Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

them,” said Rat, “we have to get back up the ridge.”
    “They’ll track us back to your shelter.”
    “We can’t stay there. We’ll pack as much food as we can carry and keep moving.”
    “Who were those men?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Were they from The Gathering?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Goddamn it, Rat. What
do
you know?”
    He glanced back at her. “How to stay alive.”
    They were climbing now, moving steadily up the ridge, and every step was a labor. She did not know how he could cover ground so quickly.
    “You have to get me to a telephone,” she said. “Let me call the police.”
    “He owns them. They just do what he wants.”
    “Are you talking about Jeremiah?”
    “No one goes against the Prophet. No one ever fights back, not even my mom. Not even when they—” He stopped talking and suddenly focused his energy on attacking the ridge.
    She halted on the slope, out of breath. “What did they do to your mom?”
    He just kept climbing, his anger driving him at a killing pace.
    “Rat.” She scrambled to catch up. “Listen to me. I have friends, people I trust. Just get me to a telephone.”
    He paused, his breath clouding the air like a steam engine. “Who are you going to call?”
    Daniel
was her first thought. But she remembered all the times when she could not reach him, all the awkward phone conversations when others were listening in, and he had been forced to speak in code. Now, when she needed him most, she did not know if she could count on him.
    Maybe I never could
.
    “Who is this friend?” Rat persisted.
    “Her name is Jane Rizzoli.”

S HERIFF FAHEY DID NOT LOOK HAPPY TO SEE JANE AGAIN. EVEN FROM across the room, she could read his face through the glass partition, a look of dismay, as if he expected her to issue some new demand. He rose from his desk and resignedly stood waiting in his doorway as she crossed toward him, past law enforcement personnel who were now familiar with the three visitors from Boston. Before she could ask the expected question, he headed her off with the same answer he’d given her for two days in a row.
    “There are no new developments,” he said.
    “I didn’t come in expecting any,” said Jane.
    “Trust me, I’ll call you if anything changes. There’s really no need for you folks to keep dropping in.” He glanced past her shoulder. “So where are your two gentlemen today?”
    “They’re back at the hotel, packing. I thought I’d come by to thank you before we head to the airport.”
    “You’re leaving?”
    “We’re flying back to Boston this afternoon.”
    “I hear rumors there’s a private jet involved. Must be nice.”
    “It’s not my jet.”
    “His, huh? The guy in black. He’s a strange fella.”
    “Sansone’s a good man.”
    “Sometimes it’s hard to know. We see a lot of folks around here who are loaded with money. Hollywood types, big-shot politicians. Buy themselves a few hundred acres, call themselves ranchers, and then they think they got a right to tell us how to do our jobs.” Although he was talking about nameless others, his words were really directed at her, at the Boston outsiders who’d swooped into his county and sucked up his attention.
    “She was our friend,” said Jane. “You can understand why we’d want to do everything possible to find her.”
    “Quite a group of friends she collected. Cops. A priest. A rich guy. Must’ve been quite a woman.”
    “She was.” She looked down as her cell phone rang and saw a Wyoming area code, but she did not recognize the number. “Excuse me,” she said to Fahey and answered the call. “Detective Rizzoli.”
    “Jane?” The voice was close to a sob. “Thank God you answered!”
    For a moment Jane could not utter a sound. She stood mute and paralyzed, the cell phone pressed to her ear, the noise of the sheriff’s office drowned out by the pounding of her own pulse.
I am talking to a ghost
.
    “I thought you were dead!” Jane blurted.
    “I’m alive. I’m okay!”
    “Jesus, Maura, we had your memorial service!” Tears suddenly stung Jane’s eyes, and she wiped them away with an impatient swipe of her sleeve. “Where the hell are you? Do you have any idea what—”
    “Listen.
Listen to me
.”
    Jane sucked in a breath. “I’m right here.”
    “I need you to come to Wyoming. Please come and get me.”
    “We’re already here.”
    “What?”
    “We’ve been working with the police to find your body.”
    “Which