And that the alternative was infinitely worse.
She forced herself to breathe slowly, deeply. A drop of warmth slid down her cheek, and the back of her head stung. She had cut her scalp and now it was bleeding in a steady trickle, dripping onto the parachute. Evidence, she thought. My passage marked by blood.
I’m bleeding. What did I hit my head against?
She raised her arms behind her, fingers skimming the trunk roof, seeking whatever it was that had pierced her scalp. She felt molded plastic, a smooth expanse of metal. Then, suddenly, a sharp edge of a protruding screw pricked her skin.
She paused to ease her aching arm muscles, to blink blood from her eyes. She listened to the steady thrum of the tires over the road.
Still moving fast, Boston far behind them.
It is lovely, here in the woods. I stand surrounded by a ring of trees, whose tops pierce the sky like the spires of a cathedral. All morning it has rained, but now a shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds and spills onto the ground where I have hammered four iron stakes, to which I have looped four lengths of rope. Except for the steady drip from the leaves, it is silent.
Then I hear the rustle of wings and I look up to see three crows perched on the branches overhead. They watch with strange eagerness, as though anticipating what comes next. Already they know what this place is, and now they wait, flicking their black wings, drawn here by the promise of carrion.
Sunshine warms the ground and steam curls from the wet leaves. I have hung my knapsack on a branch to keep it dry, and it droops there like heavy fruit, weighed down by the instruments inside. I do not need to inventory the contents; I have assembled them with care, fondling their cold steel as I placed them into the knapsack. Even a year of confinement has not dulled my familiarity, and when my fingers close around a scalpel, it feels as comfortable as a handshake with an old friend.
Now I am about to greet another old friend.
I walk out to the road to wait.
The clouds have thinned to wisps, and the afternoon has grown close and warm. The road is little more than two dirt ruts, and a few tall weeds poke up, their fragile seed heads undisturbed by the recent passage of any car. I hear cawing, and look up to see that the three crows have followed me, and are waiting for the show.
Everyone likes to watch.
A thin curl of dust rises beyond the trees. A car is coming. I wait, my heart beating faster, my hands sweating with anticipation. At last it swings into view, a gleaming black behemoth moving slowly up the dirt road, taking its dignified time. Bringing my friend to see me.
It will be a long visit, I think. Glancing up, I see that the sun is still high, leaving us hours of daylight. Hours of summer fun.
I move to the center of the road and the limousine rolls to a stop in front of me. The driver steps out. We don’t need to exchange a word; we merely look at each other and smile. The smile of two brothers, united not by family bonds, but by shared desires, shared cravings. Words on a page brought us together. In long letters did we spin our fantasies and forge our alliance, the words flowing from our pens like the silky strands of a spider-web binding us together. Bringing us to these woods where crows watch with eager eyes.
Together we walk to the rear of the car. He is excited about fucking her. I can see the bulge in his pants, and I hear the sharp rattle of the car keys in his hands. His pupils are dilated, and his upper lip gleams with sweat. We stand beside the trunk, both of us hungry for the first look at our guest. For the first delicious whiff of her terror.
He thrusts the key in the lock and turns it. The trunk hood rises.
She lies curled on her side, blinking up at us, her eyes dazed by the sudden light. I am so focused on her, I do not immediately register the significance of the white bra, trailing from one corner of the small suitcase. Only as my partner leans forward to haul her from the trunk do I understand what it means.
I shout, “No!”
But already she has brought both her hands forward. Already she is pulling the trigger.
His head explodes in a mist of blood.
It is a strangely graceful ballet, the way his body arches as it falls backward. The way her arms swing toward me with unerring precision. I have time only to twist sideways, and then the second bullet bursts from her gun.
I do not feel it pierce the back of my neck.
The strange ballet continues, only now it is my own body that performs the dance, arms flinging a circle as I hurtle through the air in a swan’s dive. I land on my side, but there is no pain on impact, only the sound of my torso slamming against dirt. I lie waiting for the ache, the throb, but there is nothing. Only a sense of surprise.
I hear her struggle out of the car. She has been lying cramped in there for over an hour, and it takes her several minutes to make her legs obey.
She approaches me. Shoves her foot against my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. I am fully conscious, and I look up at her with full comprehension of what is about to happen. She points the weapon at my face, her hands shaking, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Smeared blood has dried on her left cheek like war paint. Every muscle in her body is primed to kill. Every instinct screams at her to squeeze the trigger. I stare back, unafraid, watching the battle play out in her eyes. Wondering which form of defeat she will choose. In her hands she holds the weapon of her own destruction; I am merely the catalyst.
Kill me, and the consequences will destroy you.
Let me live, and I will forever inhabit your nightmares.
She releases a soft sob. Slowly she lowers the weapon. “No,” she whispers. And again, louder. Defiantly: “No.” Then she straightens, takes a deep breath.
And walks back to the car.
TWENTY-FIVE
Rizzoli stood in the clearing, looking down at the four iron stakes that had been pounded into the earth. Two for the arms, two for the legs. Knotted cord, already looped and waiting to be tightened around wrists and ankles, had been found nearby. She avoided lingering over the obvious purpose of those stakes. Instead she moved around the site with the businesslike demeanor of any cop looking over a crime scene. That it would have been her limbs restrained to the stakes, her flesh rent by the instruments contained in Hoyt’s knapsack, was a detail she kept at a distance. She could feel her colleagues watching her, could hear the way their voices grew hushed when she came near. The bandage over her sutured scalp conspicuously labeled her as the walking wounded, and they were all dealing with her as though she were glass, easily shattered. She could not abide that, not now, when she needed, more than ever, to believe she was not a victim. That she was in full control of her emotions.
And so she walked the site, as she would have any other crime scene. The site had already been photographed and picked over by the State Police the evening before and the scene was officially released, but this morning Rizzoli and her team felt compelled to examine it as well. She tramped with Frost into the woods, tape measure whicking in and out of the canister as they measured the distance from the road to the small clearing where the State Police had discovered Warren Hoyt’s knapsack. Despite the personal significance of this circle of trees, she viewed the clearing with detachment. Recorded in her notebook was a catalog of what had been found inside the knapsack: scalpels and clamps, retractor and gloves. She’d studied the photos of Hoyt’s footwear impressions, now cast in plaster, and had stared at evidence bags holding knotted cords, without stopping to think about whose wrists those cords were intended for. She glanced up to check the changing weather, without acknowledging to herself that this same view of treetops and sky would have been her last. Jane Rizzoli the victim was not here today. Although her colleagues might watch her, waiting for a glimpse, they would not see her. No one would.
She closed her notebook and glanced up to see Gabriel Dean walking toward her through the trees. Although her heart lifted at the sight of him, she greeted him with merely a nod, a look that said, Let’s keep it business.
H
e understood, and they faced each other as two professionals, careful not to betray any hint of the intimacies they had shared only two days before.
“The driver was hired six months ago by VIP Limousines,” she said. “The Yeagers, the Ghents, the Waites—he drove them all. And he had access to VIP’s pickup schedule. He must have seen my name on it. Canceled my scheduled pickup so that he could take the place of the driver who should have been there.”
“And VIP checked out his job references?”
“His references were a few years old, but they were excellent.” She paused. “There was no mention of any military service on his résumé.”
“That’s because John Stark wasn’t his real name.”
She frowned at him. “Identity theft?”
Dean gestured toward the trees. They moved out of the clearing and started walking through the woods, where they could speak in private.
“The real John Stark died September 1999 in Kosovo,” said Dean. “U.N. relief worker, killed when his Jeep hit a land mine. He’s buried in Corpus Christi, Texas.”
“Then we don’t even know our man’s real name.”
Dean shook his head. “Fingerprints, dental X rays, and tissue samples will be sent to both the Pentagon and Central Intelligence.”
“We won’t get any answers from them. Will we?”
“Not if the Dominator was one of theirs. As far as they’re concerned, you’ve taken care of their problem.
Nothing more needs to be said or done.”
“I may have resolved their problem,” she said bitterly. “But mine is still alive.”
“Hoyt? He’ll never be a concern to you.”
“God, I should have squeezed off one more shot—”
“He’s probably quadriplegic, Jane. I can’t imagine any worse punishment.”
They emerged from the woods, onto the dirt road. The limousine had been towed away last night, but the evidence of what had transpired here still remained. She looked down at the dried blood where the man known as John Stark had died. A few yards away was the smaller stain where Hoyt had fallen, his limbs senseless, his spinal cord turned to pulp.
I could have finished it, but I let him live. And I still don’t know if it was the right thing to do.
“How are you, Jane?”
She heard the note of intimacy in his question, an unspoken acknowledgment that they were more than merely colleagues. She looked at him and was suddenly self-conscious about her battered face and the lump of bandage on her scalp. This was not the way she’d wanted him to see her, but now that she stood facing him there was no point hiding her bruises, nothing to do but stand straight and meet his gaze.
“I’m fine,” she said. “A few stitches on my scalp, a few sore muscles. And a really bad case of the uglies.” She waved vaguely at her bruised face and laughed. “But you should see the other guy.”
“I don’t think it’s good for you to be here,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too soon.”
“I’m the one person who should be here.”
“You never cut yourself any slack, do you?”
“Why should I need to?”
“Because you’re not a machine. It will catch up with you. You can’t walk this site and pretend it’s just another crime scene.”
“That’s exactly how I’m treating it.”
“Even after what almost happened?”
What almost happened.
She looked down at the bloodstains in the dirt, and for an instant the road seemed to sway, as though a tremor had shaken the earth, rattling the carefully constructed walls she had put up as shields, threatening the very foundation upon which she stood.
He reached for her hand, a steady touch that brought tears to her eyes. A touch that said: Just this once, you have permission to be human. To be weak.
She said softly, “I’m sorry about Washington.”
She saw hurt in his eyes and realized that he had misunderstood her words.
“So you wish it never happened between us,” he said.
“No. No, that’s not it at all—”
“Then what are you sorry about?”
She sighed. “I’m sorry I left without telling you what that night meant to me. I’m sorry I never really said good-bye to you. And I’m sorry that …” She paused. “That I didn’t let you take care of me, just that once. Because the truth is, I really needed you to. I’m not as strong as I like to think I am.”
He smiled. Squeezed her hand. “None of us is, Jane.”
“Hey, Rizzoli?” It was Barry Frost, calling to her from the edge of the woods.
She blinked away tears and turned to him. “Yeah?”
“We just got a double ten fifty-four. Quik-Stop Grocery Store, Jamaica Plain. Dead store clerk and a customer. The scene’s already been secured.”
“Jesus. So early in the morning.”
“We’re next up for this one. You good to go?”
She drew in a deep breath and turned back to Dean. He had released her hand, and although she missed his touch, she felt stronger, the tremor silenced, the ground once again solid beneath her feet. But she was not ready to end this moment. Their last good-bye in Washington had been rushed; she wouldn’t let it happen again. She wouldn’t let her life turn into Korsak’s, a sad chronicle of regrets.
“Frost?” she said, her gaze still on Dean.
“Yeah?”
“I’m not coming.”
“What?”
“Let another team take it. I’m just not up to it right now.”
There was no response. She glanced at Frost and saw his stunned face.
“You mean … you’re taking the day off?” Frost said.
“Yeah. It’s my first sick leave. You got a problem with that?”
Frost shook his head and laughed. “About goddamn time, is all I can say.”
She watched Frost walk away. Heard him still laughing as he headed into the woods. She waited until Frost had vanished among the trees before she turned to look at Dean.
He held open his arms; she stepped into them.
TWENTY-SIX
Every two hours, they come to check my skin for bedsores. It is a rotating trio of faces: Armina on day shift, Bella on evenings, and on the night shift the quiet and timid Corazon. My ABC girls, I call them. To the unobservant, they are indistinguishable from each other, all of them with smooth brown faces and musical voices. A chirpy chorus line of Filipinas in white uniforms. But I see the differences between them. I see it in the way they approach my bed, in the various ways they grasp me as they roll my torso onto one side or the other to reposition me on the sheepskin cover. Day and night, this must be done, because I cannot turn myself and the weight of my own body pressing down upon the mattress wears away at the skin. It compresses capillaries and interrupts the nourishing flow of blood, starving the tissues, turning them pale and fragile and easily abraded. One small sore can soon fester and grow, like a rat gnawing at the flesh.
Thanks to my ABC girls, I do not have any sores—or so they tell me. I cannot verify it because I can’t see my own back or buttocks, nor can I feel any sensation below my shoulders. I am completely dependent on Armina, Bella, and Corazon to keep me healthy, and like any infant, I pay rapt attention to those who tend me. I study their faces, inhale their scents, commit their voices to memory. I know that the bridge of Armina’s nose is not quite straight, that Bella’s breath often smells of garlic, and that Corazon has just the hint of a stutter.
I also know they are afraid of me.
They know, of course, why I am here. Everyone who works on the spinal cord unit is aware of who I am, and although they treat me with the same courtesy they offer all the other patients, I notice they do not really look me in the eye, that they hesitate before touching my flesh, as though they are about to test a hot iron. I catch glimpses of the aides in the hallway, glancing at me as they whisper to each other. They chatter with the other patients, aski
ng them about their friends and families, but no such questions are ever put to me. Oh, they ask me how I am feeling and whether I slept well, but that is the extent of our conversation.
Yet I know they are curious. Everyone is curious, everyone wants a peek at the Surgeon, but they are afraid to come too close, as though I might suddenly spring up and attack them. So they cast quick glances at me through the doorway, but do not come in unless duty calls them. The ABC girls tend to my skin, my bladder, and my bowels, and then they flee, leaving the monster alone in his den, chained to the bed by his own ruined body.
It’s no wonder I look forward so eagerly to Dr. O’Donnell’s visits.
She has been coming once a week. She brings her cassette recorder and her legal notepad and a purse full of blue rollerball pens with which to take notes. And she brings her curiosity, wearing it fearlessly and unashamedly, like a red cloak. Her curiosity is purely professional, or so she believes. She moves her chair close to my bed and sets up the microphone on the tray table so it will catch every word. Then she leans forward, her neck arching toward me as though offering me her throat. It is a lovely throat. She is a natural blonde, and quite pale, and her veins course in delicate blue lines beneath the whitewash of skin. She looks at me, unafraid, and asks her questions.
“Do you miss John Stark?”
“You know I do. I’ve lost a brother.”
“A brother? But you don’t even know his real name.”
“And the police, they keep asking me about it. I can’t help them, because he never told me.”
“Yet you corresponded with him all that time from prison.”
“Names were unimportant to us.”
“You knew each other well enough to kill together.”
“Only the one time, on Beacon Hill. It’s like making love, I think. The first time, you’re still learning to trust each other.”
“So killing together was a way of getting to know him?”
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 11-Book Bundle Page 62