The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

mistake to drink before dinner. The alcohol and lack of sleep were conspiring to fog her thinking. She rubbed her temples, trying to force her brain to stay sharp.
    “I should feed you, Maura. You look like you’ve had a hard day.”
    She forced a laugh. “You know that movie, where the little boy says, ‘I see dead people’?”
    “The Sixth Sense.”
    “Well, I see them all the time, and I’m getting tired of it. That’s what’s ruined my mood. Here it is, almost Christmas, and I didn’t even think about putting up a tree, because I’m still seeing the autopsy lab in my head. I’m still smelling it on my hands. I come home on a day like this, after two postmortems, and I can’t think about cooking dinner. I can’t even look at a piece of meat without thinking of muscle fibers. All I can deal with is a cocktail. And then I pour the drink and smell the alcohol, and suddenly there I am, back in the lab. Alcohol, formalin, they both have that same sharp smell.”
    “I’ve never heard you talk this way about your work.”
    “I’ve never felt so overwhelmed by it.”
    “Doesn’t sound like the invincible Dr. Isles.”
    “You know I’m not.”
    “You’re pretty good at playing the part. Smart and bulletproof. Do you realize how much you intimidated your students at U.C.? They were all afraid of you.”
    She shook her head and laughed. “Queen of the Dead.”
    “What?”
    “That’s what the cops here call me. Not to my face. But I’ve heard it through the grapevine.”
    “I kind of like that. Queen of the Dead.”
    “Well, I hate it.” She closed her eyes and leaned back against the cushions. “It makes me sound like a vampire. Like something grotesque.”
    She didn’t hear him rise from the couch and move behind her. So she was startled when she suddenly felt his hands on her shoulders. She went still, every nerve ending alive and exquisitely sensitive to his touch.
    “Relax,” he murmured, his fingers kneading her muscles. “That’s one thing you never learned to do.”
    “Don’t, Victor.”
    “You never drop your guard. You never want anyone to see you as less than perfect.”
    His fingers were sinking deeply into her shoulders and neck. Probing, invading. She responded by tensing even more, her muscles snapping taut in defense.
    “No wonder you’re tired,” he said. “Your shields are always up. You can’t just sit back and enjoy it when someone touches you.”
    “Don’t.”
She pulled away and rose to her feet. Turning to face him, she could still feel her skin tingling from his touch. “What’s going on here, Victor?”
    “I was trying to help you relax.”
    “I’m relaxed enough, thank you.”
    “You’re wound up so tight your muscles feel like they’re ready to snap.”
    “Well, what do you expect? I don’t know what you’re doing here. I don’t know what you want.”
    “How about just to be friends again?
    “Can we be?”
    “Why not?”
    Even as she met his gaze, she could feel herself reddening. “Because there’s too much history between us. Too much . . .”
Attraction
was what she thought, but she cut off the word. She said, instead: “I’m not sure men and women can be just friends, anyway.”
    “That’s a sad thing to believe.”
    “It’s realistic. I work with men every day. I know they’re intimidated, and I want them to be. I want them to see me as an authority figure. A brain and a white coat. Because once they start thinking of me as a woman, sex always gets in the picture.”
    He snorted. “And that would contaminate everything.”
    “Yes, it would.”
    “It doesn’t matter what kind of authority you wave over their heads. Men will look at you, and every one of them will see an attractive woman. Unless you put a bag over your head, that’s how it is. Sex is always in the room. You can’t lock it out.”
    “That’s why we can’t be just friends.” She picked up the empty glasses and walked back to the kitchen.
    He didn’t follow her.
    She stood by the sink, staring down at the glasses, the taste of lime and vodka still tart in her mouth, his scent still a fresh memory. Yes, sex was in the room all right, performing its mischief, dangling images that she tried to shut out, but couldn’t. She thought about the night they had come home late from the movies, and had started pulling off each other’s clothes the instant they’d stepped into the house. How they had made frantic, almost brutal love right there on the hardwood