The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

of dust rises beyond the trees. A car is coming. I wait, my heart beating faster, my hands sweating with anticipation. At last it swings into view, a gleaming black behemoth moving slowly up the dirt road, taking its dignified time. Bringing my friend to see me.
    It will be a long visit, I think. Glancing up, I see that the sun is still high, leaving us hours of daylight. Hours of summer fun.
    I move to the center of the road and the limousine rolls to a stop in front of me. The driver steps out. We don’t need to exchange a word; we merely look at each other and smile. The smile of two brothers, united not by family bonds, but by shared desires, shared cravings. Words on a page brought us together. In long letters did we spin our fantasies and forge our alliance, the words flowing from our pens like the silky strands of a spider-web binding us together. Bringing us to these woods where crows watch with eager eyes.
    Together we walk to the rear of the car. He is excited about fucking her. I can see the bulge in his pants, and I hear the sharp rattle of the car keys in his hands. His pupils are dilated, and his upper lip gleams with sweat. We stand beside the trunk, both of us hungry for the first look at our guest. For the first delicious whiff of her terror.
    He thrusts the key in the lock and turns it. The trunk hood rises.
    She lies curled on her side, blinking up at us, her eyes dazed by the sudden light. I am so focused on her, I do not immediately register the significance of the white bra, trailing from one corner of the small suitcase. Only as my partner leans forward to haul her from the trunk do I understand what it means.
    I shout, “No!”
    But already she has brought both her hands forward. Already she is pulling the trigger.
    His head explodes in a mist of blood.
    It is a strangely graceful ballet, the way his body arches as it falls backward. The way her arms swing toward me with unerring precision. I have time only to twist sideways, and then the second bullet bursts from her gun.
    I do not feel it pierce the back of my neck.
    The strange ballet continues, only now it is my own body that performs the dance, arms flinging a circle as I hurtle through the air in a swan’s dive. I land on my side, but there is no pain on impact, only the sound of my torso slamming against dirt. I lie waiting for the ache, the throb, but there is nothing. Only a sense of surprise.
    I hear her struggle out of the car. She has been lying cramped in there for over an hour, and it takes her several minutes to make her legs obey.
    She approaches me. Shoves her foot against my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. I am fully conscious, and I look up at her with full comprehension of what is about to happen. She points the weapon at my face, her hands shaking, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Smeared blood has dried on her left cheek like war paint. Every muscle in her body is primed to kill. Every instinct screams at her to squeeze the trigger. I stare back, unafraid, watching the battle play out in her eyes. Wondering which form of defeat she will choose. In her hands she holds the weapon of her own destruction; I am merely the catalyst.
    Kill me, and the consequences will destroy you.
    Let me live, and I will forever inhabit your nightmares.
    She releases a soft sob. Slowly she lowers the weapon. “No,” she whispers. And again, louder. Defiantly: “No.”
Then she straightens, takes a deep breath.
    And walks back to the car.

twenty-five
    R izzoli stood in the clearing, looking down at the four iron stakes that had been pounded into the earth. Two for the arms, two for the legs. Knotted cord, already looped and waiting to be tightened around wrists and ankles, had been found nearby. She avoided lingering over the obvious purpose of those stakes. Instead she moved around the site with the businesslike demeanor of any cop looking over a crime scene. That it would have been her limbs restrained to the stakes, her flesh rent by the instruments contained in Hoyt’s knapsack, was a detail she kept at a distance. She could feel her colleagues watching her, could hear the way their voices grew hushed when she came near. The bandage over her sutured scalp conspicuously labeled her as the walking wounded, and they were all dealing with her as though she were glass, easily shattered. She could not abide that, not now, when she needed, more than ever, to believe she was not a victim. That she was in full control of her