Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

the garage bay door she hesitated, knowing that, by opening that door, she was about to cross an ethical line. She had no warrant, and this wasn’t even her own jurisdiction. But Bobby Martineau was dead so he could hardly complain about it. And in the end, this was all about justice, wasn’t it? Justice for Bobby himself, as well as for the boy accused of killing him.
    She reached down for the bay door handle, but the tracks had iced over and she couldn’t make it budge. Cathy pitched in and together they strained to lift the door. Suddenly it jerked free, and they slid it up. They stood, staring in astonishment.
    A massive black behemoth gleamed inside.
    “Will you look at that,” murmured Cathy. “It’s so new, it’s still got the dealer plates on it.”
    Admiringly, Jane stroked the flawless finish as she walked around the truck. It was a Ford F-450 XLT. “This baby’s gotta cost at least fifty thousand bucks,” she said.
    “How could Bobby afford this?”
    Jane circled to the front bumper and halted. “An even better question is, how could he afford
that?
”
    “What is it?”
    Jane pointed at the Harley. It was a black V-Rod Muscle model, and like the truck, it looked brand new. She didn’t know how much a bike like this cost, but it certainly didn’t come cheap. “Looks like Deputy Martineau recently came into some money,” she said softly. She turned to Cathy, who stared openmouthed at the Harley. “He didn’t have a rich uncle somewhere, did he?”
    Cathy gave a baffled shake of the head. “From what I heard, he couldn’t even keep up with his alimony payments.”
    “Then how did he pay for this bike? For the truck?” Jane lookedaround at the shabby garage with its sagging timbers. “Obviously, we have a disconnect here. It makes you question everything we’ve been told about Martineau.”
    “He was a cop. Maybe someone was paying him to look the other way.”
    Jane again focused on the Harley, trying to understand how it connected with Martineau’s death. It was clear to her now that he had purposefully shut off his dash camera to hide his actions. Dispatch had just told him that Maura Isles was waiting there, a lone woman, in need of rescue. After taking the call, Martineau had shut off the camera and proceeded to drive up Doyle Mountain.
    Then what happened? Where did the boy come in?
Maybe it all comes down to the boy
.
    She looked at Cathy. “How far is Kingdom Come?”
    “It’s about thirty, forty miles from here. Middle of nowhere.”
    “Maybe we should drive out there and talk to Julian’s mother.”
    “I don’t think anyone’s living there right now. I heard the residents have left for the winter.”
    “You do remember who reported that piece of information? The same deputy who visited Kingdom Come again and again. And never saw anything wrong there.”
    Cathy said, softly: “Bobby Martineau.”
    Jane nodded at the Harley. “Based on what we’ve found here, I don’t think we can trust anything Martineau said. Someone’s been paying him off. Someone who has plenty of money to do it.”
    Neither one of them had to say the name aloud.
Jeremiah Goode
.
    “Let’s pay a visit to Kingdom Come,” said Jane. “I’d like to find out what we’re not supposed to see.”

T HROUGH THE CAR WINDOW, JANE SPOTTED BROWN HUMPS DOTTING a vast field of white. They were bison, huddled together against the wind, their great shaggy coats dusted with snow. Wild animals, belonging to no one. That was a novelty for a girl from the big city, where all pets were leashed and tagged and registered. But pets were fed and sheltered, not left to fend for themselves in the brutal elements. Here is the consequence of freedom, she thought, staring at the bison, a consequence that Julian Perkins had accepted when he fled his foster home with only a backpack of food. How could a sixteen-year-old boy survive in that unforgiving world?
    How could Maura?
    As if reading her thoughts, Cathy said: “If anyone can keep her alive out there, it’d be Julian. He grew up with a grandfather who knew every trick of living off the land. Absolem Perkins is a legend around here. Built his own cabin by hand, up in the Bridger-Teton Mountains.”
    “Where’s that?”
    “It’s that mountain range over there.” Cathy pointed.
    Through the swirling dust of snow kicked up by the tires, Jane saw impossibly rugged peaks. “
That’s
where Julian grew up?”
    “It’s national forest now. But if you go