Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

bathrobe.”
    “She won’t mind?”
    “She’s with Carmen this week. She won’t even know you’re here.”
    “Thank you, Rick.”
    He paused, as though waiting for her to say something more. Waiting for words that would change everything.
    “Maura,” he said.
    “Yes?”
    “I’ll take care of you. I just want you to know that. What happened to Anna—I won’t let it happen to you.” He turned to leave. Said, softly: “Good night,” and closed the door behind him.
    I’ll take care of you.
    Isn’t that what we all want? she thought. Someone to keep us safe. She’d forgotten what it felt like, to be watched over. Even when she’d been married to Victor, she had never felt protected by him; he’d been too self-absorbed to watch over anyone but himself.
    Lying in bed, she listened to the clock ticking on the nightstand. To Ballard’s footsteps creaking in the room next door. Slowly the house settled into silence. She watched the hours advance on the clock. Midnight. One A.M. And still she couldn’t sleep. Tomorrow she would be exhausted.
    Is he lying awake, too?
    She hardly knew this man, just as she’d hardly known Victor when she’d married him. And what a mess that had turned out to be, three years of her life thrown away, all because of chemistry. Sparks. She did not trust her own judgment when it came to men. The one man you most want to sleep with may be the worst choice of all.
    Two A.M.
    The beams of a car’s headlights slid past the window. An engine purred on the street. She tensed, thinking: It’s nothing, probably just a neighbor coming home late. Then she heard the creak of footsteps on the porch. She held her breath. Suddenly the darkness was shrieking. She shot up in bed.
    The security alarm. Someone is in the house.
    Ballard pounded on her door. “Maura?
Maura?
” he yelled.
    “I’m okay!”
    “Lock your door! Don’t come out.”
    “Rick?”
    “Just stay in the room!”
    She scrambled out of bed and locked the door. Crouched there, hands covering her ears against the alarm’s shriek, unable to hear anything else. She thought of Ballard, moving down the staircase. Imagined a house full of shadows. Someone waiting below.
Where are you, Rick?
She could hear nothing except that piercing alarm. Here in the darkness she was both blind and deaf to whatever might be moving toward her door.
    The shrieks suddenly ceased. In the silence that followed, she could finally hear her own panicked breaths, the pounding of her heart.
    And voices.
    “Jesus Christ!” Rick was yelling. “I could have shot you! What the hell were you thinking?”
    Now a girl’s voice. Hurt, angry. “You chained the door! I couldn’t get in to shut off the alarm!”
    “Don’t you yell at me.”
    Maura opened her door and stepped out into the hallway. The voices were louder now, both raised in fury. Looking over the banister, she saw Rick standing below, shirtless in blue jeans, the gun he’d carried downstairs now tucked in his waistband. His daughter was glaring at him.
    “It’s two in the morning, Katie. How did you get over here?”
    “My friend drove me.”
    “In the middle of the night?”
    “I came to get my backpack, okay? I forgot I needed it tomorrow. I didn’t want to wake up Mom.”
    “Tell me who this friend is. Who drove you?”
    “Well, he’s gone now! The alarm probably freaked him out.”
    “It’s a boy? Who?”
    “I’m not going to get him in trouble, too!”
    “Who is this boy?”
    “Don’t, Dad. Just
don’t.
”
    “You stay down here and talk to me. Katie, don’t go up there—”
    Footsteps thumped up the steps and suddenly halted. Katie stood frozen on the stairway, staring at Maura.
    “Get back down here!” Rick yelled.
    “Yeah, Dad,” Katie murmured, her gaze still on Maura. “Now I know why you chained the door on me.”
    “Katie!” Rick paused, suddenly cut off by the ringing telephone. He turned to answer it. “Hello? Yeah, this is Rick Ballard. Everything’s okay here. No, you don’t need to send a man out. My daughter came home and didn’t shut off the alarm system in time . . .”
    The girl was still staring at Maura with open hostility. “So you’re his new girlfriend.”
    “Please, you don’t need to get upset about this,” Maura said quietly. “I’m not his girlfriend. I just needed a place to sleep for the night.”
    “Oh, right. So why not with my dad?”
    “Katie, it’s the truth—”
    “Nobody in this family ever tells the