Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

the Surgeon’s managed to do. He’s batted three out of three. If he’s not the one raping them, how does he know which ones to choose, which ones to slaughter? If it’s not Pacheco, then it’s a buddy, a partner. Some fucking vulture feeding off the carrion Pacheco leaves behind.” She thrust the lab report back at him. “Maybe I didn’t shoot the Surgeon. But the man I
did
shoot was scum. Everyone seems to forget that fact.
Pacheco was scum.
Do I get a medal?” She rose to her feet and shoved her chair, hard, against the desk. “Administrative duty. Marquette’s turned me into a fucking desk jockey. Thanks a lot.”
    In silence he watched her walk away and could think of nothing to say, nothing he could do to repair the rift between them.
    He went to his own workstation and sank into the chair. I’m a dinosaur, he thought, lumbering through a world where truth-tellers are despised. He could not think about Rizzoli now. The case against Pacheco had disintegrated, and they were back at square one, hunting for a nameless killer.
    Three raped women. It kept coming back to that. How was the Surgeon finding them? Only Nina Peyton had reported her rape to the police. Elena Ortiz and Diana Sterling had not. Theirs was a private trauma, known only to the rapists, their victims, and the medical professionals who had treated them. But the three women had sought medical attention in different places: Sterling in the office of a Back Bay gynecologist. Ortiz in the Pilgrim Hospital E.R. Nina Peyton in the Forest Hills Women’s Clinic. There was no overlap of personnel, no doctor or nurse or receptionist who had come into contact with more than one of these women.
    Somehow the Surgeon knew those women were damaged, and he was attracted by their pain. Sexual killers choose their prey from among the most vulnerable members of society. They seek women they can control, women they can degrade, women who do not threaten them. And who is more fragile than a woman who has been violated?
    As Moore walked out, he paused to look at the wall where the photos of Sterling, Ortiz, and Peyton were tacked. Three women, three rapes.
    And a fourth.
Catherine was raped in Savannah.
    He blinked as the image of her face suddenly flashed into mind, an image that he could not help adding to that victims’ gallery on the wall.
    Somehow, it all goes back to what happened that night in Savannah. It all goes back to Andrew Capra.
     

sixteen
    I n the heart of Mexico City, human blood once ran in rivers. Beneath the foundations of the modern metropolis lie the ruins of Templo Mayor, the great Aztec site which dominated ancient Tenochtitlán. Here, tens of thousands of unfortunate victims were sacrificed to the gods.
    The day I walked those temple grounds, I felt some measure of amusement that nearby loomed a cathedral, where Catholics light candles and whisper prayers to a merciful God in heaven. They kneel near the very place where the stones were once slippery with blood. I visited on a Sunday, not knowing that on Sundays admission is free to the public, and the Museum of Templo Mayor was aswarm with children, their voices echoing brightly in the halls. I do not care for children, or for the disorder they stir; if ever I return, I will remember to avoid museums on Sundays.
    But it was my last day in the city, so I put up with the irritating shards of noise. I wanted to see the excavation, and I wanted to tour Hall Two. The Hall of Ritual and Sacrifice.
    The Aztecs believed that death is necessary for life. To maintain the sacred energy of the world, to ward off catastrophe and ensure that the sun continues to rise, the gods must be fed human hearts. I stood in the Hall of Ritual and saw, in the glass case, the sacrificial knife which had carved flesh. It had a name:
Tecpatl Ixcuahua.
The Knife with the Broad Forehead. The blade was made of flint, and the handle was in the shape of a kneeling man.
    How, I wondered, does one go about cutting out a human heart when equipped with only a flint knife?
    That question consumed me as I walked later that afternoon in the Alameda Central, ignoring the filthy urchins who trailed behind me, begging for coins. After a while they realized I could not be seduced by brown eyes or toothy smiles, and they left me alone. At last I was allowed some measure of peace—if such a thing is possible in the cacophony of Mexico City. I found a cafe, and sat at an outdoor table sipping strong coffee, the only patron