Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

heartbreak. All are deposited, as packets of messenger RNA, into this complex collection of neurons. Memory was merely biochemistry, yet it defined each human being as an individual.
    With a few nicks of the scalpel, Abe freed the brain and carried it in both hands, as though bearing treasure, to the countertop. He would not dissect it today; instead he would let it soak in a basin of fixative, to be sectioned later. But he needed no microscopic examination to see the evidence of trauma; it was there, in the bloody discoloration on the surface.
    “So we’ve got the entrance wound here, in the left temple,” said Rizzoli.
    “Yes, and the skin hole and cranial hole line up perfectly,” said Abe.
    “That’s consistent with a straight shot into the side of the head.”
    Abe nodded. “The perp probably pointed right through the driver’s window. And the window was open, so there was no glass to distort the trajectory.”
    “So she’s just sitting there,” said Rizzoli. “Warm night. Window down. Eight o’clock, it’s getting dark. And he walks up to her car. Just points the gun and fires.” Rizzoli shook her head. “Why?”
    “Didn’t take the purse,” said Abe.
    “So not a robbery,” said Frost.
    “Which leaves us with a crime of passion. Or a hit.” Rizzoli glanced at Maura. There it was again—that possibility of a targeted killing.
    Did he hit the right target?
    Abe suspended the brain in a bucket of formalin. “No surprises so far,” he said, as he turned to perform the neck dissection.
    “You’ll be running tox screens?” asked Rizzoli.
    Abe shrugged. “We can send one off, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. The cause of death is right up there.” He nodded toward the light box, where the bullet stood out against the cranial shadow. “You have any reason to want a tox screen? Did CST find any drugs or paraphernalia in the car?”
    “Nothing. The car was pretty tidy. I mean, except for the blood.”
    “And all of it is from the victim?”
    “It’s all B positive, anyway.”
    Abe glanced at Yoshima. “You typed our gal yet?”
    Yoshima nodded. “It matches. She’s B positive.”
    No one was looking at Maura. No one saw her chin snap up, or heard her sharp intake of breath. Abruptly she turned so they could not see her face, and she untied her mask, pulling it off with a brisk tug.
    As she crossed to the trash can, Abe called out: “You bored with us already, Maura?”
    “This jet lag is getting to me,” she said, shrugging off the gown. “I think I’m going to go home early. I’ll see you tomorrow, Abe.”
    She fled the lab without a backward glance.
    The drive home went by in a blur. Only as she reached the outskirts of Brookline did her brain suddenly unlock. Only then did she break out of the obsessive loop of thoughts that kept playing in her head.
Don’t think about the autopsy. Put it out of your mind. Think about dinner, about anything but what you saw today.
    She stopped at the grocery store. Her refrigerator was empty, and unless she wanted to eat tuna and frozen peas tonight, she needed to shop. It was a relief to focus on something else. She threw items into her cart with manic urgency. Far safer to think about food, about what she would cook for the rest of the week.
Stop thinking about blood spatters and women’s organs in steel basins. I need grapefruits and apples. And don’t those eggplants look good?
She picked up a bundle of fresh basil and greedily inhaled its scent, grateful that its pungency swept away, if only for the moment, all the remembered smells of the autopsy lab. A week of bland French meals had left her starved for spices; tonight, she thought, I’ll cook a Thai green curry so hot it will burn my mouth.
    At home she changed into shorts and a T-shirt and threw herself into preparing dinner. Sipped chilled white Bordeaux as she sliced chicken and onions and garlic. The steamy fragrance of jasmine rice filled the kitchen. No time to think of B positive blood and black-haired women; the oil’s smoking in the pot. Time to sauté the chicken, add the curry paste. Pour in the can of coconut milk. She covered the pot to let it simmer. Looked up at the kitchen window and suddenly caught a reflection of herself in the glass.
    I look like her. Exactly like her.
    A chill swept through her, as though the face in the window was not a reflection, but a phantom staring back. The lid on the pot rattled from the rising steam. Ghosts trying to get out.