The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

His thrusts between her virgin thighs. Her shrieks of pain and despair.
    Across the fallen city of Troy, such shrieks would have echoed from other women’s throats, as the victorious Greeks took what was due them, marking their victory in the flesh of conquered women. Were any men of Troy left alive to watch? The ancients do not mention it. But what better way to crow victory than to abuse the body of your enemy’s beloved? What more powerful proof is there that you have defeated him, humiliated him, than to force him to watch as you take your pleasure, again and again?
    This much I understand: triumph requires an audience.
    I am thinking of the Trojan women as our car glides along Commonwealth Avenue, steady with the flow of traffic. It is a busy road, and even at nine P.M. , cars move slowly, giving me time to leisurely study the building.
    The windows are dark; neither Catherine Cordell nor her new husband are at home.
    That’s all I allow myself, that one look, and then the building slides out of view. I know the block is being watched, yet I could not resist that glimpse of her fortress, as impregnable as the walls of any castle. An empty castle, now, no longer of any interest to those who would storm it.
    I look at my driver, whose face is hidden in shadow. I see only a silhouette and the gleam of eyes, like two hungry sparks in the night.
    On the Discovery Channel, I have watched videos of lions at night, the green fire of their eyes burning in the darkness. I am reminded of those lions, of how they stared with hungry purpose, waiting for the moment to spring. I now see that hunger in the eyes of my companion.
    The same hunger he surely sees in mine.
    I roll down my window and inhale deeply as the warm scent of the city wafts in. The lion, sniffing the air over the savanna. Searching for the scent of prey.

fifteen
    T hey drove together in Dean’s car, heading west toward the town of Shirley, forty-five miles from Boston. Dean said little during the drive, but the silence between them only seemed to magnify her awareness of his scent, his calm assurance. She scarcely gave him a glance for fear he’d see, in her eyes, the turmoil he’d inspired.
    Instead, she glanced down and saw dark-blue carpet at her feet. She wondered if it was nylon six, six, #802 blue, wondered how many cars had similar carpeting. Such a popular color; it seemed that everywhere she looked now, she saw blue carpets, and imagined countless shoe soles trailing #802 nylon fibers all over the streets of Boston.
    The air conditioner was too cold; she shut the vent by her knees and stared out at fields of tall grass, longing to feel the heat outside this overcooled bubble. Outside, morning haze hung like gauze over green fields and trees stood motionless, their leaves unstirred by even the faintest breeze. Rizzoli seldom ventured into rural Massachusetts. She was a city girl, born and bred, and she felt no affinity for the countryside with its empty spaces and biting bugs. Nor did she feel its lure today.
    Last night, she had not slept well. She had startled awake several times, had lain with heart pounding as she listened for footsteps, for the whisper of an intruder’s breath. At five A.M. she rose from bed feeling drugged and unrested. Only after two cups of coffee had she felt alert enough to call the hospital and ask about Korsak’s condition.
    He was still in the ICU. Still on a ventilator.
    She lowered the window a crack and warm air blew in, smelling of grass and earth. She considered the sad possibility that Korsak might never again enjoy such smells or feel the wind in his face. She tried to remember if the last words they’d exchanged were good ones, friendly ones, but she could not remember.
    At Exit 36, Dean followed the signs to MCI-Shirley. Souza-Baranowski, the level-six security facility where Warren Hoyt had been housed, loomed off to their right. He parked in the visitors’ lot and turned to look at her.
    “You feel the need to walk out any time,” he said, “just do it.”
    “Why are you expecting me to bail?”
    “Because I know what he did to you. Anyone in your position would have problems working this case.”
    She saw genuine concern in his eyes, and she did not want it; it only reinforced how fragile was her courage.
    “Let’s just do it, okay?” she said, and shoved open her car door. Pride kept her walking with grim determination into the building. It propelled her through the security check-in at