The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

yourself any slack, do you?”
    “Why should I need to?”
    “Because you’re not a machine. It will catch up with you. You can’t walk this site and pretend it’s just another crime scene.”
    “That’s exactly how I’m treating it.”
    “Even after what almost happened?”
    What almost happened.
    She looked down at the bloodstains in the dirt, and for an instant the road seemed to sway, as though a tremor had shaken the earth, rattling the carefully constructed walls she had put up as shields, threatening the very foundation upon which she stood.
    He reached for her hand, a steady touch that brought tears to her eyes. A touch that said: Just this once, you have permission to be human. To be weak.
    She said softly, “I’m sorry about Washington.”
    She saw hurt in his eyes and realized that he had misunderstood her words.
    “So you wish it never happened between us,” he said.
    “No. No, that’s not it at all—”
    “Then what are you sorry about?”
    She sighed. “I’m sorry I left without telling you what that night meant to me. I’m sorry I never really said good-bye to you. And I’m sorry that . . .” She paused. “That I didn’t let you take care of me, just that once. Because the truth is, I really needed you to. I’m not as strong as I like to think I am.”
    He smiled. Squeezed her hand. “None of us is, Jane.”
    “Hey, Rizzoli?” It was Barry Frost, calling to her from the edge of the woods.
    She blinked away tears and turned to him. “Yeah?”
    “We just got a double ten fifty-four. Quik-Stop Grocery Store, Jamaica Plain. Dead store clerk and a customer. The scene’s already been secured.”
    “Jesus. So early in the morning.”
    “We’re next up for this one. You good to go?”
    She drew in a deep breath and turned back to Dean. He had released her hand, and although she missed his touch, she felt stronger, the tremor silenced, the ground once again solid beneath her feet. But she was not ready to end this moment. Their last good-bye in Washington had been rushed; she wouldn’t let it happen again. She wouldn’t let her life turn into Korsak’s, a sad chronicle of regrets.
    “Frost?” she said, her gaze still on Dean.
    “Yeah?”
    “I’m not coming.”
    “What?”
    “Let another team take it. I’m just not up to it right now.”
    There was no response. She glanced at Frost and saw his stunned face.
    “You mean . . . you’re taking the day off?” Frost said.
    “Yeah. It’s my first sick leave. You got a problem with that?”
    Frost shook his head and laughed. “About goddamn time, is all I can say.”
    She watched Frost walk away. Heard him still laughing as he headed into the woods. She waited until Frost had vanished among the trees before she turned to look at Dean.
    He held open his arms; she stepped into them.

twenty-six
    E
very two hours, they come to check my skin for bedsores. It is a rotating trio of faces: Armina on day shift, Bella on evenings, and on the night shift the quiet and timid Corazon. My ABC girls, I call them. To the unobservant, they are indistinguishable from each other, all of them with smooth brown faces and musical voices. A chirpy chorus line of Filipinas in white uniforms. But I see the differences between them. I see it in the way they approach my bed, in the various ways they grasp me as they roll my torso onto one side or the other to reposition me on the sheepskin cover. Day and night, this must be done, because I cannot turn myself and the weight of my own body pressing down upon the mattress wears away at the skin. It compresses capillaries and interrupts the nourishing flow of blood, starving the tissues, turning them pale and fragile and easily abraded. One small sore can soon fester and grow, like a rat gnawing at the flesh.
    Thanks to my ABC girls, I do not have any sores—or so they tell me. I cannot verify it because I can’t see my own back or buttocks, nor can I feel any sensation below my shoulders. I am completely dependent on Armina, Bella, and Corazon to keep me healthy, and like any infant, I pay rapt attention to those who tend me. I study their faces, inhale their scents, commit their voices to memory. I know that the bridge of Armina’s nose is not quite straight, that Bella’s breath often smells of garlic, and that Corazon has just the hint of a stutter.
    I also know they are afraid of me.
    They know, of course, why I am here. Everyone who works on the spinal cord unit is aware of who I am, and