the Crazy Lady was watching her the whole time. She walked to the restroom, turned on the light, and closed the door. Felt sudden relief to be alone, and not staring at a gun.
I could lock the door anyway. I could just stay in here and wait it out until it’s over.
But she thought of Dr. Tam and the orderly and Glenna and Domenica clinging to one another on the couch. If I piss off Crazy Lady, they’ll be the ones to suffer. I’d be a coward, hiding behind a locked door.
She used the toilet and washed her hands. Scooped water into her mouth, because she did not know when she’d next get a chance to drink. Wiping her wet chin, she scanned the small restroom, searching for something she could use as a weapon, but all she saw were paper towels and a soap dispenser and a stainless steel trash can.
The door suddenly swung open. She turned to see her captor staring at her. She doesn’t trust me. Of course she doesn’t trust me.
“I’m finished,” said Jane. “I’m coming out now.” She left the restroom and crossed back to the couch. Saw that the medical chart was still lying on the coffee table.
“Now we sit and wait,” the woman said, and she settled into a chair, the gun on her lap.
“What are we waiting for?” Jane asked.
The woman stared at her. Said, calmly: “The end.”
A shudder went through Jane. At the same time, she felt something else: a tightening in her abdomen, like a hand slowly squeezing into a fist. She held her breath as the contraction turned painful, as sweat beaded on her forehead. Five seconds. Ten. Slowly it eased off, and she leaned back against the couch, breathing deeply.
Dr. Tam frowned at her. “What’s wrong?”
Jane swallowed. “I think I’m in labor.”
“We’ve got a cop in there?” said Captain Hayder.
“You can’t let this leak out,” said Gabriel. “I don’t want anyone to know what her job is. If the hostage taker finds out she’s holding a cop …” Gabriel took a deep breath, and said quietly: “It can’t get out to the media. That’s all.”
Leroy Stillman nodded. “We won’t let it. After what happened to that security guard …” He stopped. “We need to keep this under wraps.”
Hayder said, “Having a cop in there could work to our advantage.”
“Excuse me?” said Maura, startled that Hayder would make such a statement in Gabriel’s presence.
“Detective Rizzoli’s got a good head on her shoulders. And she can handle a weapon. She could make a difference in how this goes down.”
“She’s also nine months pregnant and due to deliver any minute. What, exactly, do you expect her to do?”
“I’m just saying she’s got a cop’s instincts. That’s good.”
“Right now,” said Gabriel, “the only instinct I want my wife to follow is the one for self-preservation. I want her alive and safe. So don’t count on her to be heroic. Just get her the hell out of there.”
Stillman said, “We won’t do anything to endanger your wife, Agent Dean. I promise you that.”
“Who is this hostage taker?”
“We’re still trying to ID her.”
“What does she want?”
Hayder cut in: “Maybe Agent Dean and Dr. Isles should step out of the trailer and let us get back to work.”
“No, it’s okay,” said Stillman. “He needs to know. Of course he needs to know.” He looked at Gabriel. “We’re going slow on this, giving her a chance to calm down and start talking. As long as no one’s getting hurt, we have time.”
Gabriel nodded. “That’s the way it should be handled. No bullets, no assault. Just keep them all alive.”
Emerton called out: “Captain, we’ve got the list. Names of personnel and patients still unaccounted for.”
Stillman snatched up the page as it came off the printer and scanned down the names.
“Is she on it?” Gabriel asked.
After a pause, Stillman nodded. “I’m afraid she is.” He handed the list to Hayder. “Six names. That’s what the hostage taker said on the radio. That she’s holding six people.” He neglected to add what else the woman had said. And I have enough bullets for them all.
“Who’s seen that list?” said Gabriel.
“Hospital administrator,” said Hayder. “Plus whoever helped him compile it.”
“Before it goes any further, take my wife off it.”
“These are just names. No one knows—”
“Any reporter could find out in ten seconds that Jane’s a cop.”
Maura said, “He’s right. All the crime beat reporters in Boston know her name.”
“Scratch her name off the list, Mark,” said Stillman. “Before anyone else sees it.”
“What about our entry team? If they go in, they’ll need to know who’s inside. How many people they’re rescuing.”
“If you do your jobs right,” said Gabriel, “there’ll be no need for any entry team. Just talk that woman out of there.”
“Well, we’re not having much luck on the talking part, are we?” Hayder looked at Stillman. “Your girl refuses to even say hello.”
“It’s only been three hours,” said Stillman. “We need to give her time.”
“And after six hours? Twelve?” Hayder looked at Gabriel. “Your wife is due to give birth any minute.”
“You think I’m not considering that?” Gabriel shot back. “It’s not just my wife, it’s also my child in there. Dr. Tam may be with them, but if something goes wrong with the birth, there’s no equipment, no operating room. So yes, I want this over as quickly as possible. But not if there’s a chance you’ll turn this into a bloodbath.”
“She’s the one who set this off. The one who chooses what happens next.”
“Then don’t force her hand. You’ve got a negotiator here, Captain Hayder. Use him. And keep your SWAT team the hell away from my wife.” Gabriel turned and walked out of the trailer.
Outside, Maura caught up with him on the sidewalk. She
had to call his name twice before he finally stopped and turned to face her.
“If they screw up,” he said, “if they go charging in there too soon—”
“You heard what Stillman said. He wants to go slow on this, just like you.”
Gabriel stared at a trio of cops in SWAT uniforms, huddled near the lobby entrance. “Look at them. They’re pumped up, hoping for action. I know what it’s like, because I’ve been there. I’ve felt it myself. You get tired of standing around, endlessly negotiating. They just want to get on with it, because that’s what they’re trained to do. They can’t wait to pull that trigger.”
“Stillman thinks he can talk her out.”
He looked at her. “You were with the woman. Will she listen?”
“I don’t know. The truth is, we know almost nothing about her.”
“I heard she was pulled out of the water. Brought to the morgue by a fire and rescue crew.”
Maura nodded. “It was an apparent drowning. She was found in Hingham Bay.”
“Who found her?”
“Some guys at a yacht club down in Weymouth. Boston PD’s already got a team from homicide working the case.”
“But they don’t know about Jane.”
“Not yet.” It will make a difference to them, thought Maura. One of their own is a hostage. When another cop’s life is on the line, it always made a difference.
“Which yacht club?” Gabriel asked.
NINE
Mila
There are bars on the windows. This morning, frost is etched like a crystal spiderweb in the glass. Outside are trees, so many of them that I do not know what lies beyond. All I know is this room and this house, which has become our only universe since the night the van brought us here. Sun sparkles on the frost outside our window. It is beautiful in those woods, and I imagine walking among the trees. The crackling leaves, the ice glistening on branches. A cool, pure paradise.
In this house, it is hell.
I see its reflection in the faces of the other girls, who now lie sleeping on dirty cots. I hear the torment in their restless moans, their whimpers. Six of us share this room. Olena has been here the longest, and on her cheek is an ugly bruise, a souvenir left by a client who liked to play rough. Even so, Olena sometimes still fights back. She is the only one among us who does, the only one they cannot quite control, despite their calming drugs and injections. Despite their beatings.
I hear a car roll into the driveway, and I wait with dread for the buzzing of the doorbell. It is like a jolt from a live wire. The girls all startle awake at the sound and they sit up, hugging their blankets to their chests. We know what happens next. We hear the key in the lock, and our door swings open.
The Mother stands in the doorway like a fat cook, ruthlessly choosing which lamb to slaughter. As always, she is cold-blooded about it, her pockmarked face showing no emotion as she scans her flock. Her gaze moves past the girls huddled on their cots and then shifts to the window, where I am standing.
“You,” she says in Russian. “They want someone new.”
I glance at the other girls. All I see in their eyes is relief that this time they are not the chosen sacrifice.
“What are you waiting for?” the Mother says.
My hands have gone cold; already I feel nausea twisting my stomach. “I—I am not feeling well. And I’m still sore down there …”
“Your first week, and already you’re sore?” The Mother snorts. “Get used to it.”
The other girls are all staring at the floor, or at their hands, avoiding my gaze. Only Olena looks at me, and in her eyes I see pity.
Meekly I follow the Mother out of the room. I already know that to resist is to be punished, and I still have the bruises from the last time I protested. The Mother points to the room at the end of the hall.
“There’s a dress on the bed. Put it on.”
I walk into the room and she shuts the door behind me. The window looks out over the driveway, where a blue car is parked. Bars cover the windows here as well. I look at the large brass bed, and what I see is not a piece of furniture, but the device of my torture. I pick up the dress. It is white, like a doll’s frock, with ruffles around the hem. At once I understand what this signifies, and my nausea tightens to a knot of fear. When they ask you to play a child, Olena warned me, it means they want you to be scared. They want you to scream. They enjoy it if you bleed.
I do not want to put on the dress, but I’m afraid not to. By the time I hear footsteps approaching the room, I am wearing the dress, and steeling myself for what comes next. The door opens, and two men step in. They look me over for a moment, and I’m hoping that they are disappointed, that they think I am too thin or too plain, and they’ll turn around and walk out. But then they shut the door and come toward me, like stalking wolves.
You must learn to float away. That’s what Olena taught me, to float above the pain. This I try to do as the men rip off the doll’s dress, as their rough hands close around my wrists, as they force me to yield. My pain is what they have paid for, and they are not satisfied until I am screaming, until sweat and tears streak my face. Oh Anja, how lucky you are to be dead!
When it is over, and I hobble back to the locked room, Olena sits down beside me on my cot, and strokes my hair. “Now you need to eat,” she says.
I shake my head. “I only want to die.”
“If you die, then they win. We can’t let them win.”
“They’ve already won.” I turn on my side and hug my knees to my chest, curling into a tight ball that nothing can penetrate. “They’ve already won …”
“Mila, look at me. Do you think I’ve given up? Do you think I’m already dead?”
I wipe tears from my face. “I’m not as strong as you are.”
“It’s not strength, Mila. It’s hate. That’s what keeps you alive.” She bends close, and her long hair is a waterfall of black silk. What I see in her eyes scares me. A fire burns there; she is not quite sane. This is how Olena survives, on drugs and madness.
The door opens again, and we all shrink as the Mother glances around the room. She points to one of the girls. “You, Katya. This one’s yours.”
Katya just stares back, unmoving.
With two paces, the Mother crosses toward her and slaps her across the ear. “Go,” she orders, and Katya stumbles out of the room. The Mother locks the door.
“Remember, Mila,” Olena whispers. “Remember what keeps you alive.”
I look into her eyes and see it. Hate.
TEN
“We can’t let this information get out,” said Gabriel. “It could kill her.”
Homicide detective Barry Frost reacted with a stunned gaze. They were standing in the parking lot of the Sunrise Yacht Club. Not a breeze stirred, and out on Hingham Bay, sailboats drifted, dead in the water. Under the glare of the afternoon sun, sweat pasted wispy strands of hair to Frost’s pale forehead. In a room full of people, Barry Frost was the one you’d most likely overlook, the man who’d quietly recede into a corner where he’d stand smiling and unnoticed. His bland temperament had helped him weather his occasionally stormy partnership with Jane, a partnership that, over the past two and a half years, had grown strong roots in trust. Now the two men who cared about her, Jane’s husband and Jane’s partner, faced each other with shared apprehension.
“No one told us she was in there,” murmured Frost. “We had no idea.”
“We can’t let the media find out.”
Frost huffed out a shocked breath. “That would be a disaster.”
“Tell me who Jane Doe is. Tell me everything you know.”
“Believe me, we’ll pull out all the stops on this. You have to trust us.”
“I can’t sit on the sidelines. I need to know everything.”
“You can’t be objective. She’s your wife.”
“Exactly. She’s my wife.” A note of panic had slipped into Gabriel’s voice. He paused to rein in his agitation and said quietly: “What
would you do? If it was Alice trapped in there?”
Frost regarded him for a moment. At last he nodded. “Come inside. We’re talking to the commodore. He pulled her out of the water.”
They stepped from glaring sunshine into the cool gloom of the yacht club. Inside, it smelled like every seaside bar that Gabriel had ever walked into, the scent of ocean air mingled with citrus and booze. It was a rickety building, perched on a wooden pier overlooking Hingham Bay. Two portable air-conditioning units rattled in the windows, muffling the clink of glasses and the low hum of conversation. The floors creaked as they headed toward the lounge.
Gabriel recognized the two Boston PD detectives standing at the bar, talking with a bald man. Both Darren Crowe and Thomas Moore were Jane’s colleagues from the homicide unit; both of them greeted Gabriel with looks of surprise.
“Hey,” Crowe said. “I didn’t know the FBI was coming in on this.”
“FBI?” said the bald man. “Wow, this must be getting pretty serious.” He stuck out his hand to Gabriel. “Skip Boynton. I’m the commodore, Sunrise Yacht Club.”
“Agent Gabriel Dean,” said Gabriel, shaking the man’s hand. Trying, as best he could, to play it official. But he could feel Thomas Moore’s puzzled gaze. Moore could see that something was not right here.
“Yeah, I was just telling these detectives how we found her. Quite a shock, lemme tell you, seeing a body in the water.” He paused. “Say, you want a drink, Agent Dean? It’s on the club.”
“No, thank you.”
“Oh, right. On duty, huh?” Skip gave a sympathetic laugh. “You guys really play it by the book, don’t you? No one’ll take a drink. Well, hell, I will.” He slipped behind the bar and dropped ice cubes in a glass. Splashed vodka on top. Gabriel heard ice clinking in other glasses, and he gazed around the room at the dozen club members sitting in the lounge, almost all of them men. Did any of them actually sail boats? Gabriel wondered. Or did they just come here to drink?
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 10-Book Bundle Page 131