The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

his favorite opera this afternoon—
La Boheme.
And I saw tears in his eyes.”
    “It may not be the music. It may be just frustration.”
    “He certainly has a right to feel frustrated. After eight months, he’s had almost no recovery. That’s a very grim prognosis. He’ll almost certainly never walk again. He’ll always be paralyzed on one side. And as for speech, well—” She gave a sad shake of the head. “It was a massive stroke.”
    Rizzoli turned to the Sea Room. “If you’d like to take a coffee break or something, I’ll be happy to sit with him for a while.”
    “You don’t mind?”
    “Unless he needs some kind of special care.”
    “No, you don’t need to do a thing. Just talk to him. He’ll appreciate that.”
    “Yeah. I will.”
    Rizzoli walked back into the Sea Room and pulled a chair close to the bedside. She sat down where she could see Randall Maginnes’s eyes. Where he could not avoid seeing hers.
    “Hi, Randall,” she said. “Remember me? Detective Rizzoli. I’m the cop investigating your daughter’s murder. You do know Camille is dead, don’t you?”
    She saw a flicker of sadness in his gray eyes. An acknowledgment that he understood. That he mourned.
    “She was beautiful, your girl Camille. But you know that, don’t you? How could you not? Every day in this house, you were watching her. You saw her grow up and change into a young woman.” She paused. “And you saw her fall apart.”
    The eyes were still staring at her, still taking in every word she said.
    “So when did you start fucking her, Randall?”
    Outside the window, gusts whipped across Nantucket Sound. Even in the fading daylight, the whitecaps glowed, bright pinpoints of turbulence in the dark sea.
    Randall Maginnes was no longer looking at her. His gaze had shifted and he was staring downward, desperately avoiding her eyes.
    “She’s only eight years old when her mother kills herself. And suddenly, Camille doesn’t have anyone but her daddy. She needs you. She trusts you. And what did you do?” Rizzoli shook her head in disgust. “You knew how fragile she was. You knew why she went walking barefoot in the snow. Why she locked herself in her room. Why she ran off to the convent. She was running away from
you
.”
    Rizzoli leaned closer. Close enough to catch a whiff of the urine soaking his adult diaper.
    “The one time she came home for a visit, she probably thought you wouldn’t touch her. That for once, you’d leave her alone. You had a house full of relatives here for the funeral. But that didn’t stop you. Did it?”
    The eyes were still avoiding hers, still staring downward. She crouched beside the bed. Moved so close to him that no matter which way he looked, she was right there, in his face.
    “It was your baby, Randall,” she said. “We didn’t even need a sample of your DNA to prove it. The baby’s too close a match to its mother. It’s written there, in the baby’s DNA. A child of incest. Did you know you made her pregnant? Did you know you destroyed your own daughter?”
    She just sat in the chair for a moment, gazing at him. In the silence, she could hear his breathing quicken, the noisy gasps of a man who is desperate to flee, but cannot.
    “You know, Randall, I’m not a big believer in God. But you make me think that maybe I’ve been wrong about that. Because look what happened to
you
. In March, you fuck your daughter. In April, you get a stroke. You won’t ever move again. Or talk again. You’re just a brain in a dead body, Randall. If that’s not divine justice, I don’t know what is.”
    He was whimpering now, struggling to make his useless limbs move.
    She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “Can you smell yourself rotting? While you lie here, peeing in your diaper, what do you suppose your wife Lauren’s up to? Probably having a very good time. Probably finding someone else to keep her company. Think about that. You don’t have to die to go to hell.”
    With a sigh of satisfaction, she rose to her feet. “Have a nice life, Randall,” she said, and walked out of the room.
    As she headed for the front door, she heard Maria call to her: “Are you leaving already, Detective?”
    “Yeah. I’ve decided not to wait for Mrs. Maginnes.”
    “What shall I tell her?”
    “Just that I dropped by.” Rizzoli glanced back, toward the Sea Room. “Oh, and tell her this.”
    “Yes?”
    “I think Randall misses Camille. Why don’t you put her photo where he can