The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

back that the farthest reach of her beam rippled across an irregularity on the rough-planked floor. She stared, but did not believe what she was looking at.
    She took a step toward it, her horror mounting as she moved closer, as her beam began to pick up other, similar forms lying nearby. So many of them . . .
    Dear god, it’s a graveyard. A graveyard of dead infants.
    The flashlight beam wavered. She, whose scalpel hand had always been rock-steady at the autopsy table, could not stop shaking. She came to a stop, her beam shining directly down on a face. Blue eyes glittered back at her, shiny as marbles. She stared, slowly grasping the reality of what she was seeing.
    And she laughed. A startled bark of a laugh.
    By now, Rizzoli was right beside her, flashlight playing over the pink skin, the kewpie mouth, the lifeless gaze. “What the hell,” she said. “It’s just a friggin’ doll.”
    Maura waved her beam at the other objects lying nearby. She saw smooth plastic skin, plump limbs. The sparkle of glass eyes stared back at her. “They’re all dolls,” she said. “A whole collection of them.”
    “See how they’re lined up, in a row? Like some kind of weird nursery.”
    “Or a ritual,” said Maura softly. An unholy ritual in God’s sanctuary.
    “Oh, man. Now you’ve got
me
spooked.”
    Thump-thump-thump.
    They both whirled, flashlights slicing the darkness, finding nothing. The sound had been fainter. Whatever had been inside the crawlspace with them was now moving away, retreating far beyond the reach of their lights. Maura was startled to see that Rizzoli had drawn her weapon; it had happened so quickly, she had not even noticed it.
    “I don’t think that’s an animal,” Maura said.
    After a pause, Rizzoli said: “I don’t think so either.”
    “Let’s get out of here. Please.”
    “Yeah.” Rizzoli took in a deep breath, and Maura heard the first tremolo of fear. “Yeah, okay. Controlled exit. We take it one step at a time.”
    They stayed close together as they moved back the way they’d come. The air grew cooler, damper; or maybe it was fear that chilled Maura’s skin. By the time they neared the panel doorway, she was ready to bolt straight out of the crawlspace.
    They stepped through the panel opening, into the chapel gallery, and with the first deep breaths of cold air, her fear began to dissipate. Here in the light, she felt back in control. Able, once again, to think logically. What had she seen, really, in that dark place? A row of dolls, nothing more. Plastic skin and glass eyes and nylon hair.
    “It wasn’t an animal,” Rizzoli said. She was crouched down, staring at the gallery floor.
    “What?”
    “There’s a footprint here.” Rizzoli pointed to smudges of powdery dust. The tread mark of an athletic shoe.
    Maura glanced down behind her own shoes, and saw that she too had tracked dust onto the gallery. Whoever left that footprint had fled the crawlspace just ahead of them.
    “Well, there’s our creature,” said Rizzoli, and she shook her head. “Jesus. I’m glad I never took a shot at it. I’d hate to think . . .”
    Maura stared at the footprint and shuddered. It was a child’s.

S IX
     
    G RACE O TIS SAT at the convent dining table, shaking her head. “She’s only seven years old. You can’t trust anything she says. She lies to me all the time.”
    “We’d like to talk to her anyway,” said Rizzoli. “With your permission, of course.”
    “Talk to her about what?”
    “What she was doing up in the crawl space.”
    “Did she damage something, is that it?” Grace glanced nervously at Mother Mary Clement, who had been the one to summon Grace from the kitchen. “She’ll be punished, Reverend Mother. I’ve tried to keep track of her, but she’s always so quiet about her mischief. I never know where she’s gone off to . . .”
    Mary Clement placed a gnarled hand on Grace’s shoulder. “Please. Just let the police speak to her.”
    Grace sat for a moment, looking unsure. Evening cleanup in the kitchen had left her apron stained with grease and tomato sauce, and strands of dull brown hair had worked free from her ponytail and hung limp about her sweating face. It was a raw, worn face that had probably never been beautiful, and it was further marred by lines of bitterness. Now, while others awaited her decision, she was the one in control, the one who held power, and she seemed to relish it. To be drawing out the decision as long as possible while