The Keepsake: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

Daniel, who was quick to reach out even to strangers, Anthony Sansone was a man surrounded by walls, a man who could stand in a crowded room yet seem coolly apart and self-contained. She wondered what he was thinking as he looked at the clutter of her wasted Sunday. Not all of us have butlers, she thought. Not all of us live the way you do, in a Beacon Hill mansion.
    “I’m sorry for bothering you at home,” he said. “But I didn’t want this to be an official visit to the ME.” He turned to look at her. “And I did want to find out how you’ve been, Maura. I haven’t seen you in a while.”
    “I’m fine. It’s been busy.”
    “The Mephisto Society’s resumed our weekly dinners in my house. We could certainly use your perspective, and we’d love to have you join us again some evening.”
    “To talk about crime? I deal with that subject quite enough at my own job, thank you.”
    “Not in the way we approach it. You only look at its final effect; we’re concerned with the reason for its existence.”
    She began picking up newspapers and stacking them into a pile. “I don’t really fit in with your group. I don’t accept your theories.”
    “Even after what we both experienced? Those murders must have made you wonder. They must have raised the possibility in your mind.”
    “That there’s a unified theory of evil to be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls?” She shook her head. “I’m a scientist. I read religious texts for historical insights, not for literal truths. Not to explain the unexplainable.”
    “You were trapped with us on the mountain that night. You
saw
the evidence.”
    On the night he spoke of, a night in January, they had almost lost their lives. That much they could agree on, because the evidence was as real as the blood left in the aftermath. But there was so much about that night that they would never agree on, and their most fundamental disagreement was about the nature of the monster who had trapped them on that mountain.
    “What I saw was a serial murderer, like too many others in this world,” she said. “I don’t need any biblical theories to explain him. Talk to me about
science,
not fables about ancient demonic bloodlines.” She set the stack of newspapers on the coffee table. “Evil just
is.
People can be brutal and some of them kill. We’d all like an explanation for it.”
    “Does science explain why a killer would mummify a woman’s body? Why he’d shrink a woman’s head and deposit another woman in the trunk of a car?”
    Startled, she turned to look at him. “You already know about those cases?”
    But of course he would know. Anthony Sansone’s ties to law enforcement reached the highest levels, into the office of the police commissioner himself. A case as unusual as that of Madam X would certainly catch his attention. And it would stir interest within the secretive Mephisto Society, which had its own bizarre theories about crime and how to combat it.
    “There are details even you may not be aware of,” he said.
    “Details I think you should be acquainted with.”
    “Before we talk about this any further,” she said, “I’m going to get dressed. If you’ll excuse me.”
    She retreated to her bedroom. There she pulled on jeans and a button-down shirt, casual attire that was perfectly appropriate for a Sunday afternoon, but she felt underdressed for her distinguished visitor. She didn’t bother with makeup, but simply washed her face and brushed the tangles from her hair. Staring at herself in the mirror, she saw puffy eyes and new strands of gray that she hadn’t noticed before. Well, this is who I am, she thought. A woman who’ll never see forty again. I can’t hide my age and I won’t even try to.
    By the time she came out of the bedroom, the smell of brewing coffee was permeating the house. She followed the scent to the kitchen, where Sansone had already pulled two mugs from the cabinet.
    “I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of making a fresh pot.”
    She watched as he picked up the carafe and poured, his broad back turned to her. He looked perfectly at home in her kitchen, and it annoyed her how effortlessly he had invaded her house. He had the knack of walking into any room, in any house, and just by his presence laying claim to the territory.
    He handed her a cup, and to her surprise he’d added just the right amount of sugar and cream, exactly as she liked it. It was a detail she hadn’t expected him to