Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

you, sitting here in prison.” Maura laughed. “What a loser you are. Why should you be in here when Elijah’s free?”
    Amalthea blinked. In an instant, all rigidity seemed to melt from her muscles.
    “Talk to me,” pressed Maura. “There’s no one else in this room. Just you and me.”
    The other woman’s gaze lifted to one of the video cameras mounted in the corner.
    “Yes, they can see us,” said Maura. “But they can’t hear us.”
    “Everyone can hear us,” whispered Amalthea. She focused on Maura. The fathomless gaze had turned cold, collected. And frighteningly sane, as though some new creature had suddenly emerged, staring out through those eyes. “Why are you here?”
    “I want to know. Did Elijah kill my sister?”
    A long pause. And, strangely, a gleam of amusement in those eyes. “Why would he?”
    “You know why Anna was murdered. Don’t you?”
    “Why don’t you ask me a question I know the answer to? The question you really came to ask me.” Amalthea’s voice was low, intimate. “This is about you, Maura, isn’t it? What is it
you
want to know?”
    Maura stared at her, heart pounding. A single question swelled like an ache in her throat. “I want you to tell me . . .”
    “Yes?” Just a murmur, soft as a voice in Maura’s head.
    “Who was really my mother?”
    A smile twitched on Amalthea’s lips. “You mean you don’t see the resemblance?”
    “Just tell me the truth.”
    “Look at me. And look in the mirror. There’s your truth.”
    “I don’t recognize any part of you in me.”
    “But I recognize myself in
you.
”
    Maura gave a laugh, surprising herself that she could even manage it. “I don’t know why I came. This visit is a waste of my time.” She shoved back her chair and started to rise.
    “Do you like working with the dead, Maura?”
    Startled by the question, Maura paused, half out of her chair.
    “It’s what you do, isn’t it?” said Amalthea. “You cut them open. Take out their organs. Slice their hearts. Why do you do it?”
    “My job requires it.”
    “Why did you choose that job?”
    “I’m not here to talk about myself.”
    “Yes you are. This is all about you. About who you really are.”
    Slowly Maura sat back down. “Why don’t you just tell me?”
    “You slit open bellies. Dip your hands in their blood. Why do you think we’re any different?” The woman had been moving forward so imperceptibly that Maura was startled to suddenly realize how close Amalthea was to her. “Look in the mirror. You’ll see me.”
    “We’re not even the same species.”
    “If that’s what you want to believe, who am I to change your mind?” Amalthea stared, unflinching, at Maura. “There’s always DNA.”
    The breath went out of Maura. A bluff, she thought. Amalthea’s waiting to see if I’ll call her on it. If I really want to know the truth. DNA doesn’t lie. With a swab of her mouth, I could have my answer. I could have my worst fears confirmed.
    “You know where to find me,” said Amalthea. “Come back when you’re ready for the truth.” She stood, her ankle cuff clanking against the table leg, and stared up at the video camera. A signal to the guard that she wanted to leave.
    “If you’re my mother,” said Maura, “then tell me who my father is.”
    Amalthea glanced back at her, the smile once again on her lips. “Haven’t you guessed?”
    The door opened, and the guard poked her head in. “Everything okay in here?”
    The transformation was stunning. Just an instant before, Amalthea had looked at Maura with cold calculation. Now that creature vanished, replaced by a dazed husk of a woman who tugged on her ankle manacle, as though bewildered why she could not free herself. “Go,” she mumbled. “Wanna—wanna go.”
    “Yes, honey, of course we’ll go.” The guard looked at Maura. “I guess you’re all done with her?”
    “For now,” said Maura.
    Rizzoli had not expected a visit from Charles Cassell, so she was surprised when the desk sergeant called to inform her that Dr. Cassell was waiting for her in the lobby. When she stepped out of the elevator and saw him, she was shocked by the change in his appearance. In just a week, he seemed to have aged ten years. Clearly he had lost weight, and his face was now gaunt and colorless. His suit jacket, though no doubt expensively tailored, seemed to hang, shapeless, on his drooping shoulders.
    “I need to talk to you,” he said. “I need to know what’s going