The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

happy, sitting here at her kitchen table, sipping coffee. In many ways, he was still the same Victor. His hair was a little shaggy, his shirt in need of a good pressing, and the edges of the collar were frayed—all evidence of his disdain for the superficial. But in other ways he was different. An older, wearier Victor who seemed quiet, even sad, his fire dampened by maturity.
    She sat down with her own cup of coffee and they looked at each other across the table.
    “We should have had this talk three years ago,” he said.
    “Three years ago, you wouldn’t have listened to me.”
    “Did you try? Did you ever once come out and tell me that you were sick of being the activist’s wife?”
    She looked down at her coffee. No, she had not told him. She had held it in, the way she held in emotions that disturbed her. Anger, resentment, despair—they all made her feel out of control, and that she could not abide. When she’d finally signed the divorce papers, she’d felt eerily detached.
    “I never knew how hard it was for you,” he said.
    “Would it have changed anything if I’d told you?”
    “You could have tried.”
    “And what would you have done? Resigned from One Earth? There was no way to compromise. You get too much of a thrill from playing Saint Victor. All the awards, all the praise. No one gets on the cover of
People
just for being a good husband.”
    “You think that’s why I do it? For the attention, the publicity? Jesus, Maura. You know how important this is! Give me some credit, at least.”
    She sighed. “You’re right, that wasn’t fair of me. But we both know you’d miss it.”
    “Yes, I would,” he admitted. Then added, quietly: “But I didn’t know how much I’d miss
you
.”
    She let those last words slip past without a response. Let the silence hang between them. In truth, she didn’t know what to say, his admission had so taken her aback.
    “You look great,” he said. “And you seem content. Are you?”
    “Yes.” Her answer was too quick, too automatic. She felt herself flush.
    “The new job’s working out?” he asked.
    “It keeps me challenged.”
    “More fun than terrorizing medical students at U.C.?”
    She gave a laugh. “I did not terrorize medical students.”
    “They might beg to differ.”
    “I held them to higher standards, that’s all. And they almost always met them.”
    “You were a good teacher, Maura. I’m sure the university would love to have you back.”
    “Well, we all move on, don’t we?” She could feel his gaze on her face, and she purposefully kept her expression unreadable.
    “I saw you on TV yesterday,” he said. “The evening news. About the attack on those nuns.”
    “I was hoping the cameras would miss me.”
    “I spotted you right away. They showed you walking out the gate.”
    “It’s one of the job hazards. You’re always in the public eye.”
    “Especially that particular case, I imagine. It was on every TV station.”
    “What are they saying about it?”
    “That the police have no suspects. That the motive remains unknown.” He shook his head. “It does sound completely irrational, attacking nuns. Unless there was some kind of sexual assault.”
    “That makes it rational?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    Yes, she did know, and she knew Victor well enough not to be offended by his comment. There was indeed a difference between the coldly calculating sexual predator and the psychotic who had no grip on reality.
    “I did the autopsy this morning,” she said. “Multiple skull fractures. Torn middle meningeal artery. He hit her again and again, probably with a hammer. I’m not sure you could classify this attack as rational.”
    He shook his head. “How do you deal with it, Maura? You went from performing autopsies on nice, neat hospital deaths to something like this.”
    “Hospital deaths aren’t exactly nice and neat.”
    “But a postmortem on a homicide victim? And she was young, wasn’t she?”
    “Only twenty.” She paused, on the verge of telling him what else she’d found at autopsy. When they were married, they’d always shared medical gossip, trusting each other to keep such information confidential. But this subject was too grim, and she didn’t want to invite Death any deeper into the conversation.
    She rose to refill their cups. When she returned to the table with the coffeepot, she said: “Now tell me about you. What’s Saint Victor been up to?”
    “Please don’t call me