The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

snapped Rizzoli.
    “The dirt parking area. He’s just pulled into the parking area!”
    It’s him.
    “Korsak, we’re hot!” she hissed out the window. As she slipped on her personal comm unit and adjusted the earpiece, every nerve was singing with excitement.
    Korsak zipped up his fly and scrambled back into the car. “What? What?”
    “Vehicle just pulled off Enneking—Watcher Two, what’s he doing?”
    “Just sitting there. Lights are off.”
    She hunched forward, pressing the headset to her ear in concentration. The seconds ticked by, transmissions silent, everyone waiting for the suspect’s next move.
    He’s checking out the area. Confirming that it’s safe to proceed.
    “It’s your call, Rizzoli,” said Frost. “We move on him?”
    She hesitated, weighing their options. Afraid to spring the trap too soon.
    “Wait,” said Frost. “He just turned his headlights back on. Ah, shit, he’s backing out. He’s changed his mind.”
    “Did he spot you? Frost, did he spot you?”
    “I don’t know! He’s pulled back onto Enneking. Proceeding north—”
    “We’ve spooked him!” In that split second, the only possible decision was crystal clear to her. She barked into her comm unit: “All units, go, go,
go
! Box him in
now
!”
    She started the car, jammed the gear into drive. Her tires spun, digging a trough through soft dirt and fallen leaves, branches whipping at the windshield. She heard her team’s rapid-fire transmissions and the far-off blare of multiple sirens.
    “Watcher Three. We now have Enneking north blocked off—”
    “Watcher Two. In pursuit—”
    “Vehicle is approaching! He’s braking—”
    “Box him in! Box him in!”
    “Do not confront without backup!” Rizzoli ordered. “Wait for backup!”
    “Roger that. Vehicle has halted. We are holding position.”
    By the time Rizzoli screeched to a halt, Enneking Parkway was a knot of cruisers and throbbing blue lights. Rizzoli felt temporarily blinded as she stepped out of her car. The surge of adrenaline had excited them all to fever pitch and she could hear it in their voices, the crackling tension of men on the edge of violence.
    Frost yanked open the suspect’s door, and half a dozen weapons were pointed at the driver’s head. The cabbie sat blinking and disoriented, blue lights pulsing on his face.
    “Step out of the vehicle,” Frost ordered.
    “What—what’d I do?”
    “Step out of the vehicle.” On this adrenaline-drenched night, even Barry Frost had transformed into someone frightening.
    The cabbie slowly emerged, hands held high. The instant both his feet touched the ground, he was spun around and shoved facedown against the hood of the cab.
    “What’d I
do
?” he cried as Frost patted him down.
    “State your name!” said Rizzoli.
    “I don’t know what this is all about—”
    “Your
name
!”
    “Wilensky.” He gave a sob. “Vernon Wilensky—”
    “Check,” said Frost, reading the cabbie’s I.D. “Vernon Wilensky, white male, born 1955.”
    “Matches the carriage permit,” said Korsak, who’d leaned into the cab to check the I.D. clipped to the visor.
    Rizzoli glanced up, eyes narrowing against the glare of oncoming headlights. Even at three A.M. , there was traffic moving along the parkway, and with the road now blocked by police vehicles, they’d soon have cars backing up in both directions.
    She focused again on the cabbie. Grabbing his shirt, she turned him around to face her and aimed her flashlight in his eyes. She saw a middle-aged man, blond hair gone thin and scraggly, skin sallow in the harsh beam of light. This was not the face she’d envisioned as their unsub. She had looked into the eyes of evil more times than she cared to count and carried, in her memory, all the faces belonging to the monsters she had encountered in her career. This scared man did not belong in that gallery.
    “What are you doing here, Mr. Wilensky?” she said.
    “I was just—just picking up a fare.”
    “What fare?”
    “A guy, called for a cab. Said he ran outta gas on Enneking Parkway—”
    “Where is he?”
    “I don’t know! I stopped where he said he’d be waiting, and he wasn’t there. Please, it’s all a mistake. Call my dispatcher! She’ll back me up!”
    Rizzoli said to Frost: “Pop open the trunk.”
    Even as she walked to the rear of the cab, a sick feeling was building in her stomach. She lifted the trunk hood and aimed her Maglite. For a solid five seconds she stared into