The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

deserve a response, so I give none.
    But Dr. O’Donnell is trained to zero in on feelings, to peel away scar tissue and expose the raw and bloody wound beneath. She has sniffed the aroma of festering emotions and now she moves in to tweeze and scrape and dig.
    “Do you still think about Detective Rizzoli?” she asks.
    “Every day.”
    “What sort of thoughts?”
    “Do you really want to know?”
    “I’m trying to understand you, Warren. What you think, what you feel. What makes you kill.”
    “So I’m still your little lab rat. I’m not your friend.”
    A pause. “Yes, I can be your friend—”
    “It’s not why you come here, though.”
    “To be honest, I come here because of what you can teach me. What you can teach all of us about why men kill.” She leans even closer. Says, quietly: “So tell me. All your thoughts, however disturbing they may be.”
    There is a long silence. Then I say, softly, “I have fantasies. . . .”
    “What fantasies?”
    “About Jane Rizzoli. About what I would like to do to her.”
    “Tell me.”
    “They’re not nice fantasies. I’m sure you’ll find them disgusting.”
    “Nevertheless, I would like to hear them.”
    Her eyes have a strange glow to them, as though they are lit from within. The muscles of her face have tensed with anticipation. She is holding her breath.
    I stare at her and I think: Oh yes, she would like to hear them. Like everyone else, she wants to hear every dark detail. She claims her interest is merely academic, that what I tell her is only for her research. But I see the spark of eagerness in her eyes. I sniff her pheromonal scent of excitement.
    I see the reptile, stirring in its cage.
    She wants to know what I know. She wants to walk in my world. She is finally ready for the journey.
    It’s time to invite her in.

Also by Tess Gerritsen
    Harvest
Life Support
Bloodstream
Gravity
The Surgeon
The Apprentice
The Sinner
Body Double
Vanish
The Mephisto Club
The Bone Garden
The Keepsake

 
    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 cropped as short as a boy’s, and her blue jeans are ragged and torn. Not a fashion statement, I think, but a result of hard use and life on the streets. She puffs on a cigarette and exhales a cloud of smoke with the nonchalance of a street thug, an attitude that doesn’t match her pale face and delicate Chinese features. She is pretty enough to attract the hungry stares of two men who pass by. The girl notices their gazes and looks straight back at them, unafraid. It’s easy to be fearless when danger is merely an abstract concept. Faced with a real threat, how would this girl react? I wonder. Would she fight or would she crumble? I want to know, but I have yet to see her put to the test.
    As evening falls, the teenagers on the corner begin to disband. First one and then another wanders away. In San Francisco, even summer nights are chilly, and those who remain huddle together in their sweaters and jackets, lighting one another’s cigarettes, savoring the ephemeral heat of the flame. But cold and hunger eventually disperse the last of them, leaving only the girl, who has nowhere to go. She waves to her departing friends, and for a while lingers alone, as though waiting for someone. At last, with a shrug, she leaves the corner and walks in my direction, her hands thrust in her pockets. As she passes my car, she doesn’t even glance at me, but looks straight ahead, her gaze focused and fierce, as if she’s mentally churning over some dilemma. Perhaps she’s thinking about where she’s going to scavenge dinner tonight. Or perhaps it’s something more consequential. Her future. Her survival.
    She’s probably unaware that two men are following her.
    Seconds after she walks past my car, I spot the men emerging from an alley. I recognize them; it’s the same pair who had stared at her earlier. As they move past my car, trailing her, one of the men looks at me through the windshield. It’s just a quick