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

homicide involving mutilation, night entry, and duct tape bindings. Nothing fit Sterling’s profile.”
    “What about the series in Georgia? Three years ago, four victims. One in Atlanta, three in Savannah. All were in the VICAP database.”
    “I reviewed those cases. That perp is not our unsub.”
    “Listen to this, Moore. Dora Ciccone, age twenty-two, graduate student at Emory. Victim first subdued with Rohypnol, then restrained to the bed with nylon cord—”
    “Our boy here uses chloroform and duct tape.”
    “He sliced open her abdomen. Cut out her uterus. Performed a coup de grace—a single slash across the neck. And finally—get this—he folded her nightclothes and left them on a chair by the bed. I’m telling you, it’s too goddamn close.”
    “The Georgia cases are closed,” said Moore. “They’ve been closed for two years. That perp is dead.”
    “What if Savannah PD blew it? What if he
wasn’t
their killer?”
    “They had DNA to back it up. Fibers, hairs. Plus there was a witness. A victim who survived.”
    “Oh yeah. The survivor. Victim number five.” Rizzoli’s voice held a strangely taunting note.
    “She confirmed the perp’s identity,” said Moore.
    “She also conveniently shot him to death.”
    “So what, you want to arrest his ghost?”
    “Did you ever talk to that surviving victim?” Rizzoli asked.
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “What would be the point?”
    “The point is that you might’ve learned something interesting. Like the fact she left Savannah soon after that attack. And guess where she’s living now?”
    Through the hiss of the cell phone, he could hear the whoosh of his own pulse. “Boston?” he asked softly.
    “And you’re not gonna believe what she does for a living.”

     

three
    D r. Catherine Cordell sprinted down the hospital corridor, the soles of her running shoes squeaking on the linoleum, and pushed through the double doors into the emergency room.
    A nurse called out: “They’re in Trauma Two, Dr. Cordell!”
    “I’m there,” said Catherine, moving like a guided missile straight for Trauma Two.
    Half a dozen faces flashed her looks of relief as she stepped into the room. In one glance she took stock of the situation, saw jumbled instruments glittering on a tray, the IV poles with bags of Ringer’s lactate hanging like heavy fruit on steel-rod trees, blood-streaked gauze and torn packaging scattered across the floor. A rapid sinus rhythm twitched across the cardiac monitor—the electrical pattern of a heart racing to stay ahead of Death.
    “What’ve we got?” she asked as personnel moved aside to let her pass.
    Ron Littman, the senior surgical resident, gave her a rapid-fire report. “John Doe Pedestrian, hit-and-run. Rolled into the E.R. unconscious. Pupils are equal and reactive, lungs are clear, but the abdomen’s distended. No bowel sounds. BP’s down to sixty over zip. I did a paracentesis. He’s got blood in his belly. We’ve got a central line in, Ringer’s lactate wide open, but we can’t keep his pressure up.”
    “O neg and fresh frozen on the way?”
    “Should be here any minute.”
    The man on the table was stripped naked, every intimate detail mercilessly exposed to her gaze. He appeared to be in his sixties, already intubated and on a ventilator. Toneless muscles sagged in folds on gaunt limbs, and his ribs stood out like arching blades. A preexisting chronic illness, she thought; cancer would be her first guess. The right arm and hip were abraded and bloody from scraping across pavement. On his right lower chest a bruise formed a purple continent on the white parchment of skin. There were no penetrating wounds.
    She slipped on her stethoscope to verify what the resident had just told her. She heard no sounds in the belly. Not a growl, not a tinkle. The silence of traumatized bowel. Moving the stethoscope diaphragm to the chest, she listened for breath sounds, confirming that the endotracheal tube was properly placed and that both lungs were being ventilated. The heart battered like a fist against the chest wall. Her exam took only a matter of seconds, yet she felt as though she were moving in slow motion, that around her the room full of personnel stood frozen in time, awaiting her next action.
    A nurse called out: “I’m barely getting the systolic at fifty!”
    Time sprang ahead at a frightening pace.
    “Get me a gown and gloves,” said Catherine. “Open the laparotomy tray.”
    “What about taking