Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

Avenue, another in the location of Pilgrim Hospital, in the South End.
    The red marked Catherine Cordell’s habitat. It intersected both Diana Sterling’s and Elena Ortiz’s. Cordell was the common factor. She moved through the worlds of both victims.
    And the life of the third victim, Nina Peyton, now rests in her hands.
     

ten
    E ven on a Monday afternoon, the Gramercy Pub was a happening place. It was 7:00 P.M. , and the corporate singles were out on the town and ready to play. This was their playpen.
    Rizzoli sat at a table near the entrance and felt puffs of hot city air blow into the room every time the door swung open to admit yet another
GQ
clone, another office Barbie swaying in three-inch heels. Rizzoli, wearing her usual boxy pantsuit and sensible flats, felt like the high school chaperone. She saw two women walk in, sleek as cats, trailing mingled scents of perfume. Rizzoli never wore perfume. She owned one tube of lipstick, which was stored somewhere in the back of her bathroom cabinet, along with the dried-up mascara wand and the bottle of Dewy Satin foundation. She’d purchased the makeup five years ago at a department store cosmetics counter, thinking that perhaps, with the right tools of illusion, even she could look like cover girl Elizabeth Hurley. The salesgirl had creamed and powdered, stroked and sketched, and when it was over had triumphantly handed Rizzoli a mirror and asked, smiling, “What do you think of your new look?”
    What Rizzoli thought, staring at her own image, was that she hated Elizabeth Hurley for giving women false hope. The brutal truth was, there are some women who will never be beautiful, and Rizzoli was one of them.
    So she sat unnoticed and sipped her ginger ale as she watched the pub gradually fill with people. It was a noisy crowd, with much chatter and clinking of ice cubes, the laughter a little too loud, a little too forced.
    She rose and worked her way toward the bar. There she flashed her badge at the bartender and said, “I have a few questions.”
    He gave her badge scarcely a glance, then punched the cash register to ring up a drink. “Okay, shoot.”
    “You remember seeing this woman in here?” Rizzoli laid a photo of Nina Peyton on the counter.
    “Yeah, and you’re not the first cop to ask about her. Some other woman detective was in here ’bout a month or so ago.”
    “From the sex crimes unit?”
    “I guess. Wanted to know if I saw anyone trying to pick up that woman in the picture.”
    “And did you?”
    He shrugged. “In here, everyone’s on the make. I don’t keep track.”
    “But you do remember seeing this woman? Her name is Nina Peyton.”
    “I seen her in here a few times, usually with a girlfriend. I didn’t know her name. Hasn’t been back in a while.”
    “You know why?”
    “Nope.” He picked up a rag and began wiping the counter, his attention already drifting away from her.
    “I’ll tell you why,” said Rizzoli, her voice rising in anger. “Because some asshole decided to have a little fun. So he came here to hunt for a victim. Looked around, saw Nina Peyton, and thought: There’s some pussy. He sure didn’t see a human being when he looked at her. All he saw was something he could use and throw away.”
    “Look, you don’t need to tell me this.”
    “Yes, I do. And you need to hear it because it happened right under your nose and you chose not to see it. Some asshole slips a drug in a woman’s drink. Pretty soon she’s sick and staggers off to the bathroom. The asshole takes her by the arm and leads her outside. And you didn’t see
any
of that?”
    “No,” he shot back. “I
didn’t
.”
    The room had fallen silent. She saw that people were staring at her. Without another word, she stalked off, back to the table.
    After a moment, the buzz of conversation resumed.
    She watched the bartender slide two whiskeys toward a man, saw the man hand one of them to a woman. She watched drink glasses lifted to lips and tongues licking off salt from Margaritas, saw heads tilted back as vodka and tequila and beer slid down throats.
    And she saw men staring at women. She sipped her ginger ale, and she felt intoxicated, not with alcohol but anger. She, the lone female sitting in the corner, could see with startling clarity what this place really was. A watering hole where predator and prey came together.
    Her beeper went off. It was Barry Frost paging her.
    “What’s all that racket?” asked Frost, barely audible over