The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

and I see the rage in her narrowed eyes. She does not neglect my physical needs; my diaper is always fresh and my milk bottle warmed. But always, there are the secret pinches, the twisting of my skin, the sting of alcohol dabbed straight on my urethra. Naturally I scream, but there are never any scars or bruises. I am simply a colicky baby, she tells my parents, born with a nervous disposition. And poor, hardworking Mairead! She is the one who must cope with the screaming brat, while my mother tends to her social obligations. My mother, who smells of perfume and mink.
    So this is what I remember. The startling bursts of pain. The sound of my own screaming. And above me, the white skin of Mairead’s throat as she cranes forward into my crib to deliver a pinch or a jab to my tender skin.
    I don’t know if it’s possible for a child as young as I was to hate. I think it’s more likely we are merely bewildered by such punishment. Without the capacity to reason, the best we can manage is to link cause and effect. And I must have understood, even then, that the source of my torment was a woman with cold eyes and a milk-white throat.

    Rizzoli sat at her desk and stared at Warren Hoyt’s meticulous handwriting, both margins neatly lined up, the small, tight words marching in a straight line across the page. Although he had written the letter in ink, there were no corrections or crossed-out words. Every sentence was already organized before his pen touched paper. She thought of him bent over this page, slender fingers poised around the ballpoint pen, his skin sliding across the paper, and suddenly she felt the almost desperate need to wash her hands.
    In the women’s rest room she stood scrubbing with soap and water, trying to eradicate any trace of him, but even after she’d washed and dried her hands, she still felt contaminated, as though his words had seeped like poison through her skin. And there were more of these letters to read, more poison still to be absorbed.
    A knock at the rest room door made her stiffen.
    “Jane? Are you in there?” It was Dean.
    “Yes,” she called out.
    “I’ve got the VCR ready in the conference room.”
    “I’ll be right there.”
    She looked at herself in the mirror and was not happy with what she saw. The tired eyes, the look of shaken confidence. Don’t let him see you like this, she thought.
    She turned on the tap, splashed cold water on her face, and blotted herself dry with a paper towel. Then she stood up straight and took a deep breath. Better, she thought, staring at her reflection. Never let them see you sweat.
    She walked into the conference room and gave Dean a curt nod. “Okay. Are we ready?”
    He already had the TV on, and the VCR power light was glowing. He picked up the manila envelope that O’Donnell had given them and slid out the videotape. “It’s dated August seventh,” he said.
    Only three weeks ago, she thought, unsettled by how fresh these images, these words, would be.
    She sat down at the conference table, pen and legal pad ready to take notes. “Start it.”
    Dean inserted the tape and pressed PLAY .
    The first image they saw was the neatly coifed O’Donnell, standing before a white cinder-block wall and looking incongruously elegant in a blue knit suit. “Today is August seventh. I’m at the Souza-Baranowski facility in Shirley, Massachusetts. This subject is Warren D. Hoyt.”
    The TV flickered to black; then a new image flared onto the screen, a face so abhorrent to Rizzoli that she rocked back in her chair. To anyone else, Hoyt would seem ordinary, even forgettable. His light-brown hair was neatly trimmed, and his face had the pallor of confinement. The denim shirt, in prison blue, hung a size too large on his slender frame. Those who had known him in his everyday life had described him as pleasant and courteous, and this was the image he projected on the videotape. A nice, harmless young man.
    His gaze shifted away from the camera, and he focused on something that was off-screen. They heard a chair scrape and then O’Donnell’s voice speaking.
    “Are you comfortable, Warren?”
    “Yes.”
    “Shall we start, then?”
    “Any time, Dr. O’Donnell.” He smiled. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    “All right.” A sound of O’Donnell’s chair creaking, the clearing of her throat. “In your letters, you’ve already told me quite a bit about your family and your childhood.”
    “I tried to be complete. I think it’s important