Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

door and waved her through. “We’ll bring her to the room. Have a seat.”
    Maura stepped into the interview room and confronted a table and two chairs. She sat down in the chair facing the door. A Plexiglas window looked into the hallway, and two surveillance cameras peered from opposite corners of the room. She waited, her hands sweating despite the air-conditioning. Glanced up, startled, to see Amalthea’s dark, flat eyes staring at her through the window.
    The guard escorted Amalthea into the room and sat her in a chair. “She’s not talking much today. I don’t know that she’s going to say a thing to you, but here she is.” The guard bent down, fastened a steel cuff around Amalthea’s ankle, and attached it to the table leg.
    “Is that really necessary?” asked Maura.
    “It’s just regulation, for your safety.” The guard straightened. “When you’re done, press that button there, on the wall intercom. We’ll come get her.” She gave Amalthea’s shoulder a pat. “Now, you talk to the lady, okay, honey? She’s come all this way just to see
you.
” She gave Maura a silent glance of
good luck,
and left, locking the door behind her.
    A moment passed.
    “I was here last week to visit you,” said Maura. “Do you remember?”
    Amalthea hunched in her chair, eyes cast down at the table.
    “You said something to me as I was about to leave. You said,
now you’re going to die, too.
What did you mean by that?”
    Silence.
    “You were warning me off, weren’t you? Telling me to leave you alone. You didn’t want me digging into your past.”
    Again, silence.
    “No one is listening to us, Amalthea. It’s just you and me in this room.” Maura placed her hands on the table, to show she had no tape recorder, no notepad. “I’m not a policeman. I’m not a prosecutor. You can say whatever you want to me, and we’re the only ones who’ll hear it.” She leaned closer, said quietly: “I know you can understand every word I’m saying. So look at me, goddamn it. I’ve had enough of this game.”
    Though Amalthea did not lift her head, there was no missing the sudden tension in her arms, the twitch of her muscles.
She’s listening, all right. She’s waiting to hear what I have to say next.
    “That was a threat, wasn’t it? When you told me I was going to die, you were telling me to stay away, or I’d end up like Anna. I thought it was just psychotic babbling, but you meant it. You’re protecting him, aren’t you? You’re protecting the Beast.”
    Slowly, Amalthea’s head lifted. Dark eyes met hers in a gaze so cold, so empty, that Maura drew back, skin prickling.
    “We know about him,” said Maura. “We know about you both.”
    “What do you know?”
    Maura had not expected her to speak. That question was whispered so softly she wondered if she’d actually heard it. She swallowed. Drew in a deep breath, shaken by the black void of those eyes. No insanity there, just emptiness.
    “You’re as sane as I am,” said Maura. “But you don’t dare let anyone know that. It’s so much easier to hide behind a schizophrenic’s mask. Easier to play the psychotic, because people always leave the crazy ones alone. They don’t bother to interrogate you. They don’t dig any deeper, because they think it’s all delusion anyway. And now they don’t even medicate you, because you’re so good at faking the side effects.” Maura forced herself to stare deeper into that void. “They don’t know the Beast is real. But you do. And you know where he is.”
    Amalthea sat perfectly still, but tautness had crept into her face. The muscles had tightened around her mouth, and stood out in cords down her throat.
    “It was your only option, wasn’t it? Pleading insanity. You couldn’t argue away the evidence—the blood on your tire iron, the stolen wallets. But convince them you’re psychotic, and maybe you’d avoid any further scrutiny. Maybe they wouldn’t find out about all your other victims. The women you killed in Florida and Virginia. Texas and Arkansas. States with the death penalty.” Maura leaned even closer. “Why don’t you just give him up, Amalthea? After all, he let
you
take the blame. And he’s still out there killing. He’s going on without you, visiting all the same places, the same hunting grounds. He’s just abducted another woman, in Natick. You could stop him, Amalthea. You could put an end to it.”
    Amalthea seemed to be holding her breath, waiting.
    “Look at