Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

you get a second chance. Especially when people need you at home. When your dad’s drunk half the day, and there’s a nine-year-old cousin living in the same house.”
    “Amalthea,” said Maura softly.
    Miss Clausen nodded. “Imagine being a little girl in this house. Growing up in a family of beasts.”
    Beasts.
    The air suddenly felt charged. Maura’s hands had gone cold. She thought of Amalthea Lank’s ravings.
Go away, before he sees you.
    And she thought of the scratch mark clawed into her car door.
The sign of the Beast.
    The cellar door creaked open, startling Maura. She turned and saw Rizzoli standing in the doorway.
    “They’ve hit something,” Rizzoli said.
    “What is it?”
    “Wood. Some kind of panel, about two feet down. They’re trying to clear away the dirt now.” She pointed to the box of trowels on the counter. “We’ll need those.”
    Maura carried the box down the cellar steps. She saw that piles of excavated earth now ringed the perimeter of their trench, extending almost six feet long.
    The size of a coffin.
    Detective Corso, who now wielded the shovel, glanced up at Maura. “Panel feels pretty thick. But listen.” He banged the shovel against the wood. “It’s not solid. There’s an air space underneath.”
    Yates said, “You want me to take over now?”
    “Yeah, my back’s about to give out.” Corso handed over the shovel.
    Yates dropped into the trench, his shoes thudding onto the wood. A hollow sound. He attacked the dirt with grim determination, flinging it onto a rapidly growing mound. No one spoke as more and more of the panel emerged. The two flood lamps slanted their harsh light across the trench, and Yates’s shadow bounced like a marionette on the cellar walls. The others watched, silent as grave robbers eagerly awaiting their first glimpse into a tomb.
    “I’ve cleared one edge here,” said Yates, breathing hard, his shovel scraping across wood. “Looks like some kind of crate. I’ve already dinged it with the shovel. I don’t want to damage the wood.”
    “I’ve got the trowels and brushes,” said Maura.
    Yates straightened, panting, and clambered out of the hole. “Okay. Maybe you can clear off that dirt on top. We’ll get some photos before we pry it open.”
    Maura and Gary dropped into the trench, and she felt the panel shudder under their weight. She wondered what horrors lay beneath the stained planks, and had a terrible vision of the wood suddenly giving way, of plunging into decayed flesh. Ignoring her pounding heart, she knelt down and began to sweep dirt away from the panel.
    “Hand me one of those brushes, too,” said Rizzoli, about to jump into the trench as well.
    “Not you,” said Yates. “Why don’t you just take it easy?”
    “I’m not handicapped. I hate standing around doing nothing.”
    Yates gave an anxious laugh. “Yeah, well, we’d hate seeing you go into labor down there. And I wouldn’t want to have to explain it to your husband, either.”
    Maura said, “There’s not much maneuvering room down here, Jane.”
    “Well, let me reposition these lamps for you. So you can see what you’re doing.”
    Rizzoli moved a flood lamp, and suddenly light beamed down on the corner where Maura was working. Crouched on her knees, Maura used the brush to clear soil from the planks, uncovering pinpoints of rust. “I’m seeing old nail heads here,” she said.
    “I’ve got a crowbar in the car,” said Corso. “I’ll get it.”
    Maura kept brushing away dirt, uncovering the rusted heads of more nails. The space was cramped, and her neck and shoulders began to ache. She straightened her back. Heard a clank behind her.
    “Hey,” said Gary. “Look at this.”
    Maura turned and saw that Gary’s trowel had scraped up against an inch of broken pipe.
    “Seems to come straight up through the edge of this panel,” said Gary. With bare fingers, he gingerly probed the rusted protrusion and broke through a clot of dirt crusting the top. “Why would you stick a pipe into a . . .” He stopped. Looked at Maura.
    “It’s an air hole,” she said.
    Gary stared down at the planks under his knees. Said, softly: “What the hell’s inside this thing?”
    “Come out of the hole, you two,” said Pete. “We’re going to take photos.”
    Yates reached down to help Maura out and she stepped back from the trench, feeling suddenly light-headed from rising too quickly to her feet. She blinked, dazed by the flashes of the camera. By the