The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

victim’s chute the night before. This ATR is characteristic for parachute fabric. It’s tear-resistant, water-resistant. Easily packed away and stored between uses. That’s what your unsub is using to wrap his victims.”
    Rizzoli looked up at her. “A parachute,” she said. “It makes the perfect shroud.”

nineteen
    P apers were everywhere, file folders lying open on the conference table, crime scene photos layered like glossy shingles. Pens scratched on yellow legal pads. Although this was the age of computers—and there were a few laptops powered up, screens glowing—when information is spilling fast and furious, cops still reach for the comfort of paper. Rizzoli had left her own laptop back at her desk, preferring to jot down notes in her dark, assertive scrawl. The page was a tangle of words and looping arrows and little boxes emphasizing significant details. But there was order to the mess, and security in the permanence of ink. She flipped to a fresh page, trying to focus her attention on Dr. Zucker’s whispery voice. Trying not to be distracted by the presence of Gabriel Dean, who sat right next to her, taking his own notes, but in far neater script. Her gaze wandered to his hand, thick veins standing out on his skin as he gripped the pen, the cuff of his shirt peeking out white and crisp from the sleeve of his gray jacket. He’d walked into the meeting after she had and had chosen to sit beside her. Did that mean anything?
No, Rizzoli. It only means there was an empty chair next to you.
It was a waste of time, a diversion, to be caught up in such thoughts. She felt scattered, her attention fracturing in different directions, even her notes starting to wander in a skewed line across the page. There were five other men in the room, but it was only Dean who held her attention. She knew his scent now and could pick it out, cool and clean, from the room’s olfactory symphony of aftershave scents. Rizzoli, who never wore perfume, was surrounded by men who did.
    She looked down at what she’d just written:

    Mutualism: symbiosis with mutual advantage to both or all organisms involved.

    The word that defined Warren Hoyt’s pact with his new partner. The Surgeon and the Dominator, working as a team. Hunting and feeding off carrion together.
    “Warren Hoyt has always worked best with a partner,” said Dr. Zucker. “It’s how he likes to hunt. The way he used to hunt with Andrew Capra, until Capra’s death. Indeed, Hoyt
requires
the participation of another man as part of his ritual.”
    “But he was hunting on his own last year,” said Barry Frost. “He didn’t have a partner then.”
    “In a way, he did,” said Zucker. “Think about the victims he chose, here in Boston. All of them were women who’d been sexually assaulted—not by Hoyt, but by other men. He’s attracted to damaged women, women who’ve been marked by rape. In his eyes, that made them dirty, contaminated. And therefore approachable. Deep down, Hoyt is afraid of normal women, and his fear makes him impotent. He can only feel empowered when he thinks of them as inferior. Symbolically destroyed. When he hunted with Capra, it was Capra who assaulted the women. Only then did Hoyt use his scalpel. Only then could he derive full satisfaction from the ritual that followed.” Zucker looked around the room and saw heads nodding. These were details that the cops in this room already knew. Except for Dean, they had all worked on the Surgeon investigation; they were all familiar with Warren Hoyt’s handiwork.
    Zucker opened a file folder on the table. “Now we come to our second killer. The Dominator. His ritual is almost a mirror image of Warren Hoyt’s. He’s not afraid of women. Nor is he afraid of men. In fact, he chooses to attack women who live with male partners. It isn’t just a matter of the husband or boyfriend being inconveniently present. No, the Dominator seems to
want
the man there, and he goes in prepared to deal with him. A stun gun and duct tape to immobilize the husband. The positioning of the male victim so he’s forced to watch what happens next. The Dominator doesn’t just kill the man straightaway, which would be the practical move. He gets his thrills by having an audience. By knowing another man is there to watch him claim his prize.”
    “And Warren Hoyt gets his thrills by watching,” said Rizzoli.
    Zucker nodded. “Exactly. One killer likes to perform. One likes to watch. It’s a perfect