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

told it has once again begun to snow. I sit on my cot, a blanket draped over my shoulders, and remember how the delicious heat had enveloped us like a cloak on the day we walked the streets of Livadia. To the north of that Greek town, there are two springs which were known in ancient times as Lethe and Mnemosyne. Forgetfulness and Memory. We drank from both springs, you and I, and then we fell asleep in the dappled shade of an olive grove.
    I think of this now, because I do not like this cold. It makes my skin dry and cracked, and I cannot slather on enough cream to counter winter’s effects. It is only the lovely memory of heat, of you and me walking in Livadia, the sunbaked stones warming our sandals, that comforts me now.
    The days go slowly here. I am alone in my cell, shielded from the other inmates by my notoriety. Only the psychiatrists talk to me, but they are losing interest, because I can offer them no thrilling glimpse of pathology. As a child I tortured no animals, set no fires, and I never wet my bed. I attended church. I was polite to my elders.
    I wore sunscreen.
    I am as sane as they are, and they know this.
    It is only my fantasies that set me apart, my fantasies that have led me to this cold cell, in this cold city, where the wind blows white with snow.
    As I hug the blanket to my shoulders, it’s hard to believe there are places in the world where golden bodies lie glistening with sweat on warm sand, and beach umbrellas flutter in the breeze. But that is just the sort of place where she has gone.
    I reach under the mattress and take out the scrap which I have torn from today’s cast-off newspaper, which the guard so kindly slipped me for a price.
    It is a wedding announcement. At 3:00 P.M. on February 15, Dr. Catherine Cordell was married to Thomas Moore.
    The bride was given away by her father, Col. Robert Cordell. She wore an ivory beaded gown with an Empire waist. The groom wore black.
    A reception followed at the Copley Plaza Hotel in the Back Bay. After a lengthy honeymoon in the Caribbean, the couple will reside in Boston.
    I fold up the scrap of newspaper and slip it under my mattress, where it will be safe.
    A lengthy honeymoon in the Caribbean.
    She is there now.
    I see her, lying with eyes closed on the beach, bits of sand sparkling on her skin. Her hair is like red silk splayed across the towel. She drowses in the heat, her arms boneless and relaxed.
    And then, in the next instant, she jerks awake. Her eyes snap wide open, and her heart is pounding. Fear bathes her in cold sweat.
    She is thinking of me. Just as I am thinking of her.
    We are forever linked, as intimately as two lovers. She feels the tendrils of my fantasies, winding around her. She can never break the bindings.
    In my cell, the lights go out; the long night begins, with its echoes of men asleep in cages. Their snores and coughs and breathing. Their mumblings as they dream. But as the night falls quiet, it is not Catherine Cordell I think of, but you. You, who are the source of my deepest pain.
    For this, I would drink deeply from the spring of Lethe, the spring of forgetfulness, just to wipe clean the memory of our last night in Savannah. The last night I saw you alive.
    The images float before me now, forcing themselves before my retinas, as I stare into the darkness of my cell.
    I am looking down at your shoulders, and admiring how your skin gleams so much darker against hers, how the muscles of your back contract as you thrust into her again and again. I watch you take her that night, the way you took the others before her. And when you are done, and have spilled your seed inside her, you look at me and smile.
    And you say: “There, now. She’s ready for you.”
    But the drug has not yet worn off, and when I press the blade to her belly, she barely flinches.
    No pain, no pleasure.
    “We have all night,” you say. “Just wait.”
    My throat is dry, so we go into the kitchen, where I fill a glass of water. The night has just begun, and my hands shake with excitement. The thought of what comes next has engorged me, and as I sip the water, I remind myself to prolong the pleasure. We have all night, and we want to make it last.
    See one, do one, teach one, you tell me. Tonight, you’ve promised, the scalpel is mine.
    But I am thirsty, and so I lag behind in the kitchen, while you return to see if she is awake yet. I am still standing by the sink when the gun goes off.
    Here time freezes. I remember the silence that