Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

and then she’d slipped out of sight. It was like watching a ghost, viewing those images on the monitor. A phantom reliving her last moments on earth again and again.
    “We don’t know what any of it means,” Jane said. “He could be an old acquaintance.”
    “Someone who made her smile.”
    “This was a medical conference. A bunch of pathologists who probably knew each other. Maybe he had nothing to do with why she went missing.”
    “Or maybe Queenan’s right. And they’re holed up together in some hotel right now, having hot, crazy …” He stopped.
    “At least it would mean she’s alive.”
    “Yes. It would mean that.”
    They both fell silent. It was only three PM, too early for cocktails. Except for a bartender stacking glasses behind the counter, they were the only ones in the gloomy lounge.
    “If she did go off with another man,” said Jane quietly, “you can understand why it might happen.”
    “I blame myself,” he said. “For not being that man. And I can’t help wondering …”
    “What?”
    “If she flew out here with plans to meet him.”
    “Do you have any reason to think that?”
    “Look at the way they smiled at each other. How comfortable they seemed.”
    “They might be old friends.”
Or old lovers
was what she didn’t say. She didn’t need to; that thought must be tormenting him as well. “These are just theories, based on nothing,” she said. “All we have is the video of her going out to dinner with him. Meeting him in the lobby.”
    “And smiling.” Pain darkened his eyes. “I couldn’t do that for her. I couldn’t give her what she needed.”
    “What she needs now is for us not to give up hope. To keep looking for her. I’m not going to give up.”
    “Tell me the truth.” He met her gaze. “You’ve been a homicide cop long enough to know. What do your instincts tell you?”
    “Instincts can be wrong.”
    “If she weren’t a friend, if this was just another missing persons case, what would you be thinking right now?”
    She hesitated, and the only sound in the lounge was the clink of glassware as the bartender tidied up behind the counter, prepping for the upcoming cocktail hour.
    “After this much time?” She shook her head. “I’d be forced to consider the worst.”
    He didn’t seem surprised by her answer. By now he would have reached the same conclusion.
    Her cell phone rang and they both froze. She glanced at the number. Queenan. As soon as she heard his voice on the line, she knew this was not a call that he wanted to be making. Nor a call that she wanted to receive.
    “I’m sorry to have to break the news,” he said.
    “What is it?”
    “You should head over to Saint John’s Medical Center in Jackson. Dr. Draper will meet you there.”
    “Dr. Draper? You mean the Sublette County Coroner?”
    “Yes. Because that’s where it happened, in Sublette County.” There was a long and agonizing pause. “I’m afraid they found your friend.”
    ———
    “I THINK it’s best that you not see her,” Dr. Draper said, somberly facing Maura’s three friends across the conference table. “You should remember her the way she was. I’m sure she would want it that way as well.”
    St. John’s was built to serve the living, not the dead, and through the closed door of the conference room they could hear the sounds of a normal day in a hospital: ringing phones, the chime of an elevator, the far-off wails of an infant in the ER. The sounds reminded Jane that, in the aftermath of tragedy, life still went on.
    “The vehicle was discovered only this morning, off a backcountry road,” said Draper. “We can’t be certain how long it was lying in that ravine. There was a lot of damage from the fire. And afterward, from animal …” He paused. “It’s a wilderness area.”
    He didn’t need to elaborate. Jane knew what he was leaving out. In the natural world, creatures always lurked in Death’s shadow, waiting to feed with beaks and claws and sharp teeth. Even in Boston’s suburban parks, a corpse would attract dogs and raccoons, rats and turkey vultures. In the rugged mountains of western Wyoming, there would be an even larger host of scavengers waiting to feast, scavengers that could gnaw off a face and detach a hand and scatter limbs. Jane thought of Maura’s ivory skin and regal cheekbones, and she wondered what remained of those features.
No, I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to know what has become of her face
.
    “If the