The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

unhurt?”
    She zips up her jeans and stares at me. “Who the hell are
you
?”
    “That’s for later. Now we go!” I bark.
    “How did you do that? How did you bring them down so fast?”
    “Do you want to learn?”
    “Yes!”
    I look at the two men groaning and writhing at our feet. “Then here is the first lesson: Know when to run.” I give her a shove toward the door. “That time would be now.”
    I watch her eat. For such a small girl, she has the appetite of a wolf, and she devours three chicken tacos, a lake of refried beans, and a large glass of Coca-Cola. Mexican food was what she wanted, so we sit in a cafe where mariachi music plays and the walls are adorned with gaudy paintings of dancing señoritas. Though the girl’s features are Chinese, she is clearly American, from her cropped hair to her tattered jeans. A crude and feral creature who noisily slurps up the last of her Coke and crunches loudly on the ice cubes.
    I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of this venture. She is already too old to be taught, too wild to learn discipline. I should simply release her back to the streets, if that’s where she wants to go, and find another way. But then I notice the scars on her knuckles and remember how close she came to single-handedly taking down the two men. She has talent and she is fearless, and those are things that cannot be taught.
    “Do you remember me?” I ask.
    The girl sets down her glass and frowns. For an instant I think I see a flash of recognition, but then it’s gone, and she shakes her head.
    “It was a long time ago,” I say. “Twelve years.” An eternity for a girl so young. “You were small.”
    She shrugs. “Then no wonder I don’t remember you.” She reaches in her jacket, pulls out a cigarette, and starts to light it.
    “You’re polluting your body.”
    “It’s my body,” she retorts.
    “Not if you wish to train.” I reach across the table and snatch the cigarette from her lips. “If you want to learn, your attitude must change. You must show respect.”
    She snorts. “You sound like my mother.”
    “I knew your mother. In Boston.”
    “Well, she’s dead.”
    “I know. She wrote me last month. She told me she was ill and had very little time left. That’s why I’m here.”
    I’m surprised to see tears glisten in the girl’s eyes, and she quickly turns away, as though ashamed to reveal weakness. But in that vulnerable instant, before she hides her eyes, she makes me think of my own daughter, who was younger than this girl’s age when I lost her. I feel my own eyes sting with tears, but I don’t try to hide them, because sorrow has made me who I am. It has been the refining fire that has honed my resolve and sharpened my purpose.
    I need this girl. Clearly, she also needs me.
    “It’s taken me weeks to find you,” I tell her.
    “Foster home sucked. I’m better off on my own.”
    “If your mother saw you now, her heart would break.”
    “My mother never had time for me.”
    “Maybe because she was working two jobs, trying to keep you fed? Because she couldn’t count on anyone but herself to do it?”
    “She let the world walk all over her. Not once did I see her stand up for anything. Not even me.”
    “She was afraid.”
    “She was spineless.”
    I lean forward, suddenly enraged by this ungrateful brat. “Your poor mother suffered in ways you can’t possibly imagine. Everything she did was for you.” In disgust, I toss her cigarette back at her. She is not the girl I’d hoped to find. She may be strong and fearless, but no sense of filial duty binds her to her dead mother and father, no sense of family honor. Without those ties to our ancestors, we are lonely specks of dust, adrift and floating, attached to nothing and no one.
    I pay the bill for her meal and stand. “Someday, I hope you find the wisdom to understand what your mother sacrificed for you.”
    “You’re already leaving?”
    “There’s nothing I can teach you.”
    “Why would you want to, anyway? Why did you even come looking for me?”
    “I thought I would find someone different. Someone I could teach. Someone who would help me.”
    “To do what?”
    I don’t know how to answer her question, and for a moment the only sound is the tinny mariachi music spilling from the restaurant speakers.
    “Do you remember your father?” I ask. “Do you remember what happened to him?”
    She stares back at me. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? That’s why you