The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

clothes. In the last few days, he’d been spending more time in her house than in his hotel room, and now he seemed to belong in her bed. In her life. Shivering, she slid under sheets that were deliciously warm, and the coolness of her skin against his made him stir.
    A few strokes, a few kisses, and he was fully awake, fully aroused.
    She welcomed him into her, urging him on, and though she lay beneath him, it was not in submission. She took her own pleasure, just as he took his, claiming her due with a soft cry of victory. But as she closed her eyes and felt him climax inside her, it was not just Victor’s face that came to mind, but also Father Brophy’s. A shifting image that would not hold steady, but flickered back and forth, until she did not know whose face it was.
    Both. And neither.

S EVENTEEN
     
    I N WINTER , it’s the clear days that are the coldest. Maura awakened to sunshine glaring on white snow, and although she was glad to see blue sky for a change, the wind was brutal, and the rhododendron outside her house huddled like an old man, its leaves drooped and folded against the cold.
    She sipped coffee as she drove to work, blinking against the sunlight, longing to turn around and go home. To climb back into bed with Victor, and spend the whole day with him there, warming each other beneath the comforter. Last night, they had sung Christmas carols—he in his rich baritone, she trying to harmonize in her badly off-key alto. They’d sounded awful together, and had ended up laughing more than singing.
    And here she was singing again this morning, her voice as off-key as ever, as she drove past streetlights hung with wreaths, past department store windows where holiday dresses glittered on mannequins. Suddenly, the reminders of Christmas seemed to be everywhere. The wreaths and garlands had been hanging for weeks, of course, but she hadn’t really taken notice of them. When had the city ever looked so festive? When had the sun ever glittered so brightly on snow?
    God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.
    She walked into the Medical Examiner’s building on Albany Street, where PEACE ON EARTH was displayed in huge foil letters in the hallway.
    Louise looked up at her and smiled. “You’re looking happy today.”
    “I’m just so glad to see sunshine again.”
    “Enjoy it while it lasts. I hear we’re getting more snow tomorrow night.”
    “Snow on Chirstmas Eve is fine with me.” She scooped up some chocolate kisses from the candy bowl on Louise’s desk. “How’s the schedule look today?”
    “Nothing came in last night. I guess no one wants to die just before Christmas. Dr. Bristol has to be in court at ten, and he may go straight home after that, if you can cover his calls.”
    “If it stays quiet, I think I’ll leave early myself.”
    Louise’s eyebrow lifted in surprise. “For something fun, I hope.”
    “You bet,” Maura said with a laugh. “I’m going shopping.”
    She walked into her office, where even the tall stack of lab reports and dictations waiting to be reviewed could not dampen her mood. Sitting at her desk, she happily snacked on chocolate as she worked through the lunch hour and into the afternoon, hoping to slip out by three and head straight to Saks Fifth Avenue.
    She did not count on a visit from Gabriel Dean. When he walked into her office at two thirty that afternoon, she had no inkling of how completely his visit would change her day. As always, she found him difficult to read, and once again, she was struck by the improbability of any affair between the temperamental Rizzoli and this coolly enigmatic man.
    “I’m heading back to Washington this afternoon,” he said, setting down his briefcase. “I wanted your opinion on something before I left.”
    “Of course.”
    “First, may I view Jane Doe’s remains?”
    “It’s all in my autopsy report.”
    “Nevertheless, I think I should see her myself.”
    Maura rose from her chair. “I have to warn you,” she said, “this will be a difficult viewing.”
    Refrigeration can only slow, not halt, the process of decomposition. As Maura unzipped the white body pouch, she had to steel herself against the odors. She had already warned Dean about the corpse’s appearance, and he did not flinch when the plastic parted, revealing raw tissue where the face should have been.
    “It was completely stripped off,” said Maura. “The skin sliced along the hairline, at the crown, and then peeled downward.