Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

where I am. For some reason, he’s chosen me. He’s told me I’m next.”
    “I don’t think so. It would be an incredibly stupid move on his part, warning his next victim. The Surgeon is not stupid.”
    “Why did he contact me? Why write me notes on …” She swallowed.
    “It could be a challenge to
us
. A way of taunting the police.”
    “Then the bastard should have written to
you
!” Her voice rang out so loudly that a nurse pouring a cup of coffee turned and stared at her.
    Flushing, Catherine rose to her feet. She’d embarrassed herself by that outburst, and she was silent as they walked out of the hospital. He wanted to take her hand, but he thought she would only pull away, interpreting it as a condescending gesture. Above all, he did not want her to think him condescending. More than any woman he’d ever met, she commanded his respect.
    Sitting in his car, she said quietly: “I lost it in there. I’m sorry.”
    “Under the circumstances, anyone would have.”
    “Not you.”
    His smile was ironic. “I, of course, never lose my cool.”
    “Yes, I’ve noticed.”
    And what did that mean? he wondered as they drove to the Back Bay. That she thought him immune to the storms that roil a normal human heart? Since when had clear-eyed logic meant the absence of emotions? He knew his colleagues in the homicide unit referred to him as Saint Thomas the Serene. The man you turned to when situations became explosive and a calm voice was needed. They did not know the other Thomas Moore, the man who stood before his wife’s closet at night, inhaling the fading scent of her clothes. They saw only the mask he allowed them to see.
    She said, with a note of resentment, “It’s easy for you to be calm about this. You’re not the one he’s fixated on.”
    “Let’s try to look at this rationally—”
    “Look at my own death? Of
course
I can be rational.”
    “The Surgeon has established a pattern he’s comfortable with. He attacks at night, not during the day. At heart he’s a coward, unable to confront a woman on equal terms. He wants his prey vulnerable. In bed and asleep. Unable to fight back.”
    “So I should never fall asleep? That’s an easy solution.”
    “What I’m saying is, he’ll avoid attacking anyone during daylight hours, when a victim is able to defend herself. It’s after dark when everything changes.”
    He pulled up in front of her address. While the building lacked the charm of the older brick residences on Commonwealth Avenue, it had the advantage of a gated and well-lit underground garage. Access to the front entrance required both a key as well as the correct security code, which Catherine punched into the keypad.
    They entered a lobby, decorated with mirrors and polished marble floors. Elegant, yet sterile. Cold. An unnervingly silent elevator whisked them to the second floor.
    At her apartment door, she hesitated, the new key in hand.
    “I can go in and take a look first, if that would make you feel better,” he said.
    She seemed to take his suggestion as a personal affront. In answer, she thrust the key in the lock, opened the door, and walked in. It was as if she had to prove to herself that the Surgeon had not won. That she was still in control of her life.
    “Why don’t we go through all the rooms, one by one,” he said. “Just to make sure nothing has been disturbed.”
    She nodded.
    Together they walked through the living room, the kitchen. And last, the bedroom. She knew the Surgeon had taken souvenirs from other women, and she meticulously went through her jewelry box, her dresser drawers, searching for any sign of a trespasser’s hand. Moore stood in the doorway watching her sort through blouses and sweaters and lingerie. And suddenly he was hit with an unsettling memory of another woman’s clothes, not nearly as elegant, folded in a suitcase. He remembered a gray sweater, a faded pink blouse. A cotton nightgown with blue cornflowers. Nothing brand-new, nothing expensive. Why had he never bought Mary anything extravagant? What did he think they were saving for? Not what the money had eventually gone to. Doctors and nursing home bills and physical therapists.
    He turned from the bedroom doorway and walked out to the living room, where he sat down on the couch. The late afternoon sun streamed through the window and its brightness stung his eyes. He rubbed them and dropped his head in his hands, afflicted by guilt that he had not thought of Mary all day.