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

said.
    “But she might pull out her lines.”
    “Just take them
off
.”
    Stephanie flushed at the rebuke. Without a word she untied the straps. She did not understand; no one could understand but Catherine, who, even two years after Savannah, could not abide sleeves with tight cuffs. As the last restraint fell free, she saw Nina’s lips move in a silent message.
    Thank you.
    Gradually the beep of the EKG slowed. Against the steady rhythm of that heartbeat, the two women gazed at each other. If Catherine had recognized a part of herself in Nina’s eyes, so, too, did Nina seem to recognize herself in Catherine’s. The silent sisterhood of victims.
    There are more of us than anyone will ever know.
     
    “You can come in now, Detectives,” the nurse said.
    Moore and Frost stepped into the cubicle and found Catherine seated at the bedside, holding Nina’s hand.
    “She asked me to stay,” said Catherine.
    “I can call in a female officer,” said Moore.
    “No, she wants me,” said Catherine. “I’m not leaving.”
    She looked straight at Moore, her gaze unyielding, and he realized this was not the same woman he had held in his arms only a few hours ago; this was a different side of her, fierce and protective, and on this matter she would not back down.
    He nodded and sat down at the bedside. Frost set up the cassette recorder and took an unobtrusive position at the foot of the bed. It was Frost’s blandness, his quiet civility, that made Moore choose him to sit in on this interview. The last thing Nina Peyton needed to face was an over-aggressive cop.
    Her oxygen mask had been removed and replaced with nasal prongs, and air hissed from the tube into her nostrils. Her gaze darted between the two men, eyes alert to any threats, any sudden gestures. Moore was careful to keep his voice soft as he introduced himself and Barry Frost. He guided her through the preliminaries, confirming her name and age and address. This information they already knew, but by asking her to state it on tape they established her mental status and demonstrated she was alert and competent to make a statement. She answered his questions in a hoarse, flat voice, eerily devoid of emotion. Her remoteness unnverved him; he felt as though he were listening to a dead woman.
    “I didn’t hear him come into my house,” she said. “I didn’t wake up until he was standing over my bed. I shouldn’t have left the windows open. I shouldn’t have taken the pills. . . .”
    “What pills?” Moore asked gently.
    “I was having trouble sleeping, because of . . .” Her voice faded.
    “The rape?”
    She looked away, avoiding his gaze. “I was having nightmares. At the clinic, they gave me pills. To help me sleep.”
    And a nightmare, a real nightmare, walked right into her bedroom.
    “Did you see his face?” he asked.
    “It was dark. I could hear him breathing, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream.”
    “You were already tied down?”
    “I don’t remember him doing it. I don’t remember how it happened.”
    Chloroform, thought Moore, to subdue her first. Before she was fully awake.
    “What happened then, Nina?”
    Her breathing accelerated. On the monitor above her bed, the heart tracing blipped faster.
    “He sat in a chair by my bed. I could see his shadow.”
    “And what did he do?”
    “He—he talked to me.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He said . . .” She swallowed. “He said that I was dirty. Contaminated. He said I should be disgusted by my own filth. And that he—he was going to cut out the part that was tainted and make me pure again.” She paused. And said, in a whisper: “That’s when I knew I was going to die.”
    Though Catherine’s face had turned white, the victim herself looked eerily composed, as though she were talking about another woman’s nightmare, not her own. She was no longer looking at Moore but staring at some point beyond him, seeing from afar a woman tied to a bed. And in a chair, hidden in the darkness, a man quietly describing the horrors he planned next. For the Surgeon, thought Moore, this is foreplay. This is what excites him. The smell of a woman’s fear. He feeds on it. He sits by her bed and fills her mind with images of death. Sweat blooms on her skin, sweat that exudes the sour scent of terror. An exotic perfume he craves. He breathes it in, and he is excited.
    “What happened next?” said Moore.
    No answer.
    “Nina?”
    “He turned the lamp on my face. He put it