Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

classroom for the middle grades.
    The teacher saw him and jumped up from her desk in surprise. “Prophet Goode, what an honor!” she gushed. “I didn’t know you would be visiting us today.”
    He smiled, and the woman reddened, delighted by his attention. “Sister Janet, there’s no need to make a fuss over me. I simply wanted to stop in and say hello to your class. And see if everyone is enjoying the new school year.”
    She beamed at her students. “Isn’t it an
honor
to have Prophet Goode himself visiting us? Everyone, please welcome him!”
    “Welcome, Prophet Goode,” the students answered in unison.
    “Is the school year going well for all of you?” he asked.
    “Yes, Prophet Goode.” Again in unison, so perfect it sounded as if it had been rehearsed.
    Katie Sheldon, he noticed, sat in the third row. He also noticed that the blond boy who’d flirted with her sat almost directly behind her. Slowly he began to pace the classroom, nodding and smiling as he surveyed the students’ drawings and essays tacked on the walls. As if he really cared about them. His attention was only on Katie, who sat demurely at her desk, her gaze tipped downward like any properly modest girl.
    “I don’t mean to interrupt your lesson,” he said. “Please, continue what you were doing. Pretend I’m not here.”
    “Um, yes.” The teacher cleared her throat. “Students, if you could please open your math books to page two oh three. Complete exercises ten through sixteen. And when you’re finished, we’ll go over the answers.”
    As pencils scratched and papers rustled, Jeremiah wandered the classroom. The students were too intimidated to look at him, and they kept their eyes focused on their desktops. The subject was algebra, something that he had never bothered to master. He paused by the desk of the blond lad who had so clearly shown an interest in Katie, and, looking over the boy’s shoulder, he saw the name written on the workbook.
Adam McKinnon
. A troublemaker who would eventually have to be dealt with.
    He moved on to Katie’s desk, where he stopped and watched over her shoulder. Nervously she scribbled an answer, then erased it. A patch of bare neck showed through a parting of her long hair, and the skin flushed a deep red, as though seared by his gaze.
    Leaning close, he inhaled her scent, and heat flooded his loins. There was nothing as delicious as the scent of a young girl’s flesh,and this girl’s was the sweetest of all. Through the fabric of her bodice, he could just make out the swell of newly budding breasts.
    “Don’t fret too much, dear,” he whispered. “I was never very good at algebra, either.”
    She looked up, and the smile she gave him was so enchanting that he was struck speechless.
Yes. This girl is definitely the one
.
    F LOWERS AND RIBBONS draped the pews and cascaded from the soaring beams of the newly built worship hall. There were so many flowers that the room looked like the Garden of Eden itself, fragrant and shimmering. As the morning light beamed in through the ocular windows, two hundred joyous voices sang hymns of praise.
    We are yours, O Lord. Fruitful is your flock and bountiful your harvest
.
    The voices faded, and the organ suddenly played a fanfare. The congregation turned to look at Katie Sheldon, who stood frozen in the doorway, blinking in confusion at all the eyes staring at her. She wore the lace-trimmed white dress that her mother had sewn, and her brand-new white satin slippers peeped out beneath the hem. On her head was a maiden’s crown of white roses. The organ played on, and the congregation waited expectantly, but Katie could not move. She did not want to move.
    It was her father who forced her to take the first step. He took her by the arm, his fingers digging into her flesh with an unmistakable command.
Don’t you dare embarrass me
.
    She began to walk, her feet numb in the pretty satin slippers as she moved toward the altar looming ahead. Toward the man whom God Himself had proclaimed would be her husband.
    She caught glimpses of familiar faces in the pews: her teachers, her friends, her neighbors. There was Sister Diane who worked in the bakery with her mother, and Brother Raymond, who tended the cows whose soft flanks she loved to pet. And there was her mother, standing in the very first pew, where she had never stood before. Itwas a place of honor, a row where only the most favored congregants could sit. Her mother looked proud, oh so proud,