Julian sighed. “The truth is, my grades aren’t all that good.”
“I know. We’ve looked at your transcript.”
Again he glanced at Beverly, wondering what the trick was. Why such a privilege was being offered to him.
“It’s a great opportunity,” said his caseworker. “A year-round boarding school with top academic standards. A full scholarship. They have only fifty students, so you’d get plenty of attention.”
“Then why do they want me?”
His plaintive question hung for a moment unanswered. It was the man who finally spoke.
“Do you remember me, Julian?” he said. “We’ve met.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy found himself shrinking under the man’s piercing gaze. “You came to see me at the hospital.”
“I’m on the board of trustees at Evensong. It’s a school I deeply believe in. A school for unique students. Young people who’ve proven themselves extraordinary in some way.”
“Me?” The boy laughed in disbelief. “I’m a thief. They told you that, didn’t they?”
“Yes, I know.”
“I broke into houses. I stole stuff.”
“I know.”
“I killed a deputy. I shot him.”
“To stay alive. It’s a talent, you know. Just knowing how to survive.”
Julian’s gaze drifted to the window. Below was the school courtyard, where cliques of students were huddled together in the cold, laughing and gossiping. I’ll never be part of their world, he thought. I’ll never be one of them. Is there anywhere in the world where I belong?
“Ninety-nine percent of kids wouldn’t have lived through what you did,” said the man. “Because of you, my friend Maura is alive.”
Julian looked at the man with sudden comprehension. “This is because of her, isn’t it? Maura asked you to take me.”
“Yes. But I’m also doing it for Evensong. Because I think you’ll be an asset to us. An asset to …” He stopped. It was in that silence where the real answer lay. An answer that the man chose at that moment not to reveal. Instead, he smiled. “I’m sorry. I never properly introduced myself, did I? My name is Anthony Sansone.” He extended his hand. “May we welcome you to Evensong, Julian?”
The boy stared at Sansone, trying to read his eyes. Trying to understand what was not being said. Principal Gorchinski and Beverly Cupido were both smiling cluelessly, oblivious to the strange current of tension in the room, a subaudible hum that told him there was more to the Evensong School than Lily Saul and Anthony Sansone were telling him. And that his life was about to change.
“Well, Julian?” said Sansone. His hand was still extended.
“My name is Rat,” the boy said. And he took the man’s hand.
To Jack R. Winans
Kearny High School, San Diego
The lessons you taught me will last a lifetime.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing is a lonely profession, but I am far from alone. I am fortunate to have the help and support of my husband, Jacob; my literary agent, Meg Ruley; and my editor, Linda Marrow. I owe thanks as well to Selina Walker at Transworld; to Brian McLendon, Libby McGuire, and Kim Hovey at Ballantine; and to the lively and wonderful crew at the Jane Rotrosen Agency.
Rizzoli & Isles, In Their Own Words …
JANE RIZZOLI
Detective, homicide unit, Boston Police Department
I’m just a girl from Boston who hunts monsters for a living. Yeah, I know I’m not supposed to call ’em that, but that’s what some of them are. Monsters. If you saw what they’ve done, the lives they’ve ruined, you’d want to take them down, too.
I’ve wanted to be a cop since a police officer came to my school for career day. I saw how the other kids looked up to him, and I knew that was the job for me. I wanted the gun, the badge.
Most of all, I wanted the respect.
Felt like I didn’t get a lot of that when I was growing up. My mom’s a housewife and my dad’s a plumber—we’re blue collar all the way. I had an okay childhood, but I have to admit we were a noisy household. Lots of yelling.
After my training at Boston PD academy, I worked my way up from beat patrolman to detective (vice and narcotics) and finally ended up where I am now: the homicide unit. It’s a boy’s club. I get it.
Still, it gets old, having to prove myself again and again. I hate whiners, so you’ll never hear me complain. Whining doesn’t get you anywhere, not with the guys in my unit. Not with guys anywhere, for that matter.
My philosophy for success? Make every perp hunt personal. Get angry, never give up, and for god’s sake, wear flats to a scene. You’ll never catch anyone if you’re wearing high heels.
DR. MAURA ISLES
Forensic pathologist, Medical Examiner’s office, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
I want to believe that there is a scientific explanation for everything that happens. It isn’t fate that sends a bicyclist flying over the handlebars to her death; it’s because her front tire hit a frost heave and kinetic energy took over. Fate has nothing to do with it. Death is not a mystical process; it is organic. I find that comforting.
I knew, from an early age, that I was something of an odd duck. I was the child who hid out in her room for hours, reading, the child who dissected her dead pet mouse. I was the scholar, the accomplished pianist, the honor student. My parents understood that I was different, and although they were not people who’d crow loudly about anything, I always knew they were proud of me.
My devotion to logic and science drew me to the study of medicine. But soon after I began medical school, I realized that I wasn’t meant to work with living patients. I wasn’t good at holding their hands, at ferreting out the unspoken emotional clues in their voices when they told me of their aches and pains. I can analyze x-rays and blood chemistries, I can slice open muscles and organs, but I possess no scalpel with which to dissect human emotions.
So I became a forensic pathologist.
Boston is my home now. These cold New England winters suit me, as does my job as medical examiner. But I have little in common with the Boston PD detectives with whom I work. I think some of them may even be afraid of me, because I see their wary glances and hear their whispers as I walk past. And I know what they call me behind my back:
“The Queen of the Dead.”
The Silent Girl is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Tess Gerritsen
Short story “Freaks” copyright © 2010 by Tess Gerritsen.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Gerritsen, Tess.
The silent girl: a Rizzoli & Isles novel / Tess Gerritsen.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52660-1
1. Rizzoli, Jane, Detective (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Isles, Maura (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Policewomen—Fiction.
4. Women forensic scientists—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.E687S55 2011 813′.54—dc22 2011010445
www.ballantinebooks.com
Cover design: Jae Song
Cover images: © Shutterstock/Mayer George Vladimirovich
v3.1_r2
Contents
Master - Table of Contents
The Silent Girl
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Cha
pter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Freaks (Short Story)
Rizzoli & Isles script pages
“What you must do,” said Monkey, “is lure the monster from its hiding place,
but be certain it is a fight you can survive.”
—Wu Cheng’en,
The Monkey King: Journey to the West, c. 1500–1582
ONE
SAN FRANCISCO
All day, I have been watching the girl.
She gives no indication that she’s aware of me, although my rental car is within view of the street corner where she and the other teenagers have gathered this afternoon, doing whatever bored kids do to pass the time. She looks younger than the others, but perhaps it’s because she’s Asian and petite at seventeen, just a wisp of a girl. Her black hair is cropped as short as a boy’s, and her blue jeans are ragged and torn. Not a fashion statement, I think, but a result of hard use and life on the streets. She puffs on a cigarette and exhales a cloud of smoke with the nonchalance of a street thug, an attitude that doesn’t match her pale face and delicate Chinese features. She is pretty enough to attract the hungry stares of two men who pass by. The girl notices their looks and glares straight back at them, unafraid, but it’s easy to be fearless when danger is merely an abstract concept. Faced with a real threat, how would this girl react, I wonder. Would she put up a fight or would she crumble? I want to know what she’s made of, but I have not seen her put to the test.
As evening falls, the teenagers on the corner begin to disband. First one and then another wanders away. In San Francisco, even summer nights are chilly, and those who remain huddle together in their sweaters and jackets, lighting one another’s cigarettes, savoring the ephemeral heat of the flame. But cold and hunger eventually disperse the last of them, leaving only the girl, who has nowhere to go. She waves to her departing friends and for a while lingers alone, as though waiting for someone. At last, with a shrug, she leaves the corner and walks in my direction, her hands thrust in her pockets. As she passes my car, she doesn’t even glance at me, but looks straight ahead, her gaze focused and fierce, as if she’s mentally churning over some dilemma. Perhaps she’s thinking about where she’s going to scavenge dinner tonight. Or perhaps it’s something more consequential. Her future. Her survival.
She’s probably unaware that two men are following her.
Seconds after she walks past my car, I spot the men emerging from an alley. I recognize them; it’s the same pair who had stared at her earlier. As they move past my car, trailing her, one of the men looks at me through the windshield. It’s just a quick glance to assess whether I am a threat. What he sees does not concern him in the least, and he and his companion keep walking. They move like the confident predators they are, stalking weaker prey who cannot possibly fight them off.
I step out of my car and follow them. Just as they are following the girl.
She heads into a neighborhood where too many buildings stand abandoned, where the sidewalk seems paved with broken bottles. The girl betrays no fear, no hesitation, as if this is familiar territory. Not once does she glance back, which tells me she is either foolhardy or clueless about the world and what it can do to girls like her. The men following her don’t glance back, either. Even if they were to spot me, which I do not allow to happen, they would see nothing to be afraid of. No one ever does.
A block ahead, the girl turns right, vanishing through a doorway.
I retreat into the shadows and watch what happens next. The two men pause outside the building that the girl has entered, conferring over strategy. Then they, too, step inside.
From the sidewalk, I look up at the boarded-over windows. It is a vacant warehouse posted with a NO TRESPASSING notice. The door hangs ajar. I slip inside, into gloom so thick that I pause to let my eyes adjust as I rely on my other senses to take in what I cannot yet see. I hear the floor creaking. I smell burning candle wax. I see the faint glow of the doorway to my left. Pausing outside it, I peer into the room beyond.
The girl kneels before a makeshift table, her face lit by one flickering candle. Around her are signs of temporary habitation: a sleeping bag, tins of food, and a small camp stove. She is struggling with a balky can opener and is unaware of the two men closing in from behind.
Just as I draw in a breath to shout a warning, the girl whirls around to face the trespassers. All she has in her hand is the can opener, a meager weapon against two larger men.
“This is my home,” she says. “Get out.”
I had been prepared to intervene. Instead I pause where I am to watch what happens next. To see what the girl is made of.
One of the men laughs. “We’re just visiting, honey.”
“Did I invite you?”
“You look like you could use the company.”
“You look like you could use a brain.”
Not a wise way to handle the situation, I think. Now their lust is mingled with anger, a dangerous combination. Yet the girl stands perfectly still, perfectly calm, brandishing that pitiful kitchen utensil. As the men lunge, I am already on the balls of my feet, ready to spring.
She springs first. One leap and her foot thuds straight into the first man’s sternum. It’s an inelegant but effective blow and he staggers, gripping his chest as if he cannot breathe. Before the second man can react, she is already spinning toward him, and she slams the can opener against the side of his head. He howls and backs away.
This has gotten interesting.
The first man has recovered and rushes at her, slamming her so hard that they both go sprawling onto the floor. She kicks and punches, and her fist cracks into his jaw. But fury has inured him to pain and with a roar he rolls on top of her, immobilizing her with his weight.
Now the second man jumps back in. Grabbing her wrists, he pins them against the floor. Youth and inexperience have landed her in a calamity that she cannot possibly escape. As fierce as she is, the girl is green and untrained, and the inevitable is about to happen. The first man has unzipped her jeans and he yanks them down past her skinny hips. His arousal is evident, his trousers bulging. Never is a man more vulnerable to attack.
He doesn’t hear me coming. One moment he’s unzipping his fly. The next, he’s on the floor, his jaw shattered, loose teeth spilling from his mouth.
The second man barely has time to release the girl’s hands and jump up, but he’s not quick enough. I am a tiger and he is nothing more than a lumbering buffalo, stupid and helpless against my strike. With a shriek he drops to the ground, and judging by the grotesque angle of his arm, his bone has been snapped in two.
I grab the girl and yank her to her feet. “Are you unhurt?”
She zips up her jeans and stares at me. “Who the hell are you?”
“That’s for later. Now we go!” I bark.
“How did you do that? How did you bring them down so fast?”
“Do you want to learn?”
�
��Yes!”
I look at the two men groaning and writhing at our feet. “Then here is the first lesson: Know when to run.” I shove her toward the door. “That time would be now.”
I watch her eat. For a small girl, she has the appetite of a wolf, and she devours three chicken tacos, a lake of refried beans, and a large glass of Coca-Cola. Mexican food was what she wanted, so we sit in a café where mariachi music plays and the walls are adorned with gaudy paintings of dancing señoritas. Though the girl’s features are Chinese, she is clearly American, from her cropped hair to her tattered jeans. A crude and feral creature who slurps up the last of her Coke before noisily gnawing on the ice cubes.
I begin to doubt the wisdom of this venture. She is already too old to be taught, too wild to learn discipline. I should release her back to the streets, if that’s where she wants to go, and find another way. But then I notice the scars on her knuckles and remember how close she came to single-handedly taking down the two men. She has raw talent and is fearless—two things that cannot be taught.
“Do you remember me?” I ask.
The girl sets down her glass and frowns. For an instant I think I see a flash of recognition, but then it’s gone. She shakes her head.
“It was a long time ago,” I say. “Twelve years.” An eternity for a girl so young. “You were small.”
She shrugs. “No wonder I don’t remember you.” She reaches in her jacket, pulls out a cigarette, and starts to light it.
“You’re polluting your body.”
“It’s my body,” she retorts.
“Not if you wish to train.” I reach across the table and snatch the cigarette from her lips. “If you want to learn, your attitude must change. You must show respect.”
She snorts. “You sound like my mother.”
“I knew your mother. In Boston.”
“Well, she’s dead.”
“I know. She wrote me last month. She told me she was ill and had very little time left. That’s why I’m here.”
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 11-Book Bundle Page 246