The Keepsake: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

night ahead. She could spend it lying awake, listening anxiously to every creak, every rattle in the house. Or she could retreat to the safety of his mansion, which he’d made secure against a universe of threats that he was convinced stood arrayed against him. In his velvet-cloaked fortress, furnished with antiques and medieval portraits, she would be protected and safe, but it would be a refuge in a dark and paranoid world, with a man who saw conspiracies everywhere. Sansone had always unsettled her; even now, months after she’d made his acquaintance, he seemed unknowable, a man isolated by his wealth and by his disquieting belief in humanity’s enduring dark side. She might be safe in his house, but she would not feel at ease.
    Outside, the street was still deserted, the police cruiser long gone. There’s only one person I want here with me tonight, she thought. And he’s the one person I can’t have.
    “Maura, shall I come and get you?” he asked
    “There’s no need to fetch me,” she said. “I’ll come in my own car.”
             
     
    The last time Maura had set foot in Sansone’s Beacon Hill mansion, it had been January and there’d been a fire blazing in the hearth to ward off the winter chill. Though it was now a warm summer night, a chill still seemed to cling to the house, as though winter had permanently settled into these dark-paneled rooms, where somber faces gazed from the portraits on the walls.
    “Have you had supper yet?” Sansone asked, handing her overnight bag to his manservant, who discreetly withdrew. “I can ask the cook to prepare a meal.”
    She thought of her grilled cheese sandwich, of which she’d taken only a few bites. It hardly counted as supper, but she had no appetite, so she accepted only a glass of wine. It was a rich Amarone, so dark it appeared almost black in the parlor’s firelight. She sipped it under the cool gaze of his sixteenth-century ancestor, whose piercing eyes stared down from the portrait hanging over the hearth.
    “It’s been far too long since you’ve visited,” he said, settling into the Empire armchair facing hers. “I keep hoping you’ll accept the invitations to our monthly suppers.”
    “I’ve been too busy to make your meetings.”
    “Is that the only reason? That you’re busy?”
    She stared into her glass of wine. “No,” she admitted.
    “I know you don’t believe in our mission. But do you still think we’re a group of crackpots?”
    She looked up and saw that his mouth was tilted into an ironic smile. “I think the Mephisto Society has a frightening view of the world.”
    “And you don’t have the same view? You stand in that autopsy room and watch the homicide victims roll in. You see the evidence carved into their bodies. Tell me that doesn’t shake your faith in humanity.”
    “All it tells me is that there are certain people who don’t belong in civilized society.”
    “People who can hardly be classified as human.”
    “But they
are
human. You can call them whatever you want. Predators, hunters, even demons. Their DNA is still the same as ours.”
    “Then what makes them different? What makes them kill?” He set down his wineglass and leaned toward her, his gaze as disturbing as that of the portrait over the hearth. “What makes a privileged child warp into a monster like Bradley Rose?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “That’s the problem. We try to blame it on traumatic childhoods or abusive parents or environmental lead. And yes, some criminal behaviors can probably be explained that way. Then there are the exceptional examples, the killers who stand apart for their cruelties. No one knows where these creatures come from. Yet every generation, every society, produces a Bradley Rose and a Jimmy Otto and a host of predators just like them. They’re always among us, and we have to acknowledge they exist. And protect ourselves.”
    She frowned at him. “How did you learn so much about this case?”
    “There’s been a great deal of publicity.”
    “Jimmy Otto’s name was never released. It’s not public knowledge.”
    “The public doesn’t ask the questions I ask.” He reached for the wine bottle and refilled her glass. “My sources in law enforcement trust me to be discreet, and I trust them to be accurate. We share the same concerns and the same goals.” He set down the bottle and looked at her. “Just as you and I do, Maura.”
    “I’m not always certain of that.”
    “We both want