For a moment Maura just stared at him. Suddenly she laughed. “That’s not a very original delusion.”
“I know, I know what it sounds like.”
“It’s a classic. The government-implanted microchip.”
Gabriel turned to look once again at the X-rays. “Why do you think Barsanti is so eager to transfer these bodies? What does he think you’re going to find?”
Maura fell silent for a moment, her gaze on Olena’s arm.
Yoshima said, “I can X-ray that arm right now. It will only take a few minutes.”
Maura sighed and stripped off her soiled gloves. “It’s almost certainly a waste of time, but we might as well settle the question right now.”
In the anteroom, shielded behind lead, Maura and Gabriel watched through the window as Yoshima positioned the arm on a film cassette and angled the collimator. Maura is right, thought Gabriel, this is probably a waste of time, but he needed to locate the dividing line between fear and paranoia, between truth and delusion. He saw Maura glance up at the clock on the wall, and knew she was anxious to continue cutting. The most important part of the autopsy—the head and neck dissection—had yet to be completed.
Yoshima retrieved the film cassette and disappeared into the processing room.
“Okay, he’s done. Let’s get back to work,” Maura said. She pulled on fresh gloves and moved back to the table. Standing at the corpse’s head, hands tunneling through the tangle of black hair, she palpated the cranium. Then, with one efficient slice, she cut through the scalp. He could scarcely stand to watch the mutilation of this beautiful woman. A face was little more than skin and muscle and cartilage, which easily yielded to the pathologist’s knife. Maura grasped the severed edge of scalp and peeled it forward, the long hair draping like a black curtain over the face.
Yoshima re-emerged from the processing room. “Dr. Isles?”
“X-ray’s ready?”
“Yes. And there’s something here.”
Maura glanced up. “What?”
“You can see it under the skin.” He mounted the X-ray on the light box. “This thing,” he said, pointing.
Maura crossed to the X-ray and stared in silence at the thin white strip tracing through soft tissue. Nothing natural could be that straight, that uniform.
“It’s man-made,” said Gabriel. “Do you think—”
“That’s not a microchip,” said Maura.
“There is something there.”
“It’s not metallic. It’s not dense enough.”
“What are we looking at?”
“Let’s find out.” Maura returned to the corpse and picked up her scalpel. Rotating the left arm, she exposed the scar. The cut she made was startlingly swift and deep, a single stroke that sliced through skin and subcutaneous fat, all the way down to muscle. This patient would never complain about an ugly incision or a severed nerve; the indignities she suffered in this room, on that table, meant nothing to senseless flesh.
Maura reached for a pair of forceps and plunged the tips into the wound. As she rooted around in freshly incised tissue, Gabriel was repelled by the brutal exploration, but he could not turn away. He heard her give a murmur of satisfaction, and suddenly her forceps re-emerged, the tips clamped around what looked like a glistening matchstick.
“I know what this is,” she said, setting the object on a specimen tray. “This is Silastic tubing. It’s simply migrated deeper than it should have after it was inserted. It’s been encapsulated by scar tissue. That’s why I couldn’t feel it through the skin. We needed an X-ray to know it was even there.”
“What’s this thing for?”
“Norplant. This tube contained a progestin that’s slowly released over time, preventing ovulation.”
“A contraceptive.”
“Yes. You don’t see many of these implanted anymore. The product has been discontinued in the US. Usually they’re implanted six at a time, in a fanlike pattern. Whoever removed the other five missed this one.”
The intercom buzzed. “Dr. Isles?” It was Louise again. “You have a call.”
“Can you take a message?”
“I think you need to answer this one. It’s Joan Anstead, in the governor’s office.”
Maura’s head snapped up. She looked at Gabriel, and for the first time he saw unease flicker in her eyes. She set down the scalpel, stripped off her gloves, and crossed to pick up the phone.
“This is Dr. Isles,” she said. Though Gabriel could not hear the other half of the conversation, it was clear just by Maura’s body language that this was not a welcome phone call. “Yes, I’ve already started it. This is in our jurisdiction. Why does the FBI think they can …” A long pause. Maura turned to face the wall, and her spine was now rigid. “But I haven’t completed the postmortem. I’m about to open the cranium. If you’ll just give me another half hour—” Another pause. Then, coldly: “I understand. We’ll have the remains ready for transfer in an hour.” She hung up. Took a deep breath, and turned to Yoshima. “Pack her up. They want Joseph Roke’s body as well.”
“What’s going on?” Yoshima asked.
“They’re being shipped to the FBI lab. They want everything—all organs and tissue specimens. Agent Barsanti will be assuming custody.”
“This has never happened before,” said Yoshima.
She yanked off her mask and reached back to untie the gown. Whipping it off, she tossed it in the soiled linens bin. “The order comes straight from the governor’s office.”
TWENTY-THREE
Jane jerked awake, every muscle snapping taut. She saw darkness, heard the muted growl of a car passing on the street below, and the even rhythm of Gabriel’s breathing as he slept soundly beside her. I am home, she thought. I’m lying in my own bed, in my own apartment, and we’re all safe. All three of us. She took a deep breath and waited for her heart to stop pounding. The sweat-soaked nightgown slowly chilled against her skin. Eventually these nightmares will go away, she thought. These are just the fading echoes of screams.
She turned toward her husband, seeking the warmth of his body, the familiar comfort of his scent. But just as her arm was about to drape around his waist, she heard the baby crying in the other room. Oh please, not yet, she thought. It’s only been three hours since I fed you. Give me another twenty minutes. Another ten minutes. Let me stay in my own bed just a little while longer. Let me shake off these bad dreams.
But the crying continued, louder now, more insistent with every fresh wail.
Jane rose and shuffled from the darkness of her bedroom, shutting the door behind her so that Gabriel would not be disturbed. She flipped on the nursery light and looked down at her red-faced and screaming daughter. Only three days old, and already you’ve worn me out, she thought. Lifting the baby from the crib, she felt that greedy little mouth rooting for her breast. As Jane settled into the rocking chair, pink gums clamped down like a vise on her nipple. But the offered breast was only temporary satisfaction; soon the baby was fussing again, and no matter how closely Jane cuddled her, rocked her, her daughter would not stop squirming. What am I doing wrong, she wondered, staring down at her frustrated infant. Why am I so clumsy at this? Seldom had Jane felt so inadequate, yet this three-day-old baby had reduced her to such helplessness that, at four in the morning, she felt the sudden, desperate urge to call her mother and plead for some maternal wisdom. The sort of wisdom that was supposed to be instinctual, but had somehow skipped Jane by. Stop crying, baby, please stop crying, she thought. I’m so tired. All I want to do is go back to bed, but you won’t let me. And I don’t know how to make you go to sleep.
She rose from the chair and paced the room, rocking the baby as she walked. What did she want? Why was she still crying? She walked her into the kitchen and stood jiggling the baby as she stared, dazed by exhaustion, at the cluttered countertop. She thought of her life before motherhood, before Gabriel, when she would come home from work and pop open a bottle of beer and put her feet up on the couch. She lo
ved her daughter, and she loved her husband, but she was so very tired, and she did not know when she’d be able to crawl back into bed. The night stretched ahead of her, an ordeal without end.
I can’t keep this up. I need help.
She opened the kitchen cabinet and gazed at the cans of infant formula, free samples from the hospital. The baby screamed louder. She didn’t know what else to do. Demoralized, she reached for a can. She poured formula into a feeding bottle and set it in a pot of hot tap water, where it sat warming, a monument to her defeat. A symbol of her utter failure as a mother.
The instant she offered the bottle, pink lips clamped down on the rubber nipple and the baby began to suck with noisy gusto. No more wailing or squirming, just happy-baby noises.
Wow. Magic from a can.
Exhausted, Jane sank into a chair. I surrender, she thought, as the bottle rapidly emptied. The can wins. Her gaze drifted down to the Name Your Baby book lying on the kitchen table. It was still open to the L’s, where she’d last left off skimming the names for girls. Their daughter had come home from the hospital still nameless, and Jane now felt a sense of desperation as she reached for the book.
Who are you, baby? Tell me your name.
But her daughter wasn’t giving away any secrets; she was too busy sucking down formula.
Laura? Laurel? Laurelia? Too soft, too sweet. This kid was none of those. She was going to be a hell-raiser.
The bottle was already half empty.
Piglet. Now there was an appropriate name.
Jane flipped to the M’s. Through bleary eyes she surveyed the list, considering each possibility, then glancing down at her ferocious infant.
Mercy? Meryl? Mignon? None of the above. She turned the page, her eyes so tired now that she could barely focus. Why is this so hard? The girl needs a name, so just choose one! Her gaze slid down the page and stopped.
Mila.
She went stock-still, staring at the name. A chill snaked up her spine. She realized that she had said the name aloud.
Mila.
The room suddenly went cold, as though a ghost had just slipped through the doorway and was now hovering right behind her. She could not help a glance over her shoulder. Shivering, she rose and carried her now-sleeping daughter back to the crib. But that icy sense of dread would not leave her, and she lingered in her daughter’s room, hugging herself as she rocked in the chair, trying to understand why she was shaking. Why seeing the name Mila had so disturbed her. As her baby slept, as the minutes ticked toward dawn, she rocked and rocked.
“Jane?”
Startled, she looked up to see Gabriel standing in the doorway. “Why don’t you come to bed?” he asked.
“I can’t sleep.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“I think you’re just tired.” He came into the room and pressed a kiss to her head. “You need to go back to bed.”
“God, I’m so bad at this.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No one told me how hard it would be, this mommy thing. I can’t even breast-feed her. Every dumb cat knows how to feed her kittens, but I’m hopeless. She just fusses and fusses.”
“She seems to be sleeping fine now.”
“That’s because I gave her formula. From a bottle.” She gave a snort. “I couldn’t fight it anymore. She was hungry and screaming, and there’s that can sitting right there. Hell, who needs a mommy when you’ve got Similac?”
“Oh, Jane. Is that what you’re upset about?”
“It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“But you’ve got that tone of voice. This is too stupid to be believed.”
“I think you’re exhausted, that’s all. How many times have you been up?”
“Twice. No, three times. Jesus, I can’t even remember.”
“You should have given me a kick. I didn’t know you were up.”
“It’s not just the baby. It’s also …” Jane paused. Said, quietly: “It’s the dreams.”
He pulled a chair close to hers and sat down. “What dreams are you talking about?”
“The same one over and over. About that night, in the hospital. In my dream, I know something terrible has happened, but I can’t move, I can’t talk. I can feel blood on my face, I can taste it. And I’m so scared that …” She took a deep breath. “I’m scared to death that it’s your blood.”
“It’s only been three days, Jane. You’re still processing what happened.”
“I just want it to go away.”
“You need time to get past the nightmares.” He added, quietly: “We both do.”
She looked up at his tired eyes, his unshaven face. “You’re having them, too?”
He nodded. “Aftershocks.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“It would be surprising if we weren’t having nightmares.”
“What are yours about?”
“You. The baby …” He stopped, and his gaze slid away. “It’s not something I really want to talk about.”
They were silent for a moment, neither one looking at the other. A few feet away, their daughter slept soundly in her crib, the only one in the family untroubled by nightmares. This is what love does to you, Jane thought. It makes you afraid, not brave. It gives the world carnivorous teeth that are poised at any moment to rip away chunks of your life.
Gabriel reached out and took both her hands in his. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Let’s go back to bed.”
They turned off the light in the nursery and slipped into the shadows of their own bedroom. Under cool sheets he held her. Darkness lightened to gray outside their window, and the sounds of dawn drifted in. To a city girl, the roar of a garbage truck, the thump of car radios, were as familiar as a lullaby. As Boston roused itself to meet the day, Jane finally slept.
She awakened to the sound of singing. For a moment she wondered if this was yet another dream, but a far happier one, knit from long-ago memories of her childhood. She opened her eyes to see sunlight winking through the blinds. It was already two in the afternoon, and Gabriel was gone.
She rolled out of bed and shuffled barefoot into the kitchen. There she stopped, blinking at the unexpected sight of her mother, Angela, seated at the breakfast table, the baby in her arms. Angela looked up at her befuddled daughter.
“Two bottles already. This one sure knows how to eat.”
“Mom. You’re here.”
“Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”
“When did you get here?”
“A few hours ago. Gabriel said you needed to sleep in.”
Jane gave a bewildered laugh. “He called you?”
“Who else is he supposed to call? You have another mother somewhere?”
“No, I’m just …” Jane sank into a chair and rubbed her eyes. “I’m not quite awake yet. Where is he?”
“He left a little while ago. Got a call from that Detective Moore and rushed off.”
“What was the call about?”
“I don’t know. Some police business. There’s fresh coffee there. And you should wash your hair. You look like a cave woman. When did you eat last?”
“Dinner, I guess. Gabriel brought home Chinese.”
“Chinese? Well, that doesn’t last long. Make yourself breakfast, have some coffee. I’ve got everything under control here.”
Yeah, Mom. You always did.
Jane didn’t rise from the chair, but just sat for a moment, watching Angela hold her wide-eyed granddaughter. Saw the baby’s tiny hands reach up to explore Angela’s smiling face.
“How did you do it, Mom?” Jane asked.
“Just feed her. Sing to her. She likes attention is all.”
“No, I meant how did you raise three of us? I never realized how hard it must’ve been, having three kids in five years.” She added, with a laugh: “Especially since one of us was Frankie.”
“Ha! Your brother wasn’t the hard one. Yo
u were.”
“Me?”
“Crying all the time. Woke up every three hours. With you, there was no such thing as sleeping like a baby. Frankie was still crawling around in diapers, and I was up all night walking you back and forth. Got no help from your father. You’re lucky, at least Gabriel, he tries to do his part. But your dad?” Angela snorted. “Said the smell of diapers made him gag, so he wouldn’t do it. Like I had a choice. He runs off to work every morning, and there I was with you two, and Mikey on the way. Frankie with his little hands in everything. And you crying your head off.”
“Why did I cry so much?”
“Some babies are born screamers. They refuse to be ignored.”
Well, that explains it, thought Jane, looking at her baby. I got what I deserved. I got myself for a daughter.
“So how did you manage?” Jane asked again. “Because I’m having so much trouble with this. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You should just do what I did when I thought I was going crazy. When I couldn’t stand another hour, another minute trapped in that house.”
“What did you do?”
“I picked up the phone and called my mother.” Angela looked up at her. “You call me, Janie. That’s what I’m here for. God put mothers on this earth for a reason. Now, I’m not saying it takes a village to raise a kid.” She lowered her gaze back to the baby in her arms. “But it sure does help to have a grandma.”
Jane watched Angela coo to the baby and thought: Oh Mom, I never realized how much I still need you. Do we ever stop needing our mothers?
Blinking away tears, she abruptly rose from her chair and turned to the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. Stood there sipping it as she arched her back, stretching stiff muscles. For the first time in three days she felt rested, almost back to her old self. Except that everything has changed, she thought. Now I’m a mom.
“You’re just the prettiest thing, aren’t you, Regina?”
Jane glanced at her mother. “We haven’t really picked a name yet.”
“You have to call her something. Why not your grandmother’s name?”
“It has to hit me just right, you know? If she’s gonna get stuck with it for the rest of her life, I want the name to suit her.”
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 10-Book Bundle Page 143