The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

questioned?”
    “Rizzoli and Crowe are handling it.”
    “I
gave
him to you, goddamn it. At least let me hear what he has to say. I could watch from the next room.”
    “You have to wait here.” He added, gently, “Please, Dr. Isles.”
    She met his sympathetic gaze. Of all the detectives in the unit, he was the only one who, with just a kind look, could silence her protest.
    “Why don’t you sit over there, at my desk?” he said. “I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.”
    She sank into a chair and stared at the photo on Frost’s desk—his wife, she assumed. A pretty blonde with aristocratic cheekbones. A moment later, he brought her the coffee and set it in front of her.
    She didn’t touch it. She just kept gazing at the photo of Frost’s wife, and thought of other marriages. Of happy endings.
             
     
    Rizzoli did not like Victor Banks.
    He sat at the table in the interrogation room, calmly sipping from a cup of water, his shoulders relaxed, his posture almost casual. A good-looking man, and he knew it.
Too
good-looking. She eyed the worn leather jacket, the khaki trousers, and was reminded of an upscale Indiana Jones, without the bullwhip. He had a medical degree to boot, with solid-gold humanitarian credentials. Oh yeah, the girls would go for this one. Even Dr. Isles, always so cool and levelheaded in the autopsy lab, had lost her heart to this man.
    And you betrayed her, you son of a bitch.
    Darren Crowe sat to her right. By earlier agreement, she would do most of the talking. So far, Victor had been chilly but cooperative, answering her introductory questions with the curt responses of a man who wished to make quick work of this. A man who had no particular respect for the police.
    By the time she was finished with him, he’d respect her, all right.
    “So you’ve been in Boston for how long, Mr. Banks?” she asked.
    “It’s Dr. Banks. And I told you, I’ve been here about nine days. I flew in last Sunday night.”
    “You said you came to Boston for a meeting?”
    “With the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health.”
    “The reason for that meeting?”
    “My organization has work-study arrangements with a number of universities.”
    “Your organization being One Earth?”
    “Yes. We’re an international medical charity. We operate clinics around the world. Of course we welcome any medical and nursing students who want to volunteer at our clinics. The students get some real-life experience in the field. We, in return, benefit from their skills.”
    “And who set up this meeting at Harvard?”
    He shrugged. “It was just a routine visit.”
    “Who actually made the call?”
    A silence.
Gotcha.
    “You did, didn’t you?” she said. “You called Harvard two weeks ago. Told the Dean you’d be coming to Boston anyway, and could you drop by his office.”
    “I need to keep my contacts fresh.”
    “Why did you really come to Boston, Dr. Banks? Wasn’t there another reason?”
    A pause. “Yes.”
    “And that was?”
    “My ex-wife lives here. I wanted to see her.”
    “But you haven’t spoken to her in—what? Nearly three years.”
    “Obviously she’s already told you everything. Why do you need to talk to me?”
    “And suddenly you want to see her so desperately that you fly across the country, without even knowing if she’ll see you?”
    “Love sometimes demands we take risks. It’s a matter of faith. Believing in something you can’t see or touch. We just have to take the leap.” He looked her in the eye. “Don’t we, Detective?”
    Rizzoli felt herself flush, and for a moment could not think of anything to say. Victor had just reversed the question, twisting it so that she suddenly felt the conversation was about her.
Love demands risks.
    Crowe broke the silence. “Hey, nice-looking lady, your ex-wife,” he said. Not hostile, but in the casual tone of one guy to another, the two of them now ignoring Rizzoli. “I can see why you’d fly all this way to try and patch things up. So did you manage to?”
    “Things were working out between us.”
    “Yeah, I hear you’ve been staying at her house for the last few days. Sounds like progress to me.”
    “Why don’t we just get down to the truth,” Rizzoli cut in.
    “The truth?” asked Victor.
    “The real reason you came to Boston.”
    “Why don’t
you
tell me which answer you’re fishing for, and I’ll just give it to you? It’ll save us both time.”
    Rizzoli dropped a folder on the