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

out of her car and stared at the windows of the upper floors. Which apartment had been Elena’s? The one with the striped curtains? Or the one with the jungle of hanging plants? She approached the front entrance and looked at the tenant names. There were six apartments; Apartment 2A’s tenant name was blank. Already Elena had been erased, the victim purged from the ranks of the living. No one wanted to be reminded of death.
    According to the
Globe
, the killer had gained access by way of a fire escape. Backing up onto the sidewalk, Catherine spotted the steel lattice snaking up the alley side of the building. She took a few steps into the gloom of the alley, then abruptly halted. The back of her neck was prickling. She turned to look at the street and saw a truck rattle by, a woman jogging. A couple getting into their car. Nothing that should make her feel threatened, yet she could not ignore the silent shouts of panic.
    She returned to her car, locked the doors, and sat clutching the steering wheel, repeating to herself: “Nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong.” As cold air blasted from the car vent, she felt her pulse gradually slow. At last, with a sigh, she leaned back.
    Her gaze turned, once again, to Elena Ortiz’s apartment building.
    Only then did she focus on the car, parked in the alley. On the license plate mounted on its rear bumper.
    POSEY5.
    In an instant she was fumbling through her purse for the detective’s business card. With shaking hands she dialed his number on her car phone.
    He answered with a businesslike, “Detective Moore.”
    “This is Catherine Cordell,” she said. “You came to see me a few days ago.”
    “Yes, Dr. Cordell?”
    “Did Elena Ortiz drive a green Honda?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I need to know her license number.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t understand—”
    “Just
tell me
!” Her sharp command startled him. There was a long silence on the line.
    “Let me check,” he said. In the background she heard men talking, phones ringing. He came back on the line.
    “It’s a vanity plate,” he said. “I believe it refers to the family’s flower business.”
    “POSEY FIVE,” she whispered.
    A pause. “Yes,” he said, his voice strangely quiet. Alert.
    “When you spoke to me, the other day, you asked if I knew Elena Ortiz.”
    “And you said you didn’t.”
    Catherine released a shuddering breath. “I was wrong.”

     

six
    S he was pacing inside the E.R., her face pale and tense, her coppery hair a tangled mane about her shoulders. She looked at Moore as he stepped into the waiting area.
    “Was I right?” she said.
    He nodded. “Posey Five was her Internet screen name. We checked her computer. Now tell me how you knew this.”
    She glanced around the bustling E.R. and said: “Let’s go into one of the call rooms.”
    The room she took him to was a dark little cave, windowless, furnished with only a bed, a chair, and a desk. For an exhausted doctor whose single goal is sleep, the room would be perfectly sufficient. But as the door swung shut, Moore was acutely aware of how small the space was, and he wondered if the forced intimacy made her as uncomfortable as it did him. They both glanced around for places to sit. At last she settled on the bed, and he took the chair.
    “I never actually
met
Elena,” said Catherine. “I didn’t even know that was her name. We belonged to the same Internet chat room. You know what a chat room is?”
    “It’s a way to have a live conversation on the computer.”
    “Yes. A group of people who are online at the same time can meet over the Internet. This is a private room, only for women. You have to know all the right keywords to get into it. And all you see on the computer are screen names. No real names or faces, so we can all stay anonymous. It lets us feel safe enough to share our secrets.” She paused. “You’ve never used one?”
    “Talking to faceless strangers doesn’t much appeal to me, I’m afraid.”
    “Sometimes,” she said softly, “a faceless stranger is the only person you
can
talk to.”
    He heard the depth of pain in that statement and could think of nothing to say.
    After a moment, she took a deep breath and focused not on him but on her hands, folded in her lap. “We meet once a week, on Wednesday nights at nine o’clock. I enter by going on-line, clicking the chat-room icon, and typing in first
PTSD
, and then:
womanhelp
. And I’m in. I communicate with other women by typing messages