The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

next. What does he want?”
    “How should I know?”
    “You got a more intimate look at him than any other cop has.”
    “Intimate? Is that what you call it? That son of a bitch almost
killed
me.”
    “And there’s nothing more intimate than murder. Is there?”
    She hated him at that moment, because he had stated a truth she wanted to cringe from. He had pointed out the very thing she could not bear to acknowledge: That she and Warren Hoyt were forever bound to each other. That fear and loathing are more powerful emotions than love could ever be.
    She sank onto the couch. Once, she would have fought back. Once, she’d been fierce enough to match any man word for word. But tonight, she was tired, so tired, and she did not have the strength to fend off Dean’s questions. He would continue to push and prod until he had answers, and she might as well surrender to the inevitable. Get it over with so that he would leave her alone.
    She straightened and found herself staring at her hands, at the matching scars on her palms. These were only the most obvious souvenirs left by Hoyt; the other scars were not so visible: the healed fractures of her ribs and facial bones, which could still be seen on X-ray. Least visible of all were the fracture lines that still split her life, like cracks left by an earthquake. In the last few weeks, she had felt those cracks begin to widen, as though the ground itself threatened to give way beneath her feet.
    “I didn’t realize he was still there,” she whispered. “Standing right behind me in that cellar. In that house . . .”
    He sat down in the chair across from her. “You’re the one who found him. The only cop who knew where to look.”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    She gave a shrug, a laugh. “Dumb luck.”
    “No, it’s got to be more than that.”
    “Don’t give me credit I don’t deserve.”
    “I don’t think I’ve given you enough credit, Jane.”
    She looked up and found him staring at her with a directness that made her want to hide. But there was no place to retreat to, no defense she could mount against a gaze so piercing. How much does he see? she wondered. Does he know how exposed he makes me feel?
    “Tell me what happened in the cellar,” he said.
    “You know what happened. It’s in my statement.”
    “People leave things out of statements.”
    “There’s nothing more to tell.”
    “You’re not even going to try?”
    Anger ripped through her like shrapnel. “I don’t
want
to think about it.”
    “Yet you can’t help returning to it. Can you?”
    She stared at him, wondering what game he was playing and how she’d been so easily sucked into it. She had known other men who were charismatic, men who could draw a woman’s gaze so fast she’d get whiplash. Rizzoli had enough good sense to keep her distance from such men, to regard them for what they were: the genetically blessed among mere mortals. She had little use for such men, and they had little for her. But tonight, she had something Gabriel Dean needed, and he was focusing the full force of his attraction on her. And it was working. Never before had a man made her feel so confused and aroused all at once.
    “He had you trapped in the cellar,” said Dean.
    “I walked right into it. I didn’t know.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    It was a startling question and it made her pause. She thought back to that afternoon, standing at the open cellar door, dreading the descent down those dark stairs. She remembered the suffocating heat of the house and how the sweat had soaked into her bra, her shirt. She remembered how fear had lit up every nerve in her body. Yes, she
had
known something was not right. She’d known what waited for her at the bottom of the steps.
    “What went wrong, Detective?”
    “The victim,” she whispered.
    “Catherine Cordell?”
    “She was in the cellar. Tied to a cot in the cellar . . .”
    “The bait.”
    She closed her eyes and could almost smell the scent of Cordell’s blood, of damp earth. Of her own sweat, sour with fear. “I took it. I took the bait.”
    “He knew you would.”
    “I should have realized—”
    “But you were focused on the victim. On Cordell.”
    “I wanted to save her.”
    “And that was your mistake.”
    She opened her eyes and looked at him in anger. “Mistake?”
    “You didn’t secure the area first. You left yourself open to attack. You committed the most basic of errors. Surprising, for someone so capable.”
    “You weren’t