Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

P ROLOGUE
    T HAT BOY WAS WATCHING her again.
    Fourteen-year-old Alice Rose tried to focus on the ten exam questions on her desk, but her mind was not on freshman English; it was on Elijah. She could feel the boy’s gaze, like a beam aimed at her face, could feel its heat on her cheek, and knew she was blushing.
    Concentrate, Alice!
    The next question on the test was smudged from the mimeograph machine, and she had to squint to make out the words.
    Charles Dickens often chooses names that match his characters’ traits. Give some examples and describe why the names fit those particular characters.
    Alice chewed her pencil, trying to dredge up an answer. But she couldn’t think while
he
was sitting at the next desk, so close that she could inhale his scent of pine soap and wood smoke. Manly smells. Dickens, Dickens, who cared about Charles Dickens and Nicholas Nickleby and boring freshman English when gorgeous Elijah Lank was looking at her? Oh my, he was
so
handsome, with his black hair and blue eyes. Tony Curtis eyes. The very first time she’d ever seen Elijah, that’s what she’d thought: that he looked exactly like Tony Curtis, whose beautiful face beamed from the pages of her favorite magazines,
Modern Screen
and
Photoplay.
    She bent her head forward, and as her hair fell across her face, she cast a furtive glance sideways through the curtain of blond strands. Felt her heart leap when she confirmed that he was, indeed, looking at her, and not in that disdainful way that all the other boys in school did, those mean boys who made her feel slow and dim-witted. Whose ridiculing whispers were always just out of earshot, too soft for her to make out their words. She knew the whispers were about her, because they were always looking at her as they did it. Those were the same boys who’d taped the photo of a cow to her locker, who mooed if she accidentally brushed against them in the hallway. But Elijah—he was looking at her in a different way altogether. With smoldering eyes. Movie star eyes.
    Slowly she raised her head and stared back, not through a protective veil of hair this time, but with frank acknowledgment of his gaze. His test paper was already completed and turned facedown, his pencil put away in his desk. His full attention was focused on her, and she could scarcely breathe under the spell of his gaze.
    He likes me. I know it. He likes me.
    Her hand lifted to her throat, to the top button of her blouse. Her fingers brushed across her skin, leaving a trail of heat. She thought of Tony Curtis’s molten gaze on Lana Turner, a look that could make a girl go tongue-tied and wobble-kneed. The look that came just before the inevitable kiss. That’s when the movies always went out of focus. Why did that have to happen? Why did it always go fuzzy, just at the moment when you most wanted to see . . .
    “Time’s up, class! Please turn in your test papers.”
    Alice’s attention snapped back to her desk, to the mimeographed test paper, half the questions still unanswered. Oh, no. Where had the time gone? She
knew
these answers. She just needed a few more minutes . . .
    “Alice. Alice!”
    She looked up and saw Mrs. Meriweather’s hand held out.
    “Didn’t you hear me? Time to turn in your test.”
    “But I—”
    “No excuses. You’ve got to start
listening,
Alice.” Mrs. Meriweather snatched up Alice’s exam and moved on down the aisle. Though Alice could barely hear their murmurs, she knew the girls right behind her were gossiping about her. She turned and saw their heads bent together, their hands shielding their mouths, muffling giggles.
Alice can read lips, so don’t let her see we’re talking about her.
    Now some of the boys were laughing, too, pointing at her. What was so funny?
    Alice glanced down. To her horror she saw that the top button had fallen off her blouse, which was now gaping open.
    The school bell rang, announcing dismissal.
    Alice snatched up her book bag and hugged it to her chest as she fled the classroom. She didn’t dare look anyone in the eye, just kept walking, head down, tears building in her throat. She dashed into the restroom and locked herself in a stall. As other girls came in and stood laughing, primping in front of the mirrors, Alice hid behind the latched door. She could smell all their different perfumes, could feel the whoosh of air each time the door swung open. Those golden girls, with their brand-new sweater sets. They never lost buttons; they never came