The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

bull’s-eye.
             
     
    Rizzoli and Frost sat in the car, the heater blowing cold air, snowflakes fluttering onto the windshield. The gray skies matched her mood. She sat shivering in the claustrophobic gloom of the car, and every snowflake that fell on the window was another opaque chip cutting off her view. Closing her in, burying her.
    Frost said, “You feeling better?”
    “Got a headache. That’s all.”
    “You sure you don’t want me to drive you to the ER?”
    “I just need to pick up some Tylenol.”
    “Yeah. Okay.” He put the car into gear, then changed his mind and shifted back into park. He looked at her. “Rizzoli?”
    “What?”
    “You ever want to talk about anything—anything at all, I don’t mind listening.”
    She didn’t respond, just turned her gaze to the windshield. To the snowflakes forming a white filigree on the glass.
    “We’ve been together what, two years now? Seems to me, you don’t tell me a lot about what’s going on in your life,” he said. “I think I probably talk your ear off about me and Alice. Every fight we have, you hear about it, whether you want to or not. You never tell me to shut up, so I figure you don’t mind. But you know, I just realized something. You do a lot of listening, but you hardly ever talk about yourself.”
    “There’s nothing much to say.”
    He thought this over for a moment. Then he said, sounding almost embarrassed: “I’ve never seen you cry before.”
    She shrugged. “Okay. Now you have.”
    “Look, we haven’t always gotten along great—”
    “You don’t think so?”
    Frost flushed, as he always did when caught in an awkward moment. The guy had a face like a stoplight, turning red at the first hint of embarrassment. “What I mean is, we’re not, like,
buddies.
”
    “What, you want to be buddies now?”
    “I wouldn’t mind.”
    “Okay, we’re buddies,” she said brusquely. “Come on, let’s get going.”
    “Rizzoli?”
    “What?”
    “I’m here, okay? That’s all I want you to know.”
    She blinked, and turned to her side window, so he wouldn’t see the effect his words had on her. For the second time in an hour, she felt tears coming. Goddamn hormones. She didn’t know why Frost’s words should make her cry. Maybe it was just the fact he was showing such kindness to her. In truth, he had always been kind to her, but she was exquisitely sensitive to it now, and a small part of her wished that Frost was as thick as a plank and unaware of her turmoil. His words made her feel vulnerable and exposed, and that was not the way she wanted to be regarded. It was not the way you earned a partner’s respect.
    She took a breath and lifted her jaw. The moment had passed, and the tears were gone. She could look at him and manage a semblance of her old attitude.
    “Look, I need that Tylenol,” she said. “We gonna sit here all day?”
    He nodded and put the car into gear. The windshield wipers whisked snow off the glass, opening up a view of sky and white streets. All through a blistering summer, she’d been looking forward to winter, to the purity of snow. Now, staring at this bleak cityscape, she thought she would never again curse the heat of August.
             
     
    On a busy Friday night, you couldn’t swing a cat in the bar at J. P. Doyle’s without hitting a cop. Located just down the street from Boston PD’s Jamaica Plain substation, and only ten minutes from police headquarters at Schroeder Plaza, Doyle’s was where off-duty cops usually gathered for beer and conversation. So when Rizzoli walked into Doyle’s that evening for dinner, she fully expected to see a crowd of familiar faces. What she didn’t expect to see was Vince Korsak sitting at the bar, sipping an ale. Korsak was a retired detective from the Newton PD, and Doyle’s was out of his usual territory.
    He spotted her as she came in the door and gave her a wave. “Hey, Rizzoli! Long time, no see.” He pointed to the bandage on her forehead. “What happened to you?”
    “Aw, nothing. Had a little slip in the morgue and needed a few stitches. So what’re you doing in the neighborhood?”
    “I’m moving in here.”
    “What?”
    “Just signed a lease on an apartment down the street.”
    “What about your house in Newton?”
    “Long story. Look, you want some dinner? I’ll tell you all about it.” He grabbed his ale. “Let’s get a booth in the other room. These asshole smokers are polluting my