Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

quiet.
    Gresham squatted down beside Ballard. A moment passed. Why didn’t they say something? A wind stirred the trees. Shivering, she looked up at the swaying branches. Last night, someone had come out of those woods. He had stood outside her room. Had stared in her window while she slept.
    Ballard glanced up at the house. “Is that a bedroom window?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yours?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you close your curtains last night?” He looked over his shoulder at her, and she knew what he was thinking:
Did you treat them to an inadvertent peep show last night?
    She flushed. “There aren’t any curtains in that room.”
    “Those are too big to be Britta’s boots,” said Gresham. “She’s the only person who’d be tramping around up here, checking on the house.”
    “Looks like a Vibram sole,” said Ballard. “Size eight, maybe nine.” His gaze followed the prints back toward the woods. “Deer tracks overlie them.”
    “Which means he came through here first,” said Maura. “Before the deer did. Before I woke up.”
    “Yes, but how long before?” Ballard straightened and stood peering through the window into her bedroom. For a long time he did not say anything, and once again she grew impatient with their silence, anxious to hear a reaction—any reaction—from these men.
    “You know, it hasn’t rained here in close to a week,” said Gresham. “Those boot prints may not be all that fresh.”
    “But who’d be walking around here, looking in windows?” she asked.
    “I can call Britta. Maybe she had a man up to work on the place. Or someone peeked in there ’cause they were curious.”
    “Curious?” asked Maura.
    “Everyone up here’s heard about what happened to your sister, down in Boston. Some folks might want to peek into her house.”
    “I don’t understand that kind of morbid curiosity. I never have.”
    “Rick here tells me you’re a medical examiner, right? Well, you must have to deal with the same thing I do. Everyone wanting to know the details. You won’t believe how many folks have asked me about the shooting. Don’t you think some of these busybodies might want to take a peek inside her house?”
    She stared at him in disbelief. The silence was suddenly broken by the crackle of Gresham’s car radio.
    “Excuse me,” he said, and headed back to his cruiser.
    “Well,” she said. “I guess that pretty much dispenses with my concerns, doesn’t it?”
    “I happen to take your concerns very seriously.”
    “Do you?” She looked at him. “Come inside, Rick. I want to show you something.”
    He followed her back up the steps to the front porch, and into the house. She swung the door shut and pointed to the array of brass locks.
    “That’s what I wanted you to see,” she said.
    He frowned at the locks. “Wow.”
    “There’s more. Come with me.”
    She led him into the kitchen. Pointed to more gleaming chains and bolts barring the back door. “These are all new. Anna must have had them installed. Something scared her.”
    “She had reason to be afraid. All the death threats. She didn’t know when Cassell might turn up here.”
    She looked at him. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To find out if he did?”
    “I’ve been showing his photograph around town.”
    “And?”
    “So far, no one remembers seeing him. But it doesn’t mean he wasn’t here.” He pointed to the locks. “Those make perfect sense to me.”
    Sighing, she sank into a chair at the kitchen table. “How could our lives have turned out so differently? There I was, getting off a plane from Paris while she . . .” She swallowed. “What if I’d been raised in Anna’s place? Would it all have turned out the same? Maybe she’d be the one sitting here now, talking to you.”
    “You’re two different people, Maura. You may have her face, her voice. But you’re not Anna.”
    She looked up at him. “Tell me more about my sister.”
    “I’m not sure where to start.”
    “Anything. Everything. You just said I sound like her.”
    He nodded. “You do. The same inflections. The same pitch.”
    “You remember her that well?”
    “Anna wasn’t a woman you’d easily forget,” he said. His gaze held hers. They stared at each other, even as footsteps came thumping into the house. Only when Gresham had walked into the kitchen did she finally break off eye contact and turn to look at the police chief.
    “Dr. Isles,” said Gresham. “I wonder if you could do me a little favor.