Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

first.
    Maura followed her across the parking lot, to the Lexus, where Frost and Ballard were standing.
    “Are you all right, Maura?” Ballard asked. The glow of the streetlamp cast his eyes in shadow; she looked up into a face whose expression she could not read.
    “I’m fine.”
    “This could have turned out a lot worse.” He looked at Rizzoli. “You told her what we think?”
    “I told her she might not want to go home tonight.”
    Maura looked at her car. The three scratches stood out, even uglier than she’d remembered, like wounds left by a predator’s claws.
Anna’s killer is talking to me. And I never knew how close he came.
    Frost said, “CSU noticed a little ding on the driver’s door.”
    “That’s old. Someone bumped me in a parking lot a few months ago.”
    “Okay, so it’s just the scratches. They pulled off a few fingerprints. They’ll need yours, Doc. As soon as you can get a set over to the lab.”
    “Of course.” She thought of all the fingers they’d inked in the morgue, all the cold flesh that was routinely pressed to cards.
They’ll be getting mine ahead of the game. While I’m still alive.
She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling chilled despite the warm night. She thought of walking into her empty house, locking herself into her bedroom. Even with all those barricades, it was still just a house, not a fortress. A house with windows that were easily shattered, screens that could be cut with only a knife.
    “You said it was Charles Cassell who scratched Anna’s car.” Maura looked at Rizzoli. “Cassell wouldn’t have done
this
. Not to mine.”
    “No, he’d have no reason to. This is clearly meant as a warning to
you
.” Rizzoli said, quietly: “Maybe Anna was a mistake.”
    I’m the one. I’m the one who should have died.
    “Where do you want to go, Doc?” asked Rizzoli.
    “I don’t know,” Maura said. “I don’t know what to do . . .”
    “Well, may I suggest you not stand around out here?” said Ballard. “Where everyone can watch you?”
    Maura glanced at the sidewalk. Saw the silhouettes of people who’d been drawn by the flashing lights of the police cruiser. People whose faces she could not see because they were in shadow, while she stood here, lit like the star performer beneath the streetlamp’s glare.
    Ballard said, “I have a spare bedroom.”
    She did not look at him, but kept her gaze focused, instead, on those faceless shadows. Thinking: This is happening too fast. Too many decisions are being made on the spur of the moment. Choices I may come to regret.
    “Doc?” said Rizzoli. “What do you think?”
    At last Maura looked at Ballard. And she felt, once again, that disturbing tug of attraction. “I don’t know where else to go,” she said.
    He drove right behind her, so close that his headlights glared in her rearview mirror, as though he was afraid she might pull away, might try to lose him in the dense tangle of traffic. He stayed close even as they headed into the quieter suburb of Newton, even as she circled his block twice, the way he had instructed, to confirm no car was following them. When at last she came to a stop in front of his house, he was almost immediately standing at her window, tapping on the glass.
    “Pull into my garage,” he said.
    “I’ll be taking your space.”
    “That’s okay. I don’t want your car sitting on the street. I’ll open the bay door.”
    She turned into the driveway and watched as the door rumbled open to reveal an orderly garage where tools hung on a pegboard and built-in shelves held rows of paint cans. Even the concrete floor seemed to gleam. She eased into the bay, and the door immediately rolled shut behind her, closing off any view of her car from the street. For a moment she sat listening to the ticks of her cooling engine, and braced herself for the evening ahead. Only moments ago, returning to her own house had seemed unsafe, unwise. Now she wondered if this choice was any wiser.
    Ballard opened her car door. “Come on in. I’ll show you how to arm the security system. Just in case I’m not here to do it.”
    He led her into the house and up a short hallway to the foyer. Pointed to a keypad mounted near the front door.
    “I had this updated only a few months ago. First you punch in the security code, then you press ARM. Once you’ve armed it, if anyone opens a door or a window, it’ll trigger an alarm so loud it’ll make your ears ring. It also automatically