The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

pyres.
    She was crouched in shadow, watching orange flames lick at bodies stacked like cordwood, watching flesh consumed in the heat of the fire. The silhouettes of men surrounded the burning corpses, a circle of silent watchers whose faces she could not see. Nor could they see her, for she was hidden in darkness, cowering from their sight.
    Sparks flew up from the pyre, fed by its human fuel, and spiralled into the black sky. The sparks lit the night, illuminating an even more terrible sight: The corpses were still moving. Blackened limbs thrashed in the torment of fire.
    One among that circle of men slowly turned and stared at Maura. It was a face she recognized, a face whose eyes were empty of any soul.
    Victor.
    She came awake in an instant, her heart ramming against her chest, her nightshirt soaked with sweat. A gust buffeted the house, and she could hear the skeletal clatter of shaking windows, the groan of the walls. Still wrapped in the panic of the nightmare, she lay perfectly still, the sweat beginning to chill on her skin. Was it only the wind that had awakened her? She listened, and every creak of the house sounded like a footstep. An intruder, moving closer.
    Suddenly she tensed, alerted to a different sound. A scratching against the house, like the claws of an animal trying to get in.
    She looked at the glowing face of her clock; it was eleven forty-five.
    She rolled out of bed, and the room felt frigid. She groped in the darkness for a robe, but did not turn on the lights, to preserve her night vision. She went to her bedroom window and saw that it had stopped snowing. The ground glowed white under moonlight.
    There it was again—the sound of something rubbing against the wall. She pressed as close to the glass as she could, and spied a flicker of shadow, moving near the front corner of the house. An animal?
    She left the bedroom, and in her bare feet, she felt her way down the hallway, moving toward the living room. Edging around the Christmas tree, she peered out the window.
    Her heart nearly stopped.
    A man was climbing the steps to her front porch.
    She could not see his face, for it was hidden in shadow. As though he sensed her watching him, he turned toward the window where she stood, and she saw his silhouette. The broad shoulders, the ponytail.
    She pulled away from the window and stood wedged against the prickly branches of the Christmas tree, trying to understand why Matthew Sutcliffe was here, at her door. Why would he come at this hour without calling first? She still hadn’t shaken off the last strands of fear from her nightmare, and this late night visit made her uneasy. It made her think twice about opening her door to anyone—even a man whose name and face she knew.
    The doorbell rang.
    She flinched, and a glass bulb fell from the tree and shattered on the wood floor.
    Outside, the shadow moved toward the window.
    She didn’t move, still debating what to do. I just won’t turn on the light, she thought. He’ll give up and leave me alone.
    The doorbell rang again.
    Go away, she thought. Go away and call me back in the morning.
    She released a sigh of relief when she heard his footsteps descending the porch steps. She inched toward the window and looked out, but could not see him. Nor could she see any car parked in front of the house. Where had he gone?
    Now she heard footsteps, the crunch of boots in snow, moving around toward the side of the house. What the hell was he doing, circling her property?
    He’s trying to find a way into the house.
    She scrambled out from behind the tree and bit back a cry of pain as she stepped on the broken bulb, and a shard of glass pierced her bare foot.
    His silhouette suddenly loomed in a side window. He was staring in, trying to see into the dark living room.
    She retreated into the hall, wincing with every step, the sole of her foot now damp with blood.
    It’s time to call the police. Call nine-one-one.
    She turned and hobbled into the kitchen, hands brushing across the wall, searching for the phone. In her haste, she knocked the receiver off its cradle. She snatched it up and pressed it to her ear.
    There was no dial tone.
    The bedroom phone, she thought—was it off the hook?
    She hung up the kitchen phone and limped back into the hallway, the shard of glass stabbing even deeper into her sole, retracing a floor now wet with her blood. Back into the bedroom, her eyes straining to see in the darkness, her feet now moving across carpet until