Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

familiar.
    Jane’s muscles all snapped taut. “Mila? Don’t hang up! Please don’t hang up. Talk to me!”
    “You are police.”
    The traffic light turned green, and behind her, a car honked. “Yes,” she admitted. “I’m a policewoman. I’m only trying to help you.”
    “How do you know my name?”
    “I was with Olena when . . .”
    “When the police killed her?”
    The car behind Jane’s blasted its horn again, an unrelenting demand that she get the hell out of its way.
Asshole.
She goosed the accelerator and drove through the intersection, the cell phone still pressed to her ear.
    “Mila,” she said. “Olena told me about you. It was the last thing she said—that I should find you.”
    “Last night, you sent policemen to catch me.”
    “I didn’t send—”
    “Two men. I saw them.”
    “They’re my friends, Mila. We’re all trying to protect you. It’s dangerous for you to be out there on your own.”
    “You do not know how dangerous.”
    “Yes I do!” She paused. “I know why you’re running, why you’re scared. You were in that house when your friends were shot to death. Weren’t you, Mila? You saw it happen.”
    “I’m the only one left.”
    “You could testify in court.”
    “They will kill me first.”
    “Who?”
    There was silence. Please don’t hang up again, she thought. Stay on the line. She spotted an open space at the curb and abruptly pulled over. Sat with the phone pressed to her ear, waiting for the woman to speak. In the backseat Regina kept crying and crying, angrier by the minute that her mother dared ignore her.
    “Mila?”
    “What baby is crying?”
    “It’s my baby. She’s in the car with me.”
    “But you said you are police.”
    “Yes, I am. I
told
you I am. My name is Jane Rizzoli. I’m a detective. You can confirm that, Mila. Call the Boston Police Department and ask them about me. I was with Olena when she died. I was trapped in that building with her.” She paused. “I couldn’t save her.”
    Another silence passed. The AC was still going full blast, and Regina was still crying, determined to make gray hairs pop out on her mother’s brow.
    “Public gardens,” said Mila.
    “What?”
    “Tonight. Nine o’clock. You wait by the pond.”
    “Will you be there? Hello?”
    No one was on the line.

THIRTY-THREE
    The weapon felt heavy and strangely unfamiliar on Jane’s hip. Once an old friend, it had sat locked up and ignored in a drawer these past few weeks. Only reluctantly had she loaded it and snapped it into her holster. Though she’d always regarded her weapon with the healthy respect due any object that could blast a hole in a man’s chest, never before had she hesitated to reach for it. This must be what motherhood does to you, she thought. I look at a gun now, and all I can think of is Regina. How one twitch of a finger, one wayward bullet, could take her from me.
    “It doesn’t have to be you,” said Gabriel.
    They were sitting in Gabriel’s parked Volvo on Newbury Street, where fashionable shops were preparing to close for the night. The Saturday restaurant crowd still lingered in the neighborhood, well-dressed couples strolling past, happily sated with dinner and wine. Unlike Jane, who’d been too nervous to eat more than a few bites of the pot roast her mother had brought to their apartment.
    “They can send in another female cop,” said Gabriel. “You can just sit this one out.”
    “Mila knows my voice. She knows my name. I have to do it.”
    “You’ve been out of the game for a month.”
    “And it’s time for me to get back in.” She looked at her watch. “Four minutes,” she said into her comm unit. “Is everyone ready?”
    Over the earpiece, she heard Moore say: “We’re in place. Frost is at Beacon and Huntington. I’m in front of the Four Seasons.”
    “And I’ll be behind you,” said Gabriel.
    “Okay.” She stepped out of the car and tugged down the light jacket she was wearing, so it would cover the bulge of her weapon. Walking up Newbury Street, heading west, she brushed past Saturday night tourists. People who did not need guns on their belts. At Arlington Street she paused to wait for traffic. Across the street were the public gardens, and to her left was Beacon Street, where Frost was posted, but she did not glance his way. Nor did she hazard a look over her shoulder, to confirm that Gabriel was behind her. She knew he was.
    She crossed Arlington and strolled into the public