Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

to float above the pain. This I try to do as the men rip off the doll’s dress, as their rough hands close around my wrists, as they force me to yield. My pain is what they have paid for, and they are not satisfied until I am screaming, until sweat and tears streak my face.
Oh Anja, how lucky you are to be dead!
    When it is over, and I hobble back to the locked room, Olena sits down beside me on my cot, and strokes my hair. “Now you need to eat,” she says.
    I shake my head. “I only want to die.”
    “If you die, then they win. We can’t let them win.”
    “They’ve already won.” I turn on my side and hug my knees to my chest, curling into a tight ball that nothing can penetrate. “They’ve already won . . .”
    “Mila, look at me. Do you think I’ve given up? Do you think I’m already dead?”
    I wipe tears from my face. “I’m not as strong as you are.”
    “It’s not strength, Mila. It’s hate. That’s what keeps you alive.” She bends close, and her long hair is a waterfall of black silk. What I see in her eyes scares me. A fire burns there; she is not quite sane. This is how Olena survives, on drugs and madness.
    The door opens again, and we all shrink as the Mother glances around the room. She points to one of the girls. “You, Katya. This one’s yours.”
    Katya just stares back, unmoving.
    With two paces, the Mother crosses toward her and slaps her across the ear. “Go,” she orders, and Katya stumbles out of the room. The Mother locks the door.
    “Remember, Mila,” Olena whispers. “Remember what keeps you alive.”
    I look into her eyes and see it.
Hate.

TEN
    “We can’t let this information get out,” said Gabriel. “It could kill her.”
    Homicide detective Barry Frost reacted with a stunned gaze. They were standing in the parking lot of the Sunrise Yacht Club. Not a breeze stirred, and out on Hingham Bay, sailboats drifted, dead in the water. Under the glare of the afternoon sun, sweat pasted wispy strands of hair to Frost’s pale forehead. In a room full of people, Barry Frost was the one you’d most likely overlook, the man who’d quietly recede into a corner where he’d stand smiling and unnoticed. His bland temperament had helped him weather his occasionally stormy partnership with Jane, a partnership that, over the past two and a half years, had grown strong roots in trust. Now the two men who cared about her, Jane’s husband and Jane’s partner, faced each other with shared apprehension.
    “No one told us she was in there,” murmured Frost. “We had no idea.”
    “We can’t let the media find out.”
    Frost huffed out a shocked breath. “That would be a disaster.”
    “Tell me who Jane Doe is. Tell me everything you know.”
    “Believe me, we’ll pull out all the stops on this. You have to trust us.”
    “I can’t sit on the sidelines. I need to know everything.”
    “You can’t be objective. She’s your wife.”
    “Exactly. She’s my
wife.
” A note of panic had slipped into Gabriel’s voice. He paused to rein in his agitation and said quietly: “What would you do? If it was Alice trapped in there?”
    Frost regarded him for a moment. At last he nodded. “Come inside. We’re talking to the commodore. He pulled her out of the water.”
    They stepped from glaring sunshine into the cool gloom of the yacht club. Inside, it smelled like every seaside bar that Gabriel had ever walked into, the scent of ocean air mingled with citrus and booze. It was a rickety building, perched on a wooden pier overlooking Hingham Bay. Two portable air-conditioning units rattled in the windows, muffling the clink of glasses and the low hum of conversation. The floors creaked as they headed toward the lounge.
    Gabriel recognized the two Boston PD detectives standing at the bar, talking with a bald man. Both Darren Crowe and Thomas Moore were Jane’s colleagues from the homicide unit; both of them greeted Gabriel with looks of surprise.
    “Hey,” Crowe said. “I didn’t know the FBI was coming in on this.”
    “FBI?” said the bald man. “Wow, this must be getting pretty serious.” He stuck out his hand to Gabriel. “Skip Boynton. I’m the commodore, Sunrise Yacht Club.”
    “Agent Gabriel Dean,” said Gabriel, shaking the man’s hand. Trying, as best he could, to play it official. But he could feel Thomas Moore’s puzzled gaze. Moore could see that something was not right here.
    “Yeah, I was just telling these detectives how we found her.