The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

container of medical supplies. It couldn’t wait.”
    “Well, I accepted it, didn’t I?”
    “That’s exactly the word.
Accepted
it. But I knew you were pissed off.”
    “Because it kept happening. Anniversaries, funerals—nothing kept you at home. I always came in second.”
    “And that’s what it came down to, didn’t it? I had to choose between you and One Earth. I didn’t want to choose. I didn’t think I should have to. Not with so much at stake.”
    “You can’t save the world all by yourself.”
    “I can do a hell of a lot of good. You used to believe that, too.”
    “But everyone burns out eventually. You spend years obsessing about people dying in other countries. And then one day you wake up, and you just want to focus on your own life for a change. On having your own children. But you never had time for
that
, either.” She took a deep breath and felt tears catch in her throat, thinking of the babies she’d wanted but would probably never have. Thinking, too, of Jane Rizzoli, whose pregnancy brought Maura’s own childlessness into painful focus. “I was tired of being married to a saint. I wanted a husband.”
    A moment passed, the Christmas lights above her blurring into smears of color.
    He reached for her hand. “I guess I’m the one who failed,” he said.
    She swallowed, and the colors sharpened once again to lights twinkling on a wire. “We both did.”
    He did not release her hand, but held it firmly in his, as though afraid that if he let go, there would be no second chance at contact.
    “We can talk all we want,” she said, “But I don’t see that anything’s changed between us.”
    “We know what went wrong.”
    “It doesn’t mean we can make it different this time.”
    He said quietly, “We don’t have to do anything, Maura. We can just be together. Isn’t that enough for the moment?”
    Just be together.
It sounded simple. Lying beside him, with only their hands touching, she thought: Yes, I can do this. I can be detached enough to sleep with you and not let you hurt me. Sex without love—men enjoyed it without a second thought. Why couldn’t she?
    And maybe this time,
a cruel little voice whispered,
he’ll be the one who gets his heart broken.

T WELVE
     
    T HE DRIVE TO H YANNISPORT should have taken them only two hours, south on Route 3, and then along Route 6 into Cape Cod, but Rizzoli needed two restroom breaks along the way, so they didn’t reach the Sagamore Bridge until three in the afternoon. Once across that bridge, they were suddenly in the land of seaside vacations, the road leading through a series of small towns, like a necklace of pretty beads strung along the Cape. Rizzoli’s previous trips to Hyannisport had always been during the summertime, when the roads were clogged with cars, and lines of people in T-shirts and shorts snaked out of ice cream shops. She had never been here on a cold winter’s day like this one, when half the restaurants were shuttered, and only a few brave souls were out on the sidewalks, coats buttoned up against the wind.
    Frost turned onto Ocean Street and murmured in wonder: “Man. Will you look at the size of these homes.”
    “Wanna move in?” said Rizzoli.
    “Maybe when I earn my first ten million.”
    “Tell Alice she’d better get cracking on that first million, ’cause you sure aren’t gonna make it on your salary.”
    Their written directions took them past a pair of granite pillars, and down a broad driveway to a handsome house near the water’s edge. Rizzoli stepped out of the car and paused, shivering in the wind, to admire the salt-silvered shingles, the three turrets facing the sea.
    “Can you believe she left all this to become a nun?” she said.
    “When God calls you, I guess you gotta go.”
    She shook her head. “Me? I would’ve let him keep ringing.”
    They walked up the porch steps and Frost pressed the doorbell.
    It was answered by a small dark-haired woman who opened the door just a crack to look at them.
    “We’re from Boston PD,” said Rizzoli. “We called earlier. Here to see Mrs. Maginnes.”
    The woman nodded and stepped aside to let them in. “She’s in the Sea Room. Let me show you the way.”
    They walked across polished teak floors, past walls hung with paintings of ships and stormy seas. Rizzoli imagined young Camille growing up in this house, running across this gleaming floor. Or did she run? Was she allowed only to walk, quietly and sedately, as she wandered