The Apprentice: A Novel

by Tess Gerritsen

  I remember my crib, wooden slats painted white, the rail dimpled with gnaw marks from my teething. A blue blanket that had some sort of tiny creatures printed on it. Birds or bees or maybe little bears. And over the crib, a soaring contraption which I now know was a mobile, but at the time struck me as something quite magical. Glittering, always moving. Stars and moons and planets, my father later told me, just the sort of thing he would hang over his son’s crib. He was an aerospace engineer, and he believed that you could turn any child into a genius if you just stimulated the growing brain, whether it be with mobiles or flash cards or tapes with his father’s voice reciting the multiplication tables.

  I have always been good at math.

  But these are memories I doubt you have much interest in. No, you are searching for the darker themes, not my memories of white cribs and pretty mobiles. You want to know why I am the way I am.

  So I suppose I should tell you about Mairead Donohue.

  I learned her name years later, when I told an aunt about my early recollections, and she said, “Oh, my God. You actually remember Mairead?” Yes indeed, I remember her. When I call to mind the images from my nursery, it is not my mother’s face but the face of Mairead that stares down at me over the railing of my crib. White skin, marred by a single mole which perches like a black fly on her cheek. Green eyes that are both beautiful and cold. And her smile—even a child as young as I was could see what adults are blind to: there is hatred in that smile. She hates the household where she works. She hates the stink of diapers. She hates my hungry cries which interrupt her sleep. She hates the circumstances which have brought her to this hot Texas city, so different from her native Ireland.

  Most of all, she hates me.

  I know this, because she demonstrates it in a dozen quiet and subtle ways. She does not leave any evidence of her abuse; oh no, she is too clever for that. Instead her hatred takes the form of angry whispers, soft as a snake’s hiss, as she leans over my crib. I cannot understand the words, but I hear their venom, and I see the rage in her narrowed eyes. She does not neglect my physical needs; my diaper is always fresh and my milk bottle warmed. But always, there are the secret pinches, the twisting of my skin, the sting of alcohol dabbed straight on my urethra. Naturally I scream, but there are never any scars or bruises. I am simply a colicky baby, she tells my parents, born with a nervous disposition. And poor, hardworking Mairead! She is the one who must cope with the screaming brat, while my mother tends to her social obligations. My mother, who smells of perfume and mink.

  So this is what I remember. The startling bursts of pain. The sound of my own screaming. And above me, the white skin of Mairead’s throat as she cranes forward into my crib to deliver a pinch or a jab to my tender skin.

  I don’t know if it’s possible for a child as young as I was to hate. I think it’s more likely we are merely bewildered by such punishment. Without the capacity to reason, the best we can manage is to link cause and effect. And I must have understood, even then, that the source of my torment was a woman with cold eyes and a milk-white throat.

  Rizzoli sat at her desk and stared at Warren Hoyt’s meticulous handwriting, both margins neatly lined up, the small, tight words marching in a straight line across the page. Although he had written the letter in ink, there were no corrections or crossed-out words. Every sentence was already organized before his pen touched paper. She thought of him bent over this page, slender fingers poised around the ballpoint pen, his skin sliding across the paper, and suddenly she felt the almost desperate need to wash her hands.

  In the women’s rest room she stood scrubbing with soap and water, trying to eradicate any trace of him, but even after she’d washed and dried her hands, she still felt contaminated, as though his words had seeped like poison through her skin. And there were more of these letters to read, more poison still to be absorbed.

  A knock at the rest room door made her stiffen.

  “Jane? Are you in there?” It was Dean.

  “Yes,” she called out.

  “I’ve got the VCR ready in the conference room.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  She looked at herself in the mirror and was not happy with what she saw. The tired eyes, the look of shaken confidence. Don’t let him see you like this, she thought.

  She turned on the tap, splashed cold water on her face, and blotted herself dry with a paper towel. Then she stood up straight and took a deep breath. Better, she thought, staring at her reflection. Never let them see you sweat.

  She walked into the conference room and gave Dean a curt nod. “Okay. Are we ready?”

  He already had the TV on, and the VCR power light was glowing. He picked up the manila envelope that O’Donnell had given them and slid out the videotape. “It’s dated August seventh,” he said.

  Only three weeks ago, she thought, unsettled by how fresh these images, these words, would be.

  She sat down at the conference table, pen and legal pad ready to take notes. “Start it.”

  Dean inserted the tape and pressed PLAY.

  The first image they saw was the neatly coifed O’Donnell, standing before a white cinder-block wall and looking incongruously elegant in a blue knit suit. “Today is August seventh. I’m at the Souza-Baranowski facility in Shirley, Massachusetts. This subject is Warren D. Hoyt.”

  The TV flickered to black; then a new image flared onto the screen, a face so abhorrent to Rizzoli that she rocked back in her chair. To anyone else, Hoyt would seem ordinary, even forgettable. His light-brown hair was neatly trimmed, and his face had the pallor of confinement. The denim shirt, in prison blue, hung a size too large on his slender frame. Those who had known him in his everyday life had described him as pleasant and courteous, and this was the image he projected on the videotape. A nice, harmless young man.

  His gaze shifted away from the camera, and he focused on something that was off-screen. They heard a chair scrape and then O’Donnell’s voice speaking.

  “Are you comfortable, Warren?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shall we start, then?”

  “Any time, Dr. O’Donnell.” He smiled. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “All right.” A sound of O’Donnell’s chair creaking, the clearing of her throat. “In your letters, you’ve already told me quite a bit about your family and your childhood.”

  “I tried to be complete. I think it’s important that you understand every aspect of who I am.”

  “Yes, I appreciate that. It’s not often I get the chance to interview someone as verbal as you. Certainly not anyone who’s tried to be as analytical as you are about your own behavior.”

  Hoyt shrugged. “Well, you know the saying about the unexamined life. That it’s not worth living.”

  “Sometimes, though, we can take the self-analysis too far. It’s a defense mechanism. Intellectualism as a means of distancing ourselves from our raw emotions.”

  Hoyt paused. Then said, with a faintly mocking note: “You want me to talk about feelings.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any feelings in particular?”

  “I want to know what makes men kill. What draws them to violence. I want to know what goes through your head. What you feel, when you kill another human being.”

  He said nothing for a moment, pondering the question. “It’s not easy to describe.”

  “Try to.”

  “For the sake of science?” The mockery was back in his voice.

  “Yes. For the sake of science. What do you feel?”

  A long pause. “Pleasure.”

  “So it feels good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Describe it for me.”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “It’s the core of my research, Warren. I want to know what you experience when you kill. It’s not morbid curiosity. I need to know if you experience any symptoms which may indicate neurologic abnormalities. Headaches, for instance. Strange tastes or smells.”

 
“The smell of blood is quite nice.” He paused. “Oh. I think I’ve shocked you.”

  “Go on. Tell me about blood.”

  “I used to work with it, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. You were a lab technician.”

  “People think of blood as just a red fluid that circulates in our veins. Like motor oil. But it’s quite complex and individual. Everyone’s blood is unique. Just as every kill is unique. There is no typical one to describe.”

  “But they all gave you pleasure?”

  “Some more than others.”

  “Tell me about one that stands out for you. One that you remember in particular. Is there one?”

  He nodded. “There’s one that I always think about.”

  “More than the others?”

  “Yes. It’s been on my mind.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t finish it. Because I never got the chance to enjoy it. It’s like having an itch you can’t scratch.”

  “That makes it sound trivial.”

  “Does it? But over time, even a trivial itch begins to consume your attention. It’s always there, prickling your skin. One form of torture, you know, is to tickle the feet. It may seem like nothing, at first. But then it goes on for days and days without relief. It becomes the cruelest form of torture. I think I’ve mentioned in my letters that I know a thing or two about the history of man’s inhumanity to man. The art of inflicting pain.”

  “Yes. You wrote me about your, uh, interest in that subject.”

  “Torturers through the ages have always known that the subtlest of discomforts, over time, become quite intolerable.”

  “And has this itch you mentioned become intolerable?”

  “It keeps me up at night. Thoughts of what might have been. The pleasure I was denied. All my life I’ve been meticulous about finishing what I start. So this disturbs me. I think about it all the time. The images keep playing back in my head.”

  “Describe them. What you see, what you feel.”

  “I see her. She is different, not like the others at all.”

  “How so?”

  “She hates me.”

  “The others didn’t?”

  “The others were naked and afraid. Conquered. But this one is still fighting me. I feel it when I touch her. Her skin is electric with rage, even though she knows I’ve defeated her.” He leaned forward, as though about to share his most intimate thoughts. His gaze was no longer on O’Donnell but on the camera, as though he could see through the lens and stare directly at Rizzoli. “I feel her anger,” he said. “I absorb her rage, just by touching her skin. It’s like white heat. Something liquid and dangerous. Pure energy. I’ve never felt so powerful. I want to feel that way again.”

  “Does it arouse you?”

  “Yes. I think about her neck. Very slender. She has a nice, white neck.”

  “What else do you think about?”

  “I think about taking off her clothes. About how firm her breasts are. And her belly. A nice, flat belly . . .”

  “So your fantasies about Dr. Cordell—they’re sexual?”

  He paused. Blinked, as though shaken from a trance. “Dr. Cordell?”

  “That’s who we’re talking about, isn’t it? The victim you never killed, Catherine Cordell.”

  “Oh. I think of her, too. But she’s not the one I’m talking about.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “The other one.” He stared at the camera with a look of such intensity that Rizzoli could feel its heat. “The policewoman.”

  “You mean the one who found you? That’s the woman you fantasize about?”

  “Yes. Her name is Jane Rizzoli.”

  eighteen

  Dean stood up and pressed STOP on the VCR. The screen went blank. Warren Hoyt’s last words seemed to hang like a perpetual echo in the silence. In his fantasies, she had been stripped of her clothing and her dignity, reduced to naked body parts. Neck and breasts and belly. She wondered if that was how Dean now saw her, if the erotic visions that Hoyt had conjured were now imprinted in Dean’s mind as well.

  He turned to look at her. She had never found his face easy to read, but in that instant the anger in his eyes was unmistakable.

  “You understand, don’t you?” he said. “You were meant to see this tape. He laid a path of bread crumbs for you to follow. The envelope with O’Donnell’s return address led to O’Donnell herself. To his letters, to this videotape. He knew you’d see it all, eventually.”

  She stared at the blank TV. “He’s talking to me.”

  “Exactly. He’s using O’Donnell as his medium. When Hoyt talks to her, in this interview, he’s really talking to you. Telling you his fantasies. Using them to scare you, humiliate you. Listen to what he says.” Dean rewound the tape.

  Once again, Hoyt’s face appeared on the screen. “It keeps me up at night. Thoughts of what might have been. The pleasure I was denied. All my life I’ve been meticulous about finishing what I start. So this disturbs me. I think about it all the time. . . .”

  Dean pressed STOP and looked at her. “How does that make you feel? Knowing you’re always on his mind?”

  “You know damn well how it makes me feel.”

  “So does he. That’s why he wanted you to hear it.” Dean pressed FAST FORWARD and then PLAY.

  Hoyt’s eyes were eerily focused on the audience he couldn’t see. “I think about taking off her clothes. About how firm her breasts are. And her belly. A nice, flat belly . . .”

  Again Dean hit STOP. His gaze made her flush.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. “You want to know how that makes me feel.”

  “Exposed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Vulnerable.”

  “Yes.”

  “Violated.”

  She swallowed and looked away. Said, softly: “Yes.”

  “All the things he wants you to feel. You told me he’s attracted to damaged women. To women who’ve been violated. And that’s precisely the way he’s making you feel now. With mere words on a videotape. Just like a victim.”

  Her gaze shot back to his. “No,” she said. “Not a victim. Do you want to know what I’m really feeling right now?”

  “What?”

  “I’m ready to tear that son of a bitch into shreds.” It was an answer launched on pure bravado, the words punched into the air. It took him aback, and he just frowned at her for a moment. Did he see how hard she was working to keep up the front? Had he heard the false note in her voice?

  She forged ahead, not giving him the chance to see past her bluff. “You’re saying he knew, even then, that I’d eventually see this? That the tape was meant for me.”

  “Didn’t it sound that way to you?”

  “It sounded like any sicko’s fantasy.”

  “Not just any sicko. And not just any victim. He’s talking about you, Jane. Talking about what he’d like to do to you.”

  Alarms crackled through her nerve endings. Dean was turning it personal again, aiming it like an arrow straight at her. Did he enjoy seeing her squirm? Did this serve any purpose except to heighten her fears?

  “At the time this was recorded, he already had his escape planned,” said Dean. “Remember, he was the one who contacted O’Donnell. He knew she’d talk to him. She couldn’t resist the offer. She was an open microphone, recording everything he said, everything he wanted people to hear. You, in particular. Then he set loose a logical sequence of events, leading right to this moment, with you watching that videotape.”

  “Is anyone that brilliant?”

  “Isn’t Warren Hoyt?” he asked. It was another arrow launched to pierce her defenses. To drive home the obvious.

  “He’s spent a year behind bars. He had a year to nurse his fantasies,” said Dean. “And they were all about you.”

  “No, it was Catherine Cordell he wanted. It’s always been Cordell—”

  “That’s not what he told O’Donnell.”

 
; “Then he was lying.”

  “Why?”

  “To get at me. To rattle me—”

  “Then you do agree. This tape was meant to end up in your hands. It’s a message directed at you.”

  She stared at the blank TV. The ghost of Hoyt’s face still seemed to be staring at her. Everything he’d done was aimed at rattling her universe, destroying her peace of mind. It’s what he’d done to Cordell before he’d moved in for the kill. He wanted his victims terrified, broken down by exhaustion, and he harvested his prey only after they’d been thoroughly ripened by fear. She had no denials left to offer, no defense against the obvious.

  Dean sat down and faced her across the table. “I think you should withdraw from this investigation,” he said quietly.

  Startled, she stared at him. “Withdraw?”

  “It’s become personal.”

  “Between me and a perp, it’s always personal.”

  “Not to this degree. He wants you on this case, so he can play his little games. Insinuate himself into every aspect of your life. As lead detective, you’re visible and accessible. Fully immersed in the hunt. And now he’s starting to stage the crime scenes for your benefit. To communicate with you.”

  “All the more reason for me to stay on.”

  “No. All the more reason for you to walk away. To put some distance between you and Hoyt.”

  “I never walk away from anything, Agent Dean,” she shot back.

  After a pause, he said dryly: “No. I can’t imagine you ever do.”

  She was the one leaning forward now, in an attitude of confrontation. “What’s your problem with me, anyway? You’ve had it in for me from the start. You talked to Marquette behind my back. You raised doubts about me—”

  “I never questioned your competence.”

  “Then what is your problem with me?”

  He responded to her anger in a voice that was calm and reasoned. “Consider who we’re dealing with. A man you once tracked down. A man who blames you for his capture. He’s still thinking about what he’d like to do to you. And you’ve spent the same year trying to forget what he did. He’s hungry for a second act, Jane. He’s laying the foundation, drawing you right in where he wants you. It’s not a safe place to be.”