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

called out to him.
    He stopped and reluctantly turned to face her.
    “That long black strand on Hoyt’s bathroom floor,” she said. “The lab says it’s East Asian. There could be a victim we’ve missed.”
    “We discussed that possibility.”
    “When?”
    “This morning, at the meeting.”
    “Goddamnit, Moore! Don’t leave me out of the loop!”
    His cold silence served to amplify the shrillness of her outburst.
    “I want him, too,” she said. Slowly, inexorably, she approached him until she was right in his face. “I want him as much as you do. Let me back in.”
    “It’s not my decision. It’s Marquette’s.” He turned to leave.
    “Moore?”
    Reluctantly he stopped.
    “I can’t stand this,” she said. “This feud between us.”
    “This isn’t the time to talk about it.”
    “Look, I’m
sorry
. I was pissed off at you about Pacheco. I know it’s a lousy excuse for what I did. For telling Marquette about you and Cordell.”
    He turned to her. “Why did you do it?”
    “I just told you why. I was pissed off.”
    “No, there’s more to it than Pacheco. It’s about Catherine, isn’t it? You’ve disliked her from the very first day. You couldn’t stand the fact—”
    “That you were falling in love with her?”
    A long silence passed.
    When Rizzoli spoke, she could not keep the sarcasm from her voice. “You know, Moore, for all your high-minded talk about respecting women’s
minds
, admiring women’s
abilities
, you still fall for the same thing every other man does. Tits and ass.”
    He went white with anger. “So you hate her for the way she looks. And you’re pissed at me for falling for it. But you know what, Rizzoli? What man’s going to fall for you, when you don’t even like yourself?”
    She stared in bitterness as he walked away. Only weeks ago, she’d thought Moore was the last person on earth who would say something so cruel. His words stung worse than if they’d come from anyone else.
    That he might have spoken the truth was something she refused to consider.
    Downstairs, passing through the lobby, she paused at the memorial to Boston PD’s fallen cops. The names of the dead were engraved on the wall in chronological order, starting with Ezekiel Hodson in 1854. A vase of flowers sat on the granite floor in tribute. Get yourself killed in the line of duty, and you’re a hero. How simple, how permanent. She didn’t know anything about these men whose names were now immortalized. For all she knew, some of them might have been dirty cops, but death had made their names and reputations untouchable. Standing there, before that wall, she almost envied them.
    She walked out to her car. Rooting around in her glove compartment, she found a New England map. She spread it on the seat and eyed her two choices: Nashua, New Hampshire, or Lithia, in western Massachusetts. Warren Hoyt had used ATM’s at both locations. It was down to pure guesswork. A toss of a coin.
    She started the car. It was ten-thirty; she didn’t reach the town of Lithia until noon.
     
    Water. It was all Catherine could think about, the cool, clean taste of it streaming into her mouth. She thought of all the fountains from which she had drunk, the stainless-steel oases in the hospital corridors spouting icy water that splashed her lips, her chin. She thought of crushed ice and the way post-op patients would crane their necks and open their parched mouths like baby birds to receive a few precious chips of it.
    And she thought of Nina Peyton, bound in a bedroom, knowing she was doomed to die, yet able to think only of her terrible thirst.
    This is how he tortures us. How he beats us down. He wants us to beg for water, beg for our lives. He wants complete control. He wants us to acknowledge his power.
    All night she had been left to stare at that lone lightbulb. Several times she had dozed off, only to startle awake, her stomach churning in panic. But panic cannot be sustained, and as the hours passed and no amount of struggling could loosen her bonds, her body seemed to shut down into a state of suspended animation. She hovered there, in the nightmarish twilight between denial and reality, her mind focused with exquisite concentration on her craving for water.
    Footsteps creaked. A door squealed open.
    She snapped fully awake. Her heart was suddenly pounding like an animal trying to beat its way out of her chest. She sucked in dank air, cool cellar air that smelled of earth and moist stone. Her