Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

identified. It had been found on the pillow. In any home, a variety of stray hairs can be found. Humans shed dozens of hairs a day, and depending on how fastidious a housekeeper you are and how often you vacuum, blankets and carpets and couches accumulate a microscopic record of every visitor who has ever spent significant time in your home. This single hair, found on the pillow, could have come from a lover, a houseguest, a relative. It was not Andrew Capra’s.
     
    Single human head hair, light brown, A0 (curved), shaft length: 5 centimeters. Telogen phase. Trichorrhexis invaginata noted. Unidentified origin.
     
    Trichorrhexis invaginata.
Bamboo hair.
    The Surgeon was there.
    He sat back, stunned. Earlier that day he had read the Savannah lab reports for Fox, Voorhees, Torregrossa, and Cordell. In none of those crime scenes had a hair with
Trichorrhexis invaginata
been found.
    But Capra’s partner had been there all along. He had remained invisible, leaving no semen, no DNA, behind. The only evidence of his presence was this single strand of hair, and Catherine’s buried memory of his voice.
    Their partnership began with the very first killing. In Atlanta.
     

twenty
    P eter Falco was up to his elbows in blood. He glanced up from the table as Catherine pushed into the trauma room. Whatever tensions had grown between them, whatever uneasiness she felt in Peter’s presence, were instantly shoved aside. They had assumed the roles of two professionals working together in the heat of battle.
    “Another one coming in!” said Peter. “That makes four. They’re still cutting him out of the car.”
    Blood spurted from the incision. He grabbed a clamp from the tray and thrust it into the open abdomen.
    “I’ll assist,” said Catherine, and broke the tape seal on a sterile gown.
    “No, I can handle this. Kimball needs you in Room Two.”
    As if to emphasize his statement, an ambulance wail pierced the hubbub of the room.
    “That one’s yours,” said Falco. “Have fun.”
    Catherine ran out to the ambulance loading dock. Already, Dr. Kimball and two nurses were waiting outside as the beeping vehicle backed up. Even before Kimball yanked the ambulance door open, they could hear the patient screaming.
    He was a young man, tattoos mapping his arms and shoulders. He thrashed and cursed as the crew rolled out his stretcher. Catherine took one glance at the blood-soaked sheet covering his lower extremities and knew why he was shrieking.
    “We gave him a ton of morphine at the scene,” said the paramedic as they wheeled him into Trauma Two. “Didn’t seem to touch him!”
    “How much?” said Catherine.
    “Forty, forty-five milligrams IV. We stopped when his BP started dropping.”
    “Transfer on my count!” said a nurse. “One, two, three!”
    “Jesus fucking
CHRIST! IT HURTS
!”
    “I know, sweetie; I know.”
    “You don’t know a FUCKING THING!”
    “You’ll feel better in a minute. What’s your name, son?”
    “Rick … Oh Jesus, my leg—”
    “Rick what?”
    “Roland!”
    “Do you have any allergies, Rick?”
    “What’s wrong with you
FUCKING PEOPLE
?”
    “We have vitals?” cut in Catherine as she pulled on gloves.
    “BP one-oh-two over sixty. Pulse a hundred thirty.”
    “Ten milligrams morphine, IV push,” said Kimball.
    “SHIT! GIMME A HUNDRED!”
    As the rest of the staff scurried around drawing bloods and hanging IV bags, Catherine peeled back the blood-soaked sheet and caught her breath when she saw the emergency tourniquet tied around what was barely recognizable as a limb. “Give him thirty,” she said. The lower right leg was attached by only a few shreds of skin. The nearly severed limb was a pulpy red mass, the foot twisted nearly backward.
    She touched the toes and they were stone cold; of course there would be no pulse.
    “They said the artery was pumping out,” said the paramedic. “First cop on the scene put on the tourniquet.”
    “That cop saved his life.”
    “Morphine’s in!”
    Catherine directed the light onto the wound. “Looks like the popliteal nerve and artery are both severed. He’s lost vascular supply to this leg.” She looked at Kimball, and they both understood what had to be done.
    “Let’s get him to O.R.,” said Catherine. “He’s stable enough to be moved. That’ll free up this trauma room.”
    “Just in time,” said Kimball as they heard another ambulance siren wailing closer. He turned to leave.
    “Hey.
Hey!
” The patient