Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

grabbed Kimball’s arm. “Aren’t you the doctor? It fucking
hurts
! Tell these bitches to
do something
!”
    Kimball shot Catherine a wry look. And he said, “Be nice to ’em, bud. These bitches are running the show.”
    Amputation was not a choice Catherine ever made lightly. If a limb could be saved, she would do everything in her power to reattach it. But when she stood in the O.R. a half hour later, scalpel in hand, and looked down at what remained of her patient’s right leg, the choice was obvious. The calf was macerated and both the tibia and fibula crushed to splinters. Judging by the uninjured left leg, his right limb had once been well formed and muscular, a leg deeply bronzed by the sun. The bare foot—strangely intact despite the shocking angle at which it pointed—had the tan lines of sandal straps, and there was sand under the toenails. She did not like this patient and had not appreciated his cursing or the insults he’d hurled in his pain at her and the other women on the hospital staff, but as her scalpel sliced through his flesh, shaping a posterior skin flap, as she sawed off the sharp edges of the fractured tibia and fibula, she worked with a sense of sadness.
    The O.R. nurse removed the severed leg from the table and wrapped a drape over it. A foot that had once savored the warmth of beach sand would soon be reduced to ash, cremated with all the other sacrificed organs and limbs that found their way to the hospital’s pathology department.
    The operation left Catherine depressed and drained. When at last she stripped off her gloves and gown and walked out of the O.R., she was not in any mood to see Jane Rizzoli waiting for her.
    She went to the sink to wash the smell of talc and latex from her hands. “It’s midnight, Detective. Don’t you ever sleep?”
    “Probably about as much as you do. I have some questions for you.”
    “I thought you were no longer on the case.”
    “I’ll never be off this case. No matter what anyone says.”
    Catherine dried her hands and turned to look at Rizzoli. “You don’t like me much, do you?”
    “Whether or not I like you isn’t important.”
    “Was it something I said to you? Something I did?”
    “Look, are you finished up here for the night?”
    “It’s because of Moore, isn’t it? That’s why you resent me.”
    Rizzoli’s jaw squared. “Detective Moore’s personal life is his business.”
    “But you don’t approve.”
    “He never asked my opinion.”
    “Your opinion’s clear enough.”
    Rizzoli eyed her with undisguised distaste. “I used to admire Moore. I thought he was one of a kind. A cop who never crossed the line. It turns out he’s no better than anyone else. What I can’t believe is that the reason he messed up was a woman.”
    Catherine pulled off her O.R. cap and dropped it in the rubbish bin. “He knows it was a mistake,” she said, and she pushed out of the O.R. wing, into the hallway.
    Rizzoli followed her. “Since when?”
    “Since he left town without a word. I guess I was just a temporary lapse in judgment for him.”
    “Is that what he was for you? A lapse in
your
judgment?”
    Catherine stood in the hallway, blinking away tears.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.
    “You seem to be at the center of everything, Dr. Cordell. You’re right up there onstage, the focus of everyone’s attention. Moore’s. The Surgeon’s.”
    Catherine turned in anger to Rizzoli. “You think I want any of this? I never asked to be a victim!”
    “But it keeps happening to you, doesn’t it? There’s some kind of weird bond between you and the Surgeon. I didn’t see it at first. I thought he killed those other victims to play out his sick fantasies. Now I think it was all about you. He’s like a cat, killing birds and bringing them home to his mistress, to prove his worth as a hunter. Those victims were offerings meant to impress you. The more scared you get, the more successful he feels. That’s why he waited to kill Nina Peyton until she was in this hospital, under your care. He wanted you to witness his skill firsthand. You’re his obsession. I want to know why.”
    “He’s the only one who can answer that.”
    “You have no idea?”
    “How could I? I don’t even know who he is.”
    “He was in your house with Andrew Capra. If what you said under hypnosis is true.”
    “Andrew was the only one I saw that night. Andrew’s the only one …” She stopped. “Maybe
I’m
not his real