Rizzoli & Isles Story 01 - Freaks

pew, and Rayner stood over him, his weapon pointed at the boy’s head.
    “Let him go,” said Jane. “This doesn’t help anyone.”
    “It’s justice,” said Rayner. “That’s worth something.”
    “Is it worth your own life?”
    “Someone has to pay. We both know he killed her.”
    “I didn’t!” wailed Lucas. “I keep telling you that!”
    Jane said, “If the boy’s guilty, let the courts prove it.”
    “They won’t,” said Rayner. “You said last night there’s no proof. There’ll never be enough proof. My girl’s gone, and he’ll walk away free and clear.”
    Even in the gloom, Jane could see Rayner’s arm straighten as his hand tightened around the grip. As she drew her own weapon, her cell phone rang. All three of them froze, caught on the threshold of violence. She let the phone keep ringing as she kept her gaze on Rayner.
    “If Lucas killed her,” Jane said, “I swear I’ll find a way to prove it. And he
will
go to prison.”
    She and Rayner stared at each other in the gloom. Now another phone began to ring, but this time it wasn’t hers—it was Rayner’s. Without breaking eye contact, he answered it. “Hello?” There was a long silence, then he bent down and slid the phone across the floor toward Jane. “It’s for you.”
    Baffled, Jane picked it up. “Rizzoli.”
    Maura answered. “Jane, I’m standing right outside. The boy didn’t do it!”
    “Then who did?”
    “The killer’s inside that church. With you.”

Chapter Ten
    Maura’s footsteps echoed across the stone floor as she approached them through the shadows. “I’m alone,” she called out. “And I’m not armed. All I have is a flashlight, and I’m going to turn it on.”
    “What the hell’s going on?” Rayner demanded.
    “I’m Dr. Maura Isles, the medical examiner. I performed your daughter’s autopsy, and I can prove that Lucas Henry didn’t kill her.”
    “How the hell can you prove that?”
    “By showing you the real killer.” Maura’s flashlight came on, and Jane squinted at the sudden glare of the beam. “Lucas, tell me where Kimberly was sleeping.”
    The boy’s voice was shaky in the darkness. “I couldn’t find a coffin for her. So we dragged in that cardboard box. Over there.”
    Maura’s flashlight beam swept the shadows and came to a stop on a giant appliance carton. She approached it and read the shipping label. “This box was sent from North Carolina.”
    “So what?” said Rayner.
    She bent down and stared into the carton. “Jane, do you want to come take a look?”
    Jane crouched down beside her and whispered: “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
    “I told you. Identifying the killer.” Maura aimed her flashlight beam into the box, scanning past rumpled blankets and a stained pillow, to focus on the corner above. “There’s our perp.”
    Jane stared at the gossamer web, and the creature that had woven it. “A spider?”
    “Genus
Latrodectus
. A black widow. It probably hitched a ride from NorthCarolina and bit the victim while she was sleeping in this box. She may not have even felt the bite. In most healthy adults, the poison’s not fatal, but Kimberly was not a healthy adult. She was malnourished and medically fragile.” Maura’s voice dropped so that only Jane could hear her next words. “Death would have been excruciating. Muscle spasms, abdominal pain, followed by respiratory arrest. No wonder passersby heard her screaming.”
    Jane rose to her feet and turned to Rayner. “Your daughter wasn’t murdered, sir. It was a spider bite. A freak death. And the killer’s right here, in this box.”
    Slowly the man lowered his weapon. Even as Jane took it away and handcuffed him, Rayner stood motionless, his head bowed. “I only wanted justice,” he said. “Justice for my little girl.”
    “And you’ll have it, Mr. Rayner,” said Jane. “In this case, all it takes is the heel of a shoe.”

Read on for an exciting preview of Tess Gerritsen’s next thrilling novel featuring Maura Isles and Jane Rizzoli
    THE SILENT GIRL
    ONE
SAN FRANCISCO
    A LL DAY , I HAVE BEEN WATCHING THE GIRL . She gives no indication that she’s aware of me, although my rental car is within view of the street corner where she and the other teenagers have gathered this afternoon, doing whatever bored kids do to pass the time. She looks younger than the others, but perhaps it’s because she’s Asian and petite at seventeen, just a wisp of a girl. Her black hair is