Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

speaks. A hot wind swirls dust at our faces, and I blink against the sting. When I open my eyes again, I see more of Anja peeking out from the sand. The curve of her hip bone, the brown shaft of her thigh. The desert has decided to give her up, and now she is re-emerging from the earth.
    Those who vanish sometimes come back to us.
    “Come, Mila. Let’s go.”
    I look up at the woman. She stands so straight, unassailable. Her silver hair gleams like a warrior’s helmet. She puts her arm around me, and together, we walk back to the car.
     
    “It’s time, Mila,” the woman says quietly. “Time to tell me everything.”
    We sit at a table, in a room with no windows. I look down at the pad of paper in front of her. It is blank, waiting for the mark of her pen. Waiting for the words that I have been afraid to say.
    “I have told you everything.”
    “I don’t think you have.”
    “Every question you ask, I answer.”
    “Yes, you’ve helped us a great deal. You’ve given us what we needed. Carleton Wynne
is
going to jail. He
is
going to pay. The whole world now knows what he did, and we thank you for that.”
    “I do not know what more you want from me.”
    “I want what’s locked up in there.” She reaches across the table and touches my heart. “I want to know the things you’re afraid to tell me. It will help me understand their operation, help me fight these people. It will help me save more girls, just like you. You
have
to, Mila.”
    I blink back tears. “Or you will send me back.”
    “No.
No.
” She leans closer, her gaze emphatic. “This is your home now, if you want to stay. You won’t be deported, I give you my word.”
    “Even if . . .” I stop. I can no longer look her in the eye. Shame floods my face and I stare down at the table.
    “Nothing that happened to you is your fault. Whatever those men did to you—whatever they made you do—they forced on you. It was done to your body. It has nothing to do with your soul. Your soul, Mila, is still pure.”
    I cannot bear to meet her gaze. I continue to stare down, watching my own tears drip onto the table, and feel as if my heart is bleeding, that every tear is another part of me, draining away.
    “Why are you afraid to look at me?” she asks gently.
    “I am ashamed,” I whisper. “All the things you wish me to tell you . . .”
    “Would it help if I wasn’t here in the room? If I didn’t watch you?”
    I still do not look at her.
    She releases a sigh. “All right, Mila, here’s what I’m going to do.” She places a tape recorder on the table. “I’m going to turn this on and leave the room. Then you can say whatever you want to. Whatever you remember. Say it all in Russian if that makes it easier. Any thoughts, any memories. Everything that’s happened to you. You’re not talking to a person, you’re just talking to a machine. It can’t hurt you.”
    She rises to her feet, presses the RECORD button, and walks out of the room.
    I stare at the red light glowing on the machine. The tape is slowly spinning, waiting for my first words. Waiting for my pain. I take a deep breath, close my eyes. And I begin to speak.
    My name is Mila, and this is my journey.

A BOUT THE A UTHOR
    T ESS G ERRITSEN left a successful practice as an internist to raise her children and concentrate on her writing. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of medical suspense, the
New York Times
bestseller
Harvest.
She is also the author of the bestsellers
Life Support, Bloodstream,
and
Gravity,
as well as
The Surgeon, The Apprentice, The Sinner,
and
Body Double.
Tqess Gerritsen lives in Maine. Visit her website at www.tessgerritsen.com .

A LSO BY T ESS G ERRITSEN
    HARVEST
    LIFE SUPPORT
    BLOODSTREAM
    GRAVITY
    THE SURGEON
    THE APPRENTICE
    THE SINNER
    BODY DOUBLE

 
    Read on for an exciting preview
of Tess Gerritsen’s next thrilling novel
featuring Maura Isles and Jane Rizzoli
    THE SILENT GIRL

 
    ONE

SAN FRANCISCO
    A LL DAY, I HAVE BEEN WATCHING THE GIRL . She gives no indication that she’s aware of me, although my rental car is within view of the street corner where she and the other teenagers have gathered this afternoon, doing whatever bored kids do to pass the time. She looks younger than the others, but perhaps it’s because she’s Asian and petite at seventeen, just a wisp of a girl. Her black hair is cropped as short as a boy’s, and her blue jeans are ragged and torn. Not a fashion statement, I think, but a result of hard