Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

trained to do?”
    “EOD. Explosive ordnance disposal.”
    “Bombs?” said Maura. She looked, startled, at Moore. “If he knows how to disarm them, then he probably knows how to build them.”
    “You said he only served two years,” said Gabriel. His own voice struck him as eerily calm. A cold-blooded stranger’s.
    “He had . . . problems overseas, when he got to Kuwait,” said Moore. “He received a dishonorable discharge.”
    “Why?”
    “Refusing to obey orders. Striking an officer. Repeated conflicts with other men in his unit. There was some concern that he was emotionally unstable. That he might be suffering from paranoia.”
    Moore’s words had felt like blow after pummeling blow, pounding the breath from Gabriel’s lungs. “Jesus,” he murmured. “This changes everything.”
    “What do you mean?” asked Maura.
    He looked at her. “We can’t waste any more time. We’ve got to get her out
now.
”
    “What about negotiations? What about going slow?”
    “It doesn’t apply here. Not only is this man unstable, he’s already killed a cop.”
    “He doesn’t know Jane’s a cop,” said Moore. “And we’re not going to let him find out. Look, the same principles apply here. The longer a hostage crisis goes on, the better it usually comes out. Negotiation works.”
    Gabriel pointed to the laptop. “How the hell do you negotiate with someone who does
that
?”
    “It can be done. It has to be done.”
    “It’s not
your
wife in there!” He saw Maura’s startled gaze, and he turned away, struggling for composure.
    It was Moore who spoke next, his voice quiet. Gentle. “What you’re feeling now—what you’re going through—I’ve been there, you know. I know exactly what you’re dealing with. Two years ago, my wife, Catherine, was abducted, by a man you may remember. Warren Hoyt.”
    The Surgeon.
Of course, Gabriel remembered him. The man who late at night would slip into homes where women slept, awakening to find a monster in their bedrooms. It was the aftermath of Hoyt’s crimes that had first brought Gabriel to Boston a year ago. The Surgeon, he suddenly realized, was the common thread that bound them all together. Moore and Gabriel, Jane and Maura. They had all, in one way or another, been touched by the same evil.
    “I knew Hoyt was holding her,” said Moore. “And there was nothing I could do about it. No way I could think of to save her. If I could have exchanged my life for hers, I would have done it in a heartbeat. But all I could do was watch the hours go by. The worst part of it was, I
knew
what he was doing to her. I’d watched the autopsies on his other victims. I saw every cut he ever made with his scalpel. So yes, I know exactly what you’re feeling. And believe me, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get Jane out of there alive. Not just because she’s my colleague, or because you’re married to her. It’s because I owe her my happiness. She’s the one who found Catherine. Jane’s the one who saved her life.”
    At last Gabriel looked at him. “How do we negotiate with these people?”
    “We need to find out exactly what they want. They know they’re trapped. They have no choice but to talk to us, so we keep talking to them. You’ve dealt with other hostage situations, so you know the negotiator’s playbook. The rules haven’t changed, just because you’re on the other side of it now. You have to take your wife, your emotions, out of this equation.”
    “Could you?”
    Moore’s silence answered the question. Of course he couldn’t.
    And neither can I.

THIRTEEN
    Mila
    Tonight we are going to a party.
    The Mother tells us that important people will be there, so we must look our prettiest, and she has given us new clothes for the occasion. I am wearing a black velvet dress with a skirt so tight that I can scarcely walk, and I must pull the hem all the way up to my hips just so I can climb into the van. The other girls slide in beside me in a rustle of silk and satin, and I smell their clashing bouquet of perfumes. We have spent hours with our makeup creams and lipsticks and mascara brushes, and now we sit like masked dolls about to perform in a Kabuki play. Nothing you see is real. Not the eyelashes or the red lips or the blushing cheeks. The van is cold, and we shiver against each other, waiting for Olena to join us.
    The American driver yells out the window that we must leave now, or we’ll be late. At last the Mother comes out of the house,