The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

cross-check everything we have.” Gorman folded up his handkerchief and slipped it back in his jacket pocket. “You might want to check the FBI as well,” he added. “See if they have anything to add.”
    Rizzoli paused. “The FBI?”
    “We sent a VICAP report way back. An agent from their behavioral unit came up. Spent a few weeks monitoring our investigation, then went back to Washington. Haven’t heard a word from him since.”
    Rizzoli and Frost looked at each other. She saw her own astonishment reflected in his eyes.
    Gorman slowly rose from the chair and took out the keys, a hint that he would like to end this meeting. Only as he was walking toward the door did Rizzoli finally summon the voice to ask the obvious question. Even though she did not want to hear the answer.
    “The FBI agent who came up here,” she said. “Do you remember his name?”
    Gorman paused in the doorway, clothes drooping on his gaunt frame. “Yes. His name was Gabriel Dean.”

twenty-one
    S he drove straight through the afternoon and into the night, her eyes on the dark highway, her mind on Gabriel Dean. Frost had dozed off beside her, and she was alone with her own thoughts, her rage. What else had Dean withheld from her? she wondered. What other information had he hoarded while watching her scramble for answers? From the very beginning, he had been a few steps ahead of her. The first to reach the dead security guard in the cemetery. The first to spot Karenna Ghent’s body posed atop the grave. The first to suggest the wet prep during Gail Yeager’s autopsy. He had already known, before any of them, that it would reveal live sperm.
Because he’s encountered the Dominator before.
    But what Dean had not anticipated was that the Dominator would take a partner.
That’s when Dean showed up at my apartment. That’s the first time he took an interest in me. Because I had something he wanted, something he needed. I was his guide into the mind of Warren Hoyt.
    Beside her Frost gave a noisy snort in his sleep. She glanced at him and saw that his jaw hung slack, the picture of unguarded innocence. Not once, in all the time they’d worked together, had she seen a dark side to Barry Frost. But Dean’s deception had so thoroughly shaken her that now, looking at Frost, she wondered what he, too, concealed from her. What cruelties even he kept hidden from view.
    It was nearly nine when she finally walked into her apartment. As always, she took the time to secure the locks on her door, but this time it was not fear that possessed her as she fastened the chain and turned the dead bolts, but anger. She drove the last bolt home with a hard snap, then walked straight to the bedroom without pausing to perform her usual rituals of checking the closets and glancing into every room. Dean’s betrayal had temporarily driven out all thoughts of Warren Hoyt. She unbuckled her holster, slid the weapon into her nightstand drawer, and slammed the drawer shut. Then she turned and looked at herself in the dresser mirror, disgusted by what she saw. The medusa’s cap of unruly hair. The wounded gaze. The face of a woman who has let a man’s attractions blind her to the obvious.
    The ringing phone startled her. She stared down at the Caller ID display: WASHINGTON D.C.
    The phone rang twice, three times, as she marshaled control over her emotions. When at last she answered it, she greeted the caller with a cool: “Rizzoli.”
    “I understand you’ve been trying to reach me,” said Dean.
    She closed her eyes. “You’re in Washington,” she said, and though she tried to keep the hostility out of her voice, the words came out like an accusation.
    “I was called back last night. I’m sorry we didn’t get the chance to talk before I left.”
    “And what would you have told me? The truth, for a change?”
    “You have to understand, this is a highly sensitive case.”
    “And that’s why you never told me about Marla Jean Waite?”
    “It wasn’t immediately vital to your part of the investigation.”
    “Who the hell are you to decide? Oh, wait a minute! I forgot. You’re the fucking
FBI.
”
    “Jane,” he said quietly. “I want you to come to Washington.”
    She paused, startled by the abrupt turn in conversation. “Why?”
    “Because we can’t talk about this over the phone.”
    “You expect me to jump on a plane without knowing why?”
    “I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think it was necessary. It’s already been cleared with