The Silent Girl

and a balustrade to her right. Hand brushing across a wall, she inched ahead. She had no idea if she was moving toward the front or the rear of the house; all she wanted to find was a way out.
    On the second-floor landing above, footsteps creaked and started down the stairs.
    Frantically she ducked through the first open doorway to her left, into a room where moonlight glowed through the windows, reflecting off a desk and bookshelves. An office.
    The footsteps had reached the first floor.
    She scrambled forward, seeking a hiding place in the shadows, and her shoes crunched across broken shards of glass. Suddenly her foot snagged an obstacle and as she went sprawling, she put out a hand to catch herself. Her palm slid through something warm and sticky. By the glow of moonlight, she stared at the dark form lying on the floor right beside her. A body.
    Patrick Dion
.
    Gasping, she scrabbled away, sliding backward across the floor.Felt something heavy spin away from her hand. A gun. She reached for it, and the instant her fingers closed around the grip, she knew it was her own weapon. The gun that Patrick had taken from her.
My old friend
.
    Footsteps creaked behind her and came to a halt.
    Trapped in the light of the window, Jane was framed by moonglow that seemed as bright and inescapable as a searchlight. She looked up to see Mark’s silhouette standing above her.
    “I was never here,” he said. “When the police come to talk to me, I’ll tell them I was home in bed the whole time. It was Patrick who killed all those girls and buried them in his yard. Patrick who killed you. And then he shot himself.”
    Behind her, hand concealed in shadow, she clutched her weapon. But Mark already had his gun pointed at her. He would have the first shot, the best shot. There’d be no time for her to aim, no time to do anything but squeeze off the last bullet she would probably ever fire. Even as she lifted her weapon, she knew she was too slow, too late.
    But at that instant Mark gasped in a startled breath and turned away from her, his attention shifting, his gun swinging toward someone—something—else.
    Jane brought up her gun and fired. Three shots, four. Her reflexes on automatic. The bullets slammed into his torso and Mark staggered backward, collapsing against an end table. It gave way in a crash of splintering wood.
    Pulse whooshing in her ears, Jane rose to her feet and stood over his body, her weapon aimed and ready should he miraculously spring back to life. He did not move.
    But the shadows did.
    It was just a whisper of air, utterly soundless. A flutter of black against black at the periphery of her vision. Slowly she turned toward the figure that stood cloaked in darkness. Though she was clutching a gun, though she could have fired, she did not. She simply stared at a face crowned with silvery fur. At jagged teeth that gleamed in the moonlight.
    “Who are you?” she whispered. “What are you?”
    A breath of wind brushed her face, and she blinked. When she opened her eyes again, the face was gone. Frantically she glanced around the room, searching for whatever had been standing there, but she saw only moonlight and shadow.
Was it really here, or did I imagine it? Did I create a creature out of darkness and my own fear?
    Through the window, a movement caught her eye. She looked out at the moonlit garden and saw it, then, darting across the lawn and vanishing into the cover of trees.
    “Detective Rizzoli?”
    With a start, Jane whirled around to see the two women in the doorway, Iris sagging heavily against Bella.
    “She needs an ambulance!” said Bella.
    “I am not as young as I once was,” groaned Iris. “Or as swift.”
    Gently, Bella lowered her teacher to the floor. Cradling Iris in her lap she began to murmur in Chinese, words that she repeated again and again, as though chanting a magical spell. Words of healing.
    Words of hope.

J ANE STOOD AMONG THE JUMBLE OF BROOKLINE PD AND BOSTON PD vehicles parked in Patrick Dion’s driveway and watched the sun come up. She had not slept in twenty-four hours, had not eaten since lunch the day before, and her first glimpse of dawn was so dazzling that she closed her eyes, suddenly dizzy, and swayed backward against a police cruiser. When she opened her eyes again, Maura and Frost had emerged from the house and were now walking toward her.
    “You should go home,” said Maura.
    “That’s what everyone tells me.” She looked toward the residence. “You