The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

companion the bundle of papers she now carried. Crossing through the garage, she saw no one else, and heard only her own footsteps, echoing off concrete.
    She quickened her pace. Paused twice to glance back and confirm she was not being followed. By the time she reached her car, she was breathing hard. I’ve seen too much death, she thought. Now I feel it everywhere.
    She climbed into her car and locked the doors.
    Merry Christmas, Dr. Isles. You reap what you sow, and tonight, you’ve reaped loneliness.
    Pulling out of the hospital parking lot, she had to squint against a pair of headlights shining in her rearview mirror. Another car was leaving right behind hers. Father Brophy? she wondered. And where would he go on this Christmas Eve, home to his parish residence? Or would he linger in his church tonight, to minister to all the lonely members of his flock who might wander in?
    Her cell phone rang.
    She dug it out of her purse and flipped it open. “Dr. Isles.”
    “Hey, Maura,” said her colleague, Abe Bristol. “What’s with the surprise I hear you’re sending me from St. Francis Hospital?”
    “I can’t do the autopsy on this one, Abe.”
    “So you hand it over to me on Christmas Eve? Nice.”
    “I’m sorry about this. You know I don’t usually pass the buck.”
    “This is the nun I’ve been hearing about?”
    “Yes. There’s no urgency. The postmortem can wait till after the holiday. She’s been hospitalized since the assault, and they discontinued life support just a little while ago. There’s been extensive neurosurgery.”
    “So the intracranial exam won’t be very helpful.”
    “No, there’ll be post-op changes.”
    “Cause of death?”
    “She coded early yesterday morning, from a myocardial infarction. Since I’m familiar with the case, I’ve already taken care of the preliminaries for you. I’ve got a copy of the chart, and I’ll bring it in day after tomorrow.”
    “May I ask why you’re not handling this one?”
    “I don’t think my name should be on the report.”
    “Why not?”
    She was silent.
    “Maura, why are you taking yourself off this case?”
    “Personal reasons.”
    “Did you know this patient?”
    “No.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “I know one of the suspects,” she said. “I was married to him.”
    She hung up, tossed the cell phone on the seat, and turned her attention to getting home. To retreating to safety.
    Snowflakes were falling, as fat as cotton balls, by the time she turned into her own street. It was a magical sight, that thick curtain of snow, the silvery drifts blanketing front lawns. The stillness of a sacred night.
    She lit a fire in her hearth and cooked a simple meal of tomato soup and melted cheese on toast. Poured a glass of zinfandel and brought it all into the living room, where the Christmas tree lights twinkled. But she could not finish even that small supper. She pushed aside the tray, and sipped the last of her wine as she gazed at the fireplace. She fought the urge to pick up the phone and try to reach Victor. Had he caught that plane to San Francisco? She didn’t even know where he was tonight, or what she would say to him. We’ve betrayed each other, she thought; no love can survive that.
    She rose, turned off the lights, and went to bed.

T WENTY -O NE
     
    A POT OF VEAL SAUCE had been simmering for nearly two hours on the stove, and the fragrance of plum tomatoes and garlic and fork-tender stew meat overwhelmed the blander aroma of the eighteen-pound turkey now sitting, browned and glistening, in its roasting pan on the countertop. Rizzoli sat at her mother’s kitchen table, beating eggs and melted butter into a warm bowl of potatoes that she had just boiled and mashed. In her own apartment, she seldom took the time to cook, and her meals were thrown together from whatever she managed to excavate from her cupboard or freezer. But here, in her mother’s kitchen, cooking was never a hurried affair. It was an act of reverence, in honor of the food itself, no matter how humble the ingredients. Each step, from chopping to stirring to basting, was part of a solemn ritual, up to the climactic parade of dishes being carried out to the table, there to be greeted with properly appreciative sighs. In Angela’s kitchen, there were no shortcuts.
    And so Rizzoli took her time adding flour to the bowl of mashed potatoes and beaten eggs, mixing it with her hands. She found comfort in the rhythmic kneading of the warm dough, in the