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

a homicide case. A woman was murdered Thursday night. They thought I might have known her.”
    “Did you?”
    “No. It was a mistake, that’s all.” She sighed. “Just a mistake.”
    Catherine turned the dead bolt, felt it drive home with a satisfying thud, and then slid the chain in place. One more line of defense against the unnamed horrors that lurked beyond her walls. Safely barricaded in her apartment, she removed her shoes, set her purse and car keys down on the cherrywood butler’s table, and walked in stockinged feet across the thick white carpet of her living room. The flat was pleasantly cool, thanks to the miracle of central air-conditioning. Outside it was eighty-six degrees, but in here the temperature never wavered above seventy-two in the summer or below sixty-eight in the winter. There was so little in one’s life that could be pre-set, pre-determined, and she strove to maintain what order she could manage within the circumscribed boundaries of her life. She had chosen this twelve-unit condominium building on Commonwealth Avenue because it was brand-new, with a secure parking garage. Though not as picturesque as the historic redbrick residences in the Back Bay, neither was it plagued by the plumbing or electrical uncertainties that come with older buildings. Uncertainty was something Catherine did not tolerate well. Her flat was kept spotless, and except for a few startling splashes of color, she’d chosen to furnish it mostly in white. White couch, white carpets, white tile. The color of purity. Untouched, virginal.
    In her bedroom she undressed, hung up her skirt, set aside the blouse to be dropped off at the dry cleaner’s. She changed into loose slacks and a sleeveless silk blouse. By the time she walked barefoot into the kitchen, she was feeling calm, and in control.
    She had not felt that way earlier today. The visit by the two detectives had left her shaken, and all afternoon she had caught herself making careless mistakes. Reaching for the wrong lab slip, writing the incorrect date on a medical chart. Only minor errors, but they were like faint ripples that mar the surface of waters that are deeply disturbed. For the last two years she had managed to suppress all thoughts of what had happened to her in Savannah. Every so often, without warning, a remembered image might return, as sharp as a knife’s slash, but she would dance away from it, deftly turning her mind to other thoughts. Today, she could not avoid the memories. Today, she could not pretend that Savannah had never happened.
    The kitchen tiles were cool under her bare feet. She fixed herself a screwdriver, light on the vodka, and sipped it as she grated Parmesan cheese and chopped tomatoes and onions and herbs. She had not eaten since breakfast, and the alcohol sluiced straight into her bloodstream. The vodka buzz was pleasant and anesthetizing. She took comfort in the steady rap of her knife against the cutting board, the fragrance of fresh basil and garlic. Cooking as therapy.
    Outside her kitchen window, the city of Boston was an overheated cauldron of gridlocked cars and flaring tempers, but in here, sealed behind glass, she calmly sautéed the tomatoes in olive oil, poured a glass of Chianti, and heated a pot of water for fresh angel-hair pasta. Cool air hissed from the air-conditioning vent.
    She sat down with her pasta and salad and wine and ate to the background strains of Debussy on the CD player. Despite her hunger and the careful attention to the preparation of her meal, everything seemed tasteless. She forced herself to eat, but her throat felt full, as though she had swallowed something thick and glutinous. Even drinking a second glass of wine could not dislodge the lump in her throat. She put down her fork and stared at her half-eaten dinner. The music swelled and swept over her in breaking waves.
    She dropped her face in her hands. At first no sound came out. It was as if her grief had been bottled up so long, the seal had permanently frozen shut. Then a high keening escaped her throat, the thinnest thread of sound. She gasped in a breath, and a cry burst forth as two years’ worth of pain came pouring out all at once. The violence of her emotions scared her, because she could not hold them back, could not fathom how deep her pain went or if there would ever be an end to it. She cried until her throat was raw, until her lungs were stuttering with spasms, the sound of her sobbing trapped in that hermetically