Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

this for love of country?”
    “Yes.”
    He laughed. “I’ve heard that before. All it means is that the alternative offer was not high enough.”
    “There isn’t any offer high enough to make me sell out my country.”
    He gave me a look akin to pity, as if I were feebleminded. “All right, then. Go back to your country. But you do know, you’ll go home poorer than you need to be.”
    “Unlike some people,” I taunted him, “at least I
can
go home.”
    He smiled, and that smile made my hands suddenly go cold. As if I were looking into the face of my future. “Can you?”

TWENTY-THREE
 
    J ANE HAD TO ADMIT, DARREN CROWE LOOKED GOOD ON TV. SITTING at her desk in the homicide unit, she watched the interview on the department’s TV, admiring Crowe’s sharp suit, blow-dried hair, and those dazzling teeth. She wondered if he’d bleached his teeth himself with a drugstore whitening kit, or if he’d paid a professional to polish up the pearly whites.
    “Reuben with double sauerkraut,” said Frost, setting a sandwich bag on her desk. He dropped into the chair beside hers and unwrapped his usual lunch, a turkey on white, no lettuce.
    “Look how that reporter’s ogling him,” Jane said, pointing to the blond correspondent interviewing Crowe. “I swear, any second now she’s gonna rip off her blazer and scream,
Take me, Officer!
”
    “No one ever says that to me.” Frost sighed, resignedly biting into his sandwich.
    “He’s milking this like a pro. Oh look, here he comes with the
deep thoughts
expression.”
    “I saw him practicing that look in the john.”
    “Deep thoughts?” She snorted as she unwrapped her Reuben sandwich. “Like he has any. The way he’s staring at that chick, he’s thinking more along the lines of
deep throat
.”
    They sat eating their sandwiches as they watched Crowe on TV describing the Zapata takedown.
Could have surrendered, but chose to run … We exercised restraint at all times … clearly the actions of a guilty man …
    Her appetite suddenly gone, Jane put down her Reuben.
    Illegal aliens like Zapata who bring their violence to this country will be dealt with. That’s my pledge to the good citizens of Boston
.
    “This is bullshit,” she said. “Just like that, he’s got Zapata tried and convicted.”
    Frost didn’t say anything, simply kept eating his turkey sandwich as if nothing else mattered, and that annoyed her. Usually she appreciated her partner’s unflappability. No drama, no meltdowns, just a maddeningly even-keeled Boy Scout who now reminded her of a cow calmly chewing grass.
    “Hey,” she said. “Doesn’t this bother you?”
    He looked at her, his mouth full of turkey. “I know it bothers you.”
    “But you’re okay with it? Closing the book when we’ve got no murder weapon, nothing in Zapata’s possession that ties him to the Ackermans?”
    “I didn’t say I was okay with it.”
    “Now Cop Hollywood’s on TV there, wrapping it all up like a Christmas present. A present that stinks. It should piss you off.”
    “I guess.”
    “Does
anything
piss you off?”
    He took another bite of turkey and chewed, thinking over the question. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Alice.”
    “Ex-wives are supposed to do that.”
    “You asked.”
    “Well, this case should, too. Or bug you, at least, the way it’s bugging me and Maura.”
    At the mention of Maura’s name, he finally set down his sandwich and looked at her. “What
does
Dr. Isles think?”
    “Same thing I do, that these three kids are somehow connected. Their psychologist has just jumped off a roof, and Maura’s wondering, What is it about these kids that kills everyone close to them? It’s as if they’re cursed. Everywhere they go, someone dies.”
    “And now they’re all together in one place.”
    Evensong
. She thought of dark woods where willow trees were hung with blood-splattered ornaments. Thought of a castle where the occupants themselves were haunted, all of them living in the shadow of violence. Both Teddy and Maura were there behind locked gates, with children who were all too well acquainted with bloodshed.
    “Rizzoli.” The voice startled her, and she snapped around in her chair to see Lieutenant Marquette standing behind her. At once she grabbed the remote and shut off the TV.
    “Not enough to do around here?” Marquette said. “You two watching soap operas now?”
    “Biggest soap opera of them all,” she said. “Detective Crowe telling the good people