Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

from her fingers. “I’m not from New England, you know. I moved here only two years ago. From San Francisco.”
    “That surprises me somehow.”
    “Why?”
    “You strike me as such a typical Yankee.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Self-contained. Reserved.”
    “I try to be.”
    “Are you saying that it’s not the real you?”
    “We all play roles. I have my official mask at work. The one I wear when I’m Dr. Isles.”
    “And when you’re with friends?”
    She sipped her beer, then quietly set it down. “I haven’t made that many friends in Boston, yet.”
    “It takes time, if you’re an outsider.”
    An outsider. Yes, that’s what she felt like, every day. She’d watch cops slap each other on the back. She heard them talk about barbecues and softball games to which she’d never be invited because she was not one of them, a cop. The M.D. behind her name was like a wall, shutting them out. And her doctor colleagues in the M.E.’s office, all of them married, didn’t know what to do with her, either. Attractive divorcées were inconvenient, discomfiting. Either a threat or a temptation no one wanted to deal with.
    “So what brought you to Boston?” he asked.
    “I guess I needed to shake up my life.”
    “Career blahs?”
    “No, not that. I was pretty happy at the medical school there. I was a pathologist at the university hospital. Plus I got the chance to work with all these bright young residents and students.”
    “So if it wasn’t the job, it must have been the love life.”
    She looked down at the table, at the leavings of her dinner. “Good guess.”
    “This is where you tell me to mind my own business.”
    “I got divorced, that’s all.”
    “Something you want to talk about?”
    She shrugged. “What can I say? Victor was brilliant, incredibly charismatic—”
    “Gee, I’m already jealous.”
    “But you can’t stay married to someone like that. It’s too intense. It burns out so fast you end up exhausted. And he . . .” She stopped.
    “What?”
    She reached for the beer. Took her time sipping it before she set it down. “He wasn’t exactly honest with me,” she said. “That’s all.”
    She knew he wanted to know more, but he had picked up on that note of finality in her voice.
This far, no further.
He stood up and went to the refrigerator for two more beers. Popped off the caps and handed a bottle to her.
    “If we’re gonna talk about exes,” he said, “we’ll need a lot more beer than this.”
    “Let’s not, then. If it hurts.”
    “Maybe it hurts because you
don’t
talk about it.”
    “No one wants to hear about my divorce.”
    He sat down and met her gaze across the table. “I do.”
    No man, she thought, had ever focused on her so completely, and she could not look away. She found herself breathing deeply, inhaling the smell of rain and the rich animal scent of melted butter. She saw things in his face she had not noticed before. The streaks of blond in his hair. The scar on his chin, just a faint white line below his lip. The chipped front tooth. I’ve just met this man, she thought, but he looks at me as though he’s known me forever. Faintly she heard her cell phone ringing in the bedroom, but did not want to answer it. She let it keep ringing until it fell silent. It was unlike her not to answer her phone, but tonight, everything felt different.
She
felt different. Reckless. A woman who ignored her phone and ate with her bare hands.
    A woman who just might sleep with a man she scarcely knew.
    The phone started ringing again.
    This time, the urgency of that sound finally drew her attention. She could no longer ignore it. Reluctantly she stood up. “I guess I should answer that.”
    By the time she got to the bedroom, the phone had once again stopped ringing. She dialed up her voice mail and heard two different messages, both from Rizzoli.
    “Doc, I need to talk to you. Call me back.”
    The second message, recorded in a more querulous voice: “It’s me again. Why aren’t you answering?”
    Maura sat down on the bed. Couldn’t help thinking, as she gazed at the mattress, that it was just big enough for two. She shook the thought from her head, took a deep breath, and dialed Rizzoli’s number.
    “Where are you?” Rizzoli demanded.
    “I’m still in Fox Harbor. I’m sorry, I didn’t get to the phone in time to answer it.”
    “Have you seen Ballard up there yet?”
    “Yes, we just finished dinner. How did you know he was here?”
    “Because