The Surgeon: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel: With Bonus Content

locks as soon as she’d stepped into her apartment. Fortress secure. Only then could she allow the last of her tension to drain away.
    Standing at her window she sipped iced tea and savored the coolness of her apartment as she looked down at people walking on the street, sweat glistening on their foreheads. She’d had three hours of sleep in the last thirty-six hours. I have earned this moment of comfort, she thought as she pressed the icy glass to her cheek. I’ve earned an early night to bed and a weekend of doing nothing at all. She wouldn’t think of Moore. She wouldn’t let herself feel the pain. Not yet.
    She drained her glass and had just set it on the kitchen counter when her beeper went off. A page from the hospital was the last thing she wanted to deal with. When she called the Pilgrim Hospital operator, she could not keep the irritation out of her voice.
    “This is Dr. Cordell. I know you just paged me, but I’m not on call tonight. In fact, I’m going to turn off my beeper right now.”
    “I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr. Cordell, but there was a call from the son of a Herman Gwadowski. He insists on meeting with you this afternoon.”
    “Impossible. I’m already home.”
    “Yes, I told him you were off for the weekend. But he said this is the last day he’ll be in town. He wants to see you before he visits his attorney.”
    An attorney?
    Catherine sagged against the kitchen counter. God, she had no strength to deal with this. Not now. Not when she was so tired she could barely think straight.
    “Dr. Cordell?”
    “Did Mr. Gwadowski say when he wants to meet?”
    “He said he’ll wait in the hospital cafeteria until six.”
    “Thank you.” Catherine hung up and stared numbly at the gleaming kitchen tiles. How meticulous she was about keeping those tiles clean! But no matter how hard she scrubbed or how thoroughly she organized every aspect of her life, she could not anticipate the Ivan Gwadowskis of the world.
    She picked up her purse and car keys and once again left the sanctuary of her apartment.
    In the elevator she glanced at her watch and was alarmed to see it was already 5:45. She would not make it to the hospital in time, and Mr. Gwadowski would assume she’d stood him up.
    The instant she slid into the Mercedes, she picked up the car phone and called the Pilgrim operator.
    “This is Dr. Cordell again. I need to reach Mr. Gwadowski to let him know I’ll be late. Do you know which extension he was calling from?”
    “Let me check the phone log. . . . Here it is. It wasn’t a hospital extension.”
    “A cell phone, then?”
    There was a pause. “Well, this is strange.”
    “What is?”
    “He was calling from the number you’re using now.”
    Catherine went still, fear blasting like a cold wind up her spine.
My car. The call was made from my car.
    “Dr. Cordell?”
    She saw him then, rising like a cobra in the rearview mirror. She took a breath to scream, and her throat burned with the fumes of chloroform.
    The receiver dropped from her hand.
     
    Jerry Sleeper was waiting for him at the curb outside airport baggage claim. Moore threw his carry-on into the backseat, stepped into the car, and yanked the door shut with a slam.
    “Have you found her?” was the first question Moore asked.
    “Not yet,” said Sleeper as he pulled away from the curb. “Her Mercedes has vanished, and there’s no evidence of any disturbance in her apartment. Whatever happened, it was fast, and it was in or near her vehicle. Peter Falco was the last one to see her, around five-fifteen in the hospital garage. About a half hour later, the Pilgrim operator paged Cordell and spoke to her on the phone. Cordell called back again from her car. That conversation was abruptly cut off. The operator claims it was the son of Herman Gwadowski who called in the original page.”
    “Confirmation?”
    “Ivan Gwadowski was on a plane to California at twelve noon. He didn’t make that call.”
    They did not need to say who
had
called in the page. They both knew. Moore stared in agitation at the row of taillights, strung as densely as bright red beads in the night.
    He’s had her since 6:00 P.M. What has he done to her in those four hours?
    “I want to see where Warren Hoyt lives,” said Moore.
    “We’re headed there now. We know he got off his shift at Interpath Labs around seven A.M. this morning. At ten A.M. , he called his supervisor to say he had a family emergency and wouldn’t be back at work