A night swirling with the season’s first snow. The stones are slippery beneath your boots. You move in silence because you don’t want the other sisters to know you are meeting someone. Someone for whom you are willing to break the rules.
But it’s dark, and there are no lamps to light the gate. So you can’t see his face. You can’t be sure this is the visitor you’re expecting tonight.…
At the fountain, she abruptly halted and looked up at the row of windows over the courtyard.
“What is it?” said Dean.
“Camille’s room,” she said, pointing. “It’s right up there.”
He gazed up at the room. The stinging wind had made his face ruddy, and ruffled his hair. It was a mistake to stare at him, because she suddenly felt such hunger for his touch, she had to turn away, had to press her fist against her abdomen, to counter the emptiness she felt there.
“She might have seen something, from that room,” said Dean.
“The light in the chapel. It was on when the bodies were found.” Rizzoli looked up at Camille’s window, and remembered the bloodstained sheet.
She awakens with her sanitary pad soaked. She climbs from bed, to use the bathroom and change her pad. And when she comes back to her room, she notices the light, glowing through the stained-glass windows. A light that should not be on.
Rizzoli turned toward the chapel, drawn by the ghostly image she now saw, of young Camille, stepping out of the main building. Shivering as she moved beneath the covered walkway, perhaps regretting that she had not pulled on a coat for this short walk between buildings.
Rizzoli followed that ghost, into the chapel.
There she stood in the gloom. The lights were off, and the pews were nothing more than horizontal slats of shadow. Dean was silent beside her, like a ghost himself, as she watched the final scene play out.
Camille, stepping through the door, just a slip of a girl, her face pale as milk.
She looks down in horror. Sister Ursula lies at her feet, and the stones are splattered with blood.
Perhaps Camille did not immediately understand what had happened, and thought at first glance that Ursula had merely slipped and hit her head. Or perhaps she already knew, from that first glimpse of blood, that evil had breached their walls. That it now stood behind her, near the door. Watching her.
That it was moving toward her.
The first blow sends her staggering. Stunned as she is, she still struggles to escape. Moves in the only direction open to her: Up the aisle. Toward the altar, where she stumbles. Where she drops to her knees, awaiting the final blow.
And when it’s done, and young Camille lies dead, the killer turns back, toward the first victim. Toward Ursula.
But he doesn’t finish the job. He leaves her alive. Why?
She looked down at the stones, where Ursula had fallen. She imagined the attacker, reaching down to confirm the kill.
She went very still, suddenly remembering what Dr. Isles had told her.
“The killer didn’t feel a pulse,” she said.
“What?”
“Sister Ursula is missing a carotid pulse on the right side of her neck.” She looked at Dean. “He thought she was dead.”
They walked up the aisle, past rows of pews, following in Camille’s last footsteps. They came to the spot near the altar where she had fallen. They stood in silence, their gazes on the floor. Though they could not see it in the gloom, traces of blood surely lingered in the cracks between stones.
Shivering, Rizzoli looked up and saw that Dean was watching her.
“That’s all there is to see here,” she said. “Unless you want to talk to the sisters.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“I’m right here.”
“No, you’re not. Detective Rizzoli is here. I want to talk to Jane.”
She laughed. A blasphemous sound in that chapel. “You make it sound like I’m a split personality or something.”
“That’s not too far from the truth. You work so hard at playing the cop, you bury the woman. It’s the woman I came to see.”
“You waited long enough.”
“Why are you angry at me?”
“I’m not.”
“You have a strange way of welcoming me to Boston.”
“Maybe because you didn’t bother to tell me you were coming.”
He sighed, huffing out a ghost. “Can we just sit together for a moment and talk?”
She went to the front pew and sank onto the wooden bench. As he sat down beside her, she gazed straight ahead, afraid to look at him. Afraid of the emotions he stirred in her. Just inhaling his scent was painful, because of the longing it reawakened. This was the man who had shared her bed, whose touch and taste and laugh still haunted her dreams. The result of their union was growing even now, inside her, and she pressed her hand to her belly to quell the secret ache she suddenly felt there.
“How have you been, Jane?”
“I’ve been good. Busy.”
“And the bandage on your head? What happened?”
“Oh, this.” She touched her forehead and shrugged. “Little accident in the morgue. I slipped and fell.”
“You look tired.”
“You don’t bother much with compliments, do you?”
“It’s just an observation.”
“Yeah, well, I’m tired. Of course I am. It’s been one of those weeks. And Christmas is coming up and I haven’t even bought my family any gifts yet.”
He regarded her for a moment, and she looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes.
“You’re not happy to be working with me again, are you?”
She said nothing. Didn’t deny it.
“Why don’t you just tell me what the hell is wrong?” he finally snapped.
The anger in his voice took her aback. Dean was not a man who often revealed his emotions. Once that had infuriated her, because it always made her feel as if she was the one out of control, the one always threatening to boil over. Their affair had started because she had made the first move, not him. She had taken all the risks and put her pride on the line, and where did it get her? In love with a man who was still a cipher to her. A man whose only display of emotion was the anger she now heard in his voice.
It made her angry, as well.
“There’s no point rehashing this,” she said. “We have to work together. We have no choice. But everything else—I just can’t deal with that now.”
“What can’t you deal with? The fact we slept together?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t seem to mind it at the time.”
“It happened, that’s all. I’m sure it meant about as much to you as it did to me.”
He paused. Stung? She wondered. Hurt? She didn’t think it was possible to hurt a man who had no emotions.
She was startled when he suddenly laughed.
“You are so full of shit, Jane,” he said.
She turned and looked at him—really looked at him—and was struck breathless by all the same things that had attracted her to him before. The strong jaw, the slate-gray eyes. The air of command. She could insult him all she wanted to, yet she’d always feel he was the one in control.
“What are you afraid of?” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That I’ll hurt you? That I’ll walk away first?”
“You were never there to begin with.”
“Okay, that’s true. I couldn’t be. Not with the jobs we have.”
“And it all comes down to that, doesn’t it?” She rose from the bench and stamped the blood back into her numb feet. “You’re in Washington, I’m here. You have your job, which you won’t give up. I have mine. No compromise.”
“You make it sound like a declaration of war.”
“No, just logic. I’m trying to be practical.” She turned and started back toward the chapel door.
“And trying to protect yourself.”
“Shou
ldn’t I?” she said, looking back at him.
“The whole world isn’t out to hurt you, Jane.”
“Because I don’t let it.”
They left the chapel. Walked back across the courtyard and stepped through the gate, which gave a resounding clang as it shut.
“Well, I don’t see the point of trying to chip away at that armor,” he said. “I’ll go a long way to meet you. But you have to come halfway. You have to give, too.” He turned and started toward his car.
“Gabriel?” she said.
He stopped and looked back at her.
“What did you think would happen between us this time?”
“I don’t know. That you’d be glad to see me, at least.”
“What else?”
“That we’d screw like bunnies again.”
At that, she gave a laugh and shook her head. Don’t tempt me. Don’t remind me of what I’ve been missing.
He looked at her over the roof of his car. “I’d settle for the first, Jane,” he said. Then he slid inside and shut the door.
She watched him drive away, and thought: Screwing like bunnies is how I got into this mess.
Shivering, she looked at the sky. Only four o’clock, and already, the night seemed to be closing in, stealing the last gray light of day. She did not have her gloves, and the wind was so bitter, it stung her fingers as she took out her keys and opened the car door. Sliding into her car, she fumbled to insert the key in the ignition, but her hands were clumsy, and she could barely feel her fingers.
She paused, key in the ignition.
Suddenly thought about lepers’ hands, the fingers worn down to stumps.
And she remembered, vaguely, a question about a woman’s hands. Something mentioned in passing, that she had ignored at the time.
She said I was rude because I asked why that lady didn’t have any fingers.
She got out of her car and went back to the gate. Rang the bell again and again.
At last Sister Isabel appeared. The ancient face that gazed through the iron bars did not look pleased to see her.
“I need to speak to the girl,” Rizzoli said. “Mrs. Otis’s daughter.”
She found Noni sitting all alone in an old classroom at the end of the hall, her sturdy legs swinging from the chair, a rainbow of crayons splayed out on the battered teacher’s desk in front of her. It was warmer in the abbey kitchen, where Mrs. Otis was now preparing dinner for the sisters, and the aroma of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies wafted even to this gloomy end of the wing, yet Noni had chosen to hole up in this cold room, away from her mother’s sharp tongue and disapproving looks. The girl did not even seem to notice the chill. She was clutching a lime-green crayon in a childish grip, her tongue sticking out in fierce concentration as she drew sparks shooting from a man’s head.
“It’s about to explode,” said Noni. “The death rays are cooking his brain. That makes him blow up. Like when you cook things in the microwave, and they blow up, just like that.”
“The death rays are green?” asked Rizzoli.
Noni looked up. “Are they supposed to be a different color?”
“I don’t know. I always thought death rays would be, oh, silver.”
“I don’t have any silver. Conrad took mine at school and he never gave it back.”
“I guess green death rays will work, too.”
Reassured, Noni went back to her drawing. She picked up a blue crayon and added spikes to the rays, so they looked like arrows raining down on the unfortunate victim. There were many unfortunate victims on the desk. The array of drawings showed spaceships shooting fire and blue aliens chopping off heads. These were not friendly E.Ts. The girl who sat drawing them struck Rizzoli as an alien creature herself, a little gremlin with gypsy brown eyes, hiding in a room where no one would disturb her.
She had chosen a depressing retreat. The classroom looked long unused, its stark walls marred by the scars of countless thumbtacks and yellowed Scotch tape. Ancient student desks were stacked up in a far corner, leaving bare the scuffed wood floor. The only light came from the windows, and it cast everything in wintry shades of gray.
Noni had begun the next drawing in her series of alien atrocities. The victim of the lime-green death rays now had a gaping hole in his head, and purplish blobs were shooting out. A cartoon bubble appeared above him with his dying exclamation.
AHHHHHH!
“Noni, do you remember the night we talked to you?”
The brown curls bobbed up and down in a nod. “You haven’t come back to see me.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been running around quite a bit.”
“You should stop running around. You should learn to sit down and relax.”
There were echoes of an adult voice in that statement. Stop running around, Noni!
“And you shouldn’t be so sad,” Noni added picking up a new crayon.
Rizzoli watched in silence as the girl drew gouts of bright red shooting from the exploding head. Jesus, she thought. This girl sees it. This fearless little gremlin sees more than anyone else does.
“You have very sharp eyes,” said Rizzoli. “You see a lot of things, huh?”
“I saw a potato blow up once. In the microwave.”
“You told us some things last time, about Sister Ursula. You said she scolded you.”
“She did.”
“She said you were rude, because you asked about a woman’s hands. Remember?”
Noni looked up, one dark eye peeking out from beneath the tumble of curls. “I thought you only want to know about Sister Camille.”
“I want to know about Ursula, too. And about the woman who had something wrong with her hands. What did you mean by that?”
“She didn’t have any fingers.” Noni picked up a black crayon and drew a bird above the exploding man. A bird of prey, with huge black wings. “Vultures,” she said. “They eat you when you’re dead.”
Here I am, thought Rizzoli, relying on the word of a girl who draws space aliens and death rays.
She leaned forward. Asked, quietly: “Where did you see this woman, Noni?”
Noni put down her crayon and gave a weary sigh. “Okay. Since you have to know.” She jumped off the chair.
“Where are you going?”
“To show you. Where the lady was.”
Noni’s jacket was so big on her, she looked like a little Michelin man, tramping out into the snow. Rizzoli followed in the footprints made by Noni’s rubber boots, feeling like a lowly private marching behind a determined general. Noni led her across the abbey courtyard, past the fountain where snow had piled like layers on a wedding cake. At the front gate, she stopped, and pointed.
“She was out there.”
“Outside the gate?”
“Uh-huh. She had a big scarf around her face. Like she was a bank robber.”
“So you didn’t see her face?”
The girl shook her head, brown curls tossing.
“Did this lady talk to you?”
“No, the man did.”
Rizzoli stared at her. “There was a man with her?”
“He asked me to let them in, because they needed to speak to Sister Ursula. But it’s against the rules, and I told him so. If a sister breaks the rules, she gets kicked out. My mommy says the sisters don’t have anywhere else to go, so they never break the rules, because they’re afraid to go outside.” Noni paused. Looked up and said with a note of pride: “But I go outside all the time.”
That’s because you’re not afraid of anything, thought Rizzoli. You’re fearless.
Noni began to tramp a line in the snow, her little pink boots marching with a soldier’s precision. She cut one trough, then did an about-face and marched back, stamping out a parallel line. She thinks she’s invincible, thought Rizzoli. But she’s so small and vulnerable. Just a speck of a girl in a puffed-up jacket.
“What happened then, Noni?”
The girl came clomp-clomping back through the snow and came to an abr
upt halt, her gaze focused on her snow-crusted boots. “The lady pushed a letter through the gate.” Noni leaned forward and whispered: “And I saw she didn’t have any fingers.”
“Did you give Sister Ursula that letter?”
The girl gave a nod that made her curls bounce like a head full of Slinkies. “And she came out. Right out.”
“Did she talk to these people?”
A shake of the head.
“Why not?”
“Because when she came out, they were already gone.”
Rizzoli turned and stared at the sidewalk where the two visitors had stood, imploring a recalcitrant child to let them in the gate.
The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly bristled.
Rat Lady. She was here.
SIXTEEN
RIZZOLI STEPPED OFF the hospital elevator, strode past the sign announcing ALL VISITORS MUST CHECK IN, and barrelled straight through the double doors into the intensive care unit. It was one A.M., and the unit lights were dimmed to allow the patients to sleep. Coming straight from the bright hallway, she confronted a room where nurses were faceless silhouettes. Only one patient cubicle was brightly lit, and like a beacon, it drew her toward it.
The black woman cop standing outside the cubicle greeted Rizzoli. “Hey, Detective. You got here fast.”
“She said anything yet?”
“She can’t. She’s still got that breathing tube in her throat. But she’s definitely awake. Her eyes are open, and I heard the nurse say she’s following commands. Everyone seems really surprised that she woke up at all.”
The squeal of the ventilator alarm made Rizzoli glance through the cubicle doorway at the knot of medical personnel huddled around the bed. She recognized the neurosurgeon, Dr. Yuen, and the internist Dr. Sutcliffe, his blond ponytail an oddly disconcerting detail in that gathering of grim professionals. “What’s going on in there?”
“I don’t know. Something about the blood pressure. Dr. Sutcliffe got here just as things started to go haywire. Then Dr. Yuen showed up, and they’ve been fussing with her ever since.” The cop shook her head. “I don’t think it’s going well. Those machines’ve been beeping like crazy.”
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