Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

For that he felt ashamed. He felt even more ashamed when he raised his head to look at Catherine and all thoughts of Mary instantly vanished. He thought: This is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.
    The most courageous woman I’ve ever known.
    “There’s nothing missing,” she said. “Not as far as I can tell.”
    “Are you sure you want to stay here? I’d be happy to bring you to a hotel.”
    She crossed to the window and stared out, her profile lit by the golden light of sunset. “I’ve spent the last two years being afraid. Locking out the world with dead bolts. Always looking behind doors and searching closets. I’ve had enough of it.” She looked at him. “I want my life back. This time I won’t let him win.”
    This time
, she had said, as though this was a battle in a much longer war. As though the Surgeon and Andrew Capra had blended into a single entity, one she had briefly subdued two years ago but had not truly defeated. Capra. The Surgeon. Two heads of the same monster.
    “You said there’d be a patrol car outside tonight,” she said.
    “There will be.”
    “You guarantee it?”
    “Absolutely.”
    She took a deep breath, and the smile she gave him was an act of sheer courage. “Then I have nothing to worry about, do I?” she said.
     
    It was guilt that made him drive toward Newton that evening instead of going straight home. He had been shaken by his reaction to Cordell and troubled by how thoroughly she now monopolized his thoughts. In the year and a half since Mary’s death, he had lived a monk’s existence, feeling no interest whatsoever in women, all passions dampened by grief. He did not know how to deal with this fresh spark of desire. He only knew that, given the situation, it was inappropriate. And that it was a sign of disloyalty to the woman he had loved.
    So he drove to Newton to make things right. To assuage his conscience.
    He was holding a bouquet of daisies as he stepped into the front yard and latched the iron gate behind him. It’s like carrying coals to Newcastle, he thought, looking around at the garden, now falling into the shadows of evening. Every time he visited, there seemed to be more flowers crammed into this small space. Morning glory vines and rose canes had been trained up the side of the house, so that the garden seemed to be expanding skyward as well. He felt almost embarrassed by his meager offering of daisies. But daisies were what Mary had loved best, and it was almost a habit for him now, to choose them at the flower stand. She’d loved their cheery simplicity, the fringes of white around lemony suns. She’d loved their scent—not sweet and cloying like other flowers, but pungent. Assertive. She’d loved the way they sprang up wild in vacant lots and roadsides, reminders that true beauty is spontaneous and irrepressible.
    Like Mary herself.
    He rang the bell. A moment later the door swung open, and the face that smiled at him was so much like Mary’s, he felt a familiar twinge of pain. Rose Connelly had her daughter’s blue eyes and round cheeks, and although her hair was almost entirely gray and age had etched its mark on her face, the similarities left no doubt that she was Mary’s mother.
    “It’s so good to see you, Thomas,” she said. “You haven’t been by lately.”
    “I’m sorry about that, Rose. It’s hard to find time lately. I hardly know which day it is.”
    “I’ve been following the case on the TV. What a terrible business you’re in.”
    He stepped into the house and handed her the daisies. “Not that you need any more flowers,” he said wryly.
    “One can never have too many flowers. And you know how much I love daisies. Would you like some iced tea?”
    “I’d love some, thank you.”
    They sat in the living room, sipping their tea. It tasted sweet and sunny, the way they drank it in South Carolina where Rose was born. Not at all like the somber New England brew that Moore had grown up drinking. The room was sweet as well, hopelessly old-fashioned by Boston standards. Too much chintz, too many knickknacks. But oh, how it reminded him of Mary! She was everywhere. Photos of her hung on the walls. Her swimming trophies were displayed on the bookshelves. Her childhood piano stood in the living room. The ghost of that child was still here, in this house where she had been raised. And Rose was here, the keeper of the flame, who looked so much like her daughter that Moore sometimes thought he saw Mary