Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

white paper on the countertop to catch the contents. He lifted the flap and turned the envelope upside down.
    Silky red-brown strands slid out and lay in a gleaming clump on the sheet of paper.
    A chill shot up Rizzoli’s spine. “It looks like human hair.”
    “Oh god.
Oh god.…
”
    Rizzoli turned and saw Catherine backing away in horror. Rizzoli stared at Catherine’s hair, then looked back at the strands that had fallen from the envelope.
It’s hers. The hair is Cordell’s.
    “Catherine.” Moore spoke softly, soothingly. “It may not be yours at all.”
    She looked at him in panic. “What if it is? How did he—”
    “Do you keep a hairbrush in your O.R. locker? Your office?”
    “Moore,” said Rizzoli. “Check out these strands. They weren’t pulled off a hairbrush. The root ends have been cut.” She turned to Catherine. “Who last cut your hair, Dr. Cordell?”
    Slowly Catherine approached the countertop and regarded the clipped strands as though staring at a poisonous viper. “I know when he did it,” she said softly. “I remember.”
    “When?”
    “It was that night …” She looked at Rizzoli with a stunned expression. “In Savannah.”
     
    Rizzoli hung up the phone and looked at Moore. “Detective Singer confirms it. A clump of her hair was cut.”
    “Why didn’t that appear in Singer’s report?”
    “Cordell didn’t notice it until the second day of her hospitalization, when she looked in a mirror. Since Capra was dead, and no hair was found at the crime scene, Singer assumed the hair was cut by hospital personnel. Maybe during emergency treatment. Cordell’s face was pretty bruised up, remember? The E.R. may have snipped away some hair to clean her scalp.”
    “Did Singer ever confirm it was someone in the hospital who cut it?”
    Rizzoli tossed down her pencil and sighed. “No. He never followed up.”
    “He just left it at that? Never mentioned it in his report because it didn’t make sense.”
    “Well, it
doesn’t
make sense! Why weren’t the clippings found at the scene, along with Capra’s body?”
    “Catherine doesn’t remember a large part of that night. The Rohypnol wiped out a significant chunk of her memory. Capra may have left the house. Returned later.”
    “Okay. Here’s the biggest question of all. Capra’s dead. How did this souvenir end up in the Surgeon’s hands?”
    For this, Moore had no answer. Two killers, one alive, one dead. What bound these two monsters to each other? The link between them was more than merely psychic energy; it had now taken on a physical dimension. Something they could actually see and touch.
    He looked down at the two evidence bags. One was labeled:
Unknown hair clippings.
The second bag contained a sample of Catherine’s hair for comparison. He himself had snipped the coppery strands and had placed them into the Ziploc bag. Such hair would indeed make a tempting souvenir. Hair was so very personal. A woman wears it, sleeps with it. It carries fragrance and color and texture. A woman’s very essence. No wonder Catherine had been horrified to learn that a man she did not know possessed such an intimate part of her. To know that he had stroked it, sniffed it, acquainting himself like a lover with her scent.
    By now, the Surgeon knows her scent well.
     
    It was nearly midnight, but her lights were on. Through the closed curtains, he saw her silhouette glide past, and he knew she was awake.
    Moore walked over to the parked cruiser and bent to talk to the two patrolmen inside. “Anything to report?”
    “She hasn’t stepped outta the building since she got home. Doing a lot of pacing. Looks like she’s in for a restless night.”
    “I’m going in to talk to her,” said Moore, and turned to cross the street.
    “Staying all night?”
    Moore halted. Turned stiffly to look at the cop. “Excuse me?”
    “Are you staying all night? ’Cause if you are, we’ll pass it along to the next team. Just to let ’em know it’s one of ours upstairs with her.”
    Moore swallowed back his anger. The patrolman’s question had been a reasonable one, so why had he been so quick to take offense?
    Because I know how it must look, to be walking in her door at midnight. I know what must be going through their heads. It’s the same thing that’s going through my head.
    The instant he stepped into her apartment, he saw the question in her eyes, and he answered with a grim nod. “I’m afraid the lab confirmed it. It was your