The Keepsake: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

Pulcillo.”
    “What about her?”
    “You described her as a strange bird. Yet Detective Frost saw nothing of the kind.”
    “Yeah. Well, we have a difference of opinion.”
    “How deep a difference?”
    Was she supposed to tell him what she really thought? That Frost’s judgment had gone haywire because his wife was out of town and he was lonely and Josephine Pulcillo had big brown eyes?
    “Is there something about the woman that may bias you against her?”
    “What?” Jane gave a laugh of disbelief. “You think
I’m
the one who—”
    “Why does she make you uneasy?”
    “She doesn’t. There’s just a caginess about her. Like she’s trying to stay one step ahead.”
    “Of you? Or the killer? From what I heard, the young woman had every right to be afraid. A body was left in her car. It almost sounds like a gift from the killer—an offering, if you will. To his next companion.”
    His next companion.
That phrase raised gooseflesh on Jane’s arms.
    “I take it she’s in a secure location?” said Zucker. When no one immediately answered him, he looked around the table. “I’m sure we all agree she could be in jeopardy. Where is she?”
    “That’s an issue we’re trying to clear up right now,” admitted Jane.
    “You don’t know where she is?”
    “She told us she was going to stay with an aunt named Connie Pulcillo in Burlington, Vermont, but we can’t find any listing with that name. We’ve left messages on Josephine’s voice mail and she hasn’t responded.”
    Zucker shook his head. “This is not good news. Have you checked her Boston residence?”
    “She’s not there. A neighbor in her building saw her leave Friday morning with two suitcases.”
    “Even if she’s left Boston, she may not be safe,” said Zucker.
    “This unsub is clearly comfortable operating across state lines. He doesn’t seem to have geographic boundaries. He could have followed her.”
    “If he knows where she is. Even we can’t find her.”
    “But she’s
his
only focus. She may have been his only focus for some time. If he’s been watching her, following her, then he may know exactly where she is.” Zucker leaned back, clearly disturbed.
    “Why hasn’t she answered her phone? Is it because she can’t?”
    Before Jane could respond, the door opened and Frost came back into the room. She took one look at his face and knew instantly that something was wrong. “What is it?”
    “Josephine Pulcillo is dead,” he said.
    His stark announcement sent a jolt through the room as shocking as the voltage from a stun gun.
    “Dead?”
Jane shot straight up in her chair. “How? What the hell happened?”
    “It was a car accident. But—”
    “So it wasn’t our killer.”
    “No. It was definitely not our perp,” said Frost.
    Jane heard anger in his voice, and she saw it as well in his tight mouth, his narrowed eyes.
    “She died in San Diego,” said Frost. “Twenty-four years ago.”

SEVENTEEN
     
    They’d been driving for half an hour before Jane finally brought up the painful subject, a subject they’d managed to avoid during the flight from Boston to Albuquerque.
    “You had a thing for her. Didn’t you?” she asked.
    Frost didn’t look at her. He stayed focused on his driving, his gaze fixed on the road where the blacktop shimmered, hot as a griddle under the New Mexico sun. In all the time they’d worked together, she’d never felt such a wall between them, an impenetrable barrier that she could not seem to chip through. This wasn’t the good-natured Barry Frost that she knew; this was his evil twin, and any minute now he was going to start speaking in tongues and his head would demonically spin around.
    “We really need to talk about this, you know,” she insisted.
    “Give it a rest, why can’t you?”
    “You can’t keep kicking yourself over this. She’s a pretty girl and she pulled the wool over your eyes. It can happen to any guy.”
    “But not to
me.
” He looked at her at last, his anger so raw that it silenced her. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” he said and focused, once again, on the road. A moment passed, and the only noise was the air conditioner and the sound of their car slicing through the heat.
    She had never traveled to New Mexico before. She’d never even seen the desert before. But she scarcely noticed the landscape flying past their windows; what mattered to her now was healing this rift between them, and the only way to do it was to talk it