The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

would bring your work straight to the attention of the wrong people. People who’ll try to prevent you from making an arrest.”
    “You really think they’d protect him? After what he’s done?”
    “No, I think they want to put him away just as much as we do. But they want it done quietly, out of the public eye. Clearly they’ve lost track of him. He’s out of their control, killing civilians. He’s become a walking time bomb, and they can’t afford to ignore the problem.”
    “And if they catch him before we do?”
    “We’ll never know about it, will we? The killings will just stop. And we’ll always wonder.”
    “That’s not what I call satisfying closure,” she said.
    “No, you want justice. An arrest, a trial, a conviction.
    The whole nine yards.”
    “You make it sound like I’m asking for the moon.”
    “In this case, you may be.”
    “Is that why you brought me here? To tell me I’ll never catch him?”
    He leaned toward her with a look of sudden intensity. “We want exactly what you want, Jane. The whole nine yards. I’ve been tracking this man since Kosovo. You think I’d settle for anything less?”
    Conway said, quietly: “You understand now, Detective, why we brought you here? The need for secrecy?”
    “It seems to me there’s already too much of it.”
    “But for now, it’s the only way to achieve eventual and complete disclosure. Which is, I assume, what we all want.”
    She gazed for a moment at Senator Conway. “You paid for my trip, didn’t you? The plane tickets, the limos, the nice hotel. This isn’t on the FBI’s dime.”
    Conway gave a nod. A wry smile. “Things that really matter,” he said, “are best kept off the record.”

twenty-three
    T he sky had opened up and rain pounded like a thousand hammers on the roof of Dean’s Volvo. The windshield wipers thrashed across a watery view of stalled traffic and flooded streets.
    “A good thing you’re not flying back tonight,” he said. “The airport’s probably a mess.”
    “In this weather, I’ll keep my feet on the ground, thank you.”
    He shot her an amused look. “And I thought you were fearless.”
    “What gave you that impression?”
    “You did. You work hard at it, too. The armor always stays on.”
    “You’re trying to crawl inside my head again. You’re always doing that.”
    “It’s just a matter of habit. It’s what I did in the Gulf War. Psychological ops.”
    “Well, I’m not the enemy, okay?”
    “I never thought you were, Jane.”
    She looked at him and could not help admiring, as she always did, the clean, sharp lines of his profile. “But you didn’t trust me.”
    “I didn’t know you then.”
    “So have you changed your mind?”
    “Why do you think I asked you to come to Washington?”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, and gave a reckless laugh. “Because you missed me and couldn’t wait to see me again?”
    His silence made her flush. Suddenly she felt stupid and desperate, precisely the traits she despised in other women. She stared out the window, avoiding his gaze, the sound of her own voice, her own foolish words, still ringing in her ears.
    In the road ahead, cars were finally starting to move again, tires churning through deep puddles.
    “Actually,” he said, “I did want to see you.”
    “Oh?” The word tossed off carelessly. She had already embarrassed herself; she wouldn’t repeat the mistake.
    “I wanted to apologize. For telling Marquette you weren’t up to the job. I was wrong.”
    “When did you decide that?”
    “There wasn’t a specific moment. It was just . . . watching you work, day after day. Seeing how focused you are. How driven you are to get everything right.” He added, quietly: “And then I found out what you’ve been dealing with since last summer. Issues I hadn’t been aware of.”
    “Wow. ‘And she manages to do her job anyway.’ ”
    “You think I feel sorry for you,” he said.
    “It’s not particularly flattering to hear: ‘Look how much she’s accomplished,
considering
what she has to deal with.’ So give me a medal in the Special Olympics. The one for emotionally screwed-up cops.”
    He gave a sigh of exasperation. “Do you always look for the hidden motive behind every compliment, every word of praise? Sometimes, people mean exactly what they say, Jane.”
    “You can understand why I’d be more than a little skeptical about anything you tell me.”
    “You think I still have a secret agenda.”
    “I