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

bars. Even worth the insults flung at him by his former classmates in Maryland:
Fat boy. Stay-Puft Marshmallow
.
    Comet hunting was not a hobby that made you tan and trim.
    Tonight, as usual, he’d begun his search soon after dusk, because comets were most visible just after sunset or before sunrise. But the sun had set hours ago, and he still hadn’t spotted any fuzzyballs. He’d seen a few passing satellites and a briefly flaring meteor, but nothing else that he hadn’t seen before in this sector of the sky. He turned the telescope to a different sector, and the bottom star of Canes Venatici came into view. The hunting dogs. He remembered the night his father had told him the name of that constellation. A cold night when they’d both stayed up till dawn, sipping from a thermos and snacking on …
    He suddenly jerked straight and turned to look behind him. What was that noise? An animal, or merely the wind in the trees? He stood still, listening for any sounds, but the night had turned unnaturally silent, so silent that it magnified his own breathing. Uncle Brian had assured him there was nothing dangerous in those woods, but alone here in the dark, Will could imagine all sorts of things with teeth. Black bears. Wolves. Cougars.
    Uneasy, he turned back to his telescope and shifted the field of vision. A fuzzyball suddenly appeared smack in the eyepiece.
I found it! Comet Neil Yablonski!
    No.
No, stupid, that wasn’t a comet
. He sighed in disappointment as he realized he was looking at M3, a globular cluster. Something that any decent astronomer would recognize. Thank God he hadn’t woken up Uncle Brian to see it; that would have been embarrassing.
    The snap of a twig made him spin around again. Something was moving in the woods. Something was definitely there.
    The explosion threw him forward. He slammed facedown onto the turf-cushioned ground, where he lay stunned by the impact. A light flickered, brightening, and he lifted his head and saw that the stand of trees was shimmering with an orange glow. He felt heat against his neck, like a monster’s breath. He turned.
    The farmhouse was ablaze, flames shooting up like fingers clawing at the sky.
    “Uncle Brian!” Will screamed. “Aunt Lynn!”
    He ran toward the house, but a wall of fire barred the way and the heat drove him back, a heat so intense that it seared his throat. He stumbled backward, choking, and smelled the stench of his own singed hair.
    Find help! The neighbors!
He turned to the road and ran two steps before he halted.
    A woman was walking toward him. A woman dressed all in black, and lean as a panther. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and the flickering firelight cast her face in sharp angles.
    “Help me!” he screamed. “My aunt and uncle—they’re in the house!”
    She looked at the farmhouse, now fully consumed by flames. “I’m sorry. But it’s too late for them.”
    “It’s
not
too late. We have to save them!”
    She shook her head sadly. “I can’t help them, Will. But you, I can save
you
.” She held out her hand. “Come with me. If you want to live.”

S OME GIRLS LOOKED PRETTY IN PINK. SOME GIRLS could don bows and lace, could swish around in silk taffeta and look charming and feminine.
    Jane Rizzoli was not one of those girls.
    She stood in her mother’s bedroom, staring at her reflection in the full-length mirror, and thought: Just shoot me. Shoot me now.
    The bell-shaped dress was bubblegum pink with a neckline ruffle as wide as a clown’s collar. The skirt was puffy with row upon grotesque row of more ruffles. Wrapped around the waist was a sash tied in a huge pink bow. Even Scarlett O’Hara would be horrified.
    “Oh Janie, look at you!” said Angela Rizzoli, clapping her hands in delight. “You are so beautiful, you’ll steal the show from me. Don’t you just love it?”
    Jane blinked, too stunned to say a word.
    “Of course, you’ll have to wear high heels to pull it all together. Satin stilettos, I’m thinking. And a bouquet with pink roses and baby’s breath. Or is that old-fashioned? Do you think I should go more modern with calla lilies or something?”
    “Mom …”
    “I’ll have to take this in for you at the waist. How come you’ve lost weight? Aren’t you eating enough?”
    “Seriously?
This
is what you want me to wear?”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “It’s …
pink.”
    “And you look beautiful in it.”
    “Have you
ever
seen me wear pink?”
    “I’m sewing a