The Keepsake: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

Otto.”
    Medea seemed to shudder at the mention of that name.
    “Bradley could pass for normal—just another quiet man. But with Jimmy, you only had to look in his eyes to know he was different. They were black as a shark’s. When he stared at you, you just knew he was thinking about what he’d like to do to you. And he became obsessed with me, too.
    “So they both followed me. I’d catch a glimpse of Jimmy staring at me in the library. Or Bradley peeking in my window. They were playing a psychological game of tag team, trying to break me down. Trying to make me look crazy.”
    Jane looked at Frost. “Even then,” she said, “they were already hunting together.”
    “Finally, I left the university,” said Medea. “By then I was eight months’ pregnant, and my grandmother was dying. I went back to Indio and had the baby. Within a few weeks, Bradley and Jimmy showed up in town. I filed a restraining order and got them both arrested. This time, I was going to put them away. I had a baby to protect and it had to end there.”
    “But it didn’t. You chickened out and dropped the charges against Bradley.”
    “Not exactly.”
    “What do you mean, not exactly? You did drop the charges.”
    “I made a deal with the Devil. Kimball Rose. He wanted his son free of prosecution. I wanted my daughter to be safe. So I dropped the charges, and Kimball wrote me a big check. Enough money to buy my daughter and me a new life, with new names.”
    Jane shook her head. “You took the money and ran? It must have been a hell of a check.”
    “It wasn’t the money. Kimball used my daughter against me. He threatened to take her from me if I didn’t accept his offer. He’s her grandfather, and he had an army of lawyers to fight me. I had no choice, so I took the money and dropped the charges.
She’s
the reason I did it, the reason I’ve never stopped running. To keep her away from that family, away from anyone who might hurt her. You understand that, don’t you? That a mother will do anything to protect her child?”
    Jane nodded. She understood completely.
    Medea returned to the chair and sank down with a sigh. “I thought if I kept my daughter safe, she’d never know what it’s like to be hunted. She’d grow up fearless and smart. A warrior woman—that’s what I wanted her to be. What I always told her to strive for. And she
was
growing up smart. And fearless. She didn’t know enough to be afraid.” Medea paused. “Until San Diego.”
    “The shooting in her bedroom.”
    Medea nodded. “That’s the night she learned she could never be fearless again. We packed up the next day and drove to Mexico. Ended up in Cabo San Lucas, where we lived for four years. We were fine there and we were hidden.” She sighed. “But girls grow up. They turn eighteen and insist on making their own choices. She wanted to go to college and study archaeology. Like mother, like daughter.” She gave a sad laugh.
    “You let her go?”
    “Gemma promised to keep an eye on her, so I thought it would be safe. She had a new name, a new identity. I didn’t think that Jimmy would ever be able to find her.”
    There was a long silence as Jane took in what Medea had just said. “
Jimmy?
But Jimmy Otto’s dead.”
    Medea’s head lifted. “What?”
    “You should know that. You shot him in San Diego.”
    “No.”
    “You shot him in the back of the head. Dragged his body outside and buried him.”
    “That’s not true. That wasn’t Jimmy.”
    “Then who was buried in the backyard?”
    “It was Bradley Rose.”

THIRTY-FIVE
     
    “Bradley Rose?” said Jane. “That’s not what the police in San Diego told us.”
    “You think I couldn’t recognize the father of my own child?” said Medea. “It wasn’t Jimmy who broke into my daughter’s bedroom that night. It was
Bradley.
Oh, I’m sure that Jimmy was lurking around nearby, and the gunshot probably scared him off. But I knew he would be back. I knew we had to move fast. So we packed up and left the next morning.”
    “The body was identified as Jimmy’s,” said Frost.
    “Who identified him?”
    “His sister.”
    “Then she made a mistake. Because I know it
wasn’t
Jimmy.”
    Jane switched on the lamp and Medea shrank from the light, as though the glow from a mere sixty-watt bulb was radioactive.
    “This is not making sense. How could Jimmy Otto’s own sister make a mistake like that?” She snatched up his psychiatric file from the bed and scanned Dr.