Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

you,” he said, and climbed out.
    She watched him walk to his own car, parked a few stalls away. Saw him pause as he reached in his pocket, as though trying to locate his keys. She knew her husband well enough to recognize the tension in his shoulders, to note his quick glance around the parking lot. She seldom saw him rattled, and now it made her anxious, knowing that he was on edge. He started his engine and sat waiting for her to leave first.
    Only as she left the parking lot did he pull out. He trailed her for a few blocks. He’s watching to see if I’m being followed, she thought. Even after he’d finally peeled away, she found herself glancing in the mirror, though she could think of no reason for anyone to follow her. What did she know, really? Nothing that Moore or anyone else in the homicide unit didn’t already know. Just the memory of a whisper.
    Mila. Who is Mila?
    She glanced over her shoulder at Moore’s envelope, which she’d tossed on the backseat. She did not look forward to examining those crime scene photos again. But I need to get beyond the horror, she thought. I need to know what happened in Ashburn.

TWENTY-FIVE
    Maura Isles was up to her elbows in blood. Pausing in the anteroom, Gabriel watched through the glass partition as Maura reached into the abdomen, lifted out loops of intestine, and plopped them into a basin. He saw no distaste in her face as she dug through the mound, just the quiet concentration of a scientist probing for some detail out of the ordinary. At last she handed Yoshima the basin, and was reaching once again for her knife when she noticed Gabriel.
    “I’ll be another twenty minutes,” she said. “You can come in, if you want.”
    He pulled on shoe covers and a gown to protect his clothes and stepped into the lab. Though he tried to avoid looking at the body on the table, it was there between them, impossible to ignore. A woman with skeletal limbs and skin hanging like loose crepe over the jutting bones of her pelvis.
    “History of anorexia nervosa. Found dead in her apartment,” said Maura, answering his unspoken question.
    “She’s so young.”
    “Twenty-seven. EMTs said all she had in her refrigerator was a head of lettuce and Diet Pepsi. Starvation in the land of plenty.” Maura reached into the abdomen to dissect the retroperitoneal space. Yoshima, in the meantime, had moved to the head, to incise the scalp. As always, they worked with a minimum of conversation, knowing each other’s needs so well that words did not seem necessary.
    “You wanted to tell me something?” said Gabriel.
    Maura paused. In her hand she cupped a single kidney, like a lump of black gelatin. She and Yoshima exchanged a nervous glance. At once, Yoshima started up the Stryker saw, and the noisy whine almost covered Maura’s answer.
    “Not here,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”
    Yoshima pried off the skullcap.
    As Maura leaned in to free the brain, she asked, in a cheerfully normal voice: “So how is it, being a daddy?”
    “Exceeds all my expectations.”
    “You’ve settled on Regina?”
    “Mama Rizzoli talked us into it.”
    “Well, I think it’s a nice name.” Maura lowered the brain into a bucket of formalin. “A dignified name.”
    “Jane’s already shortened it to Reggie.”
    “Not quite so dignified.”
    Maura pulled off her gloves and looked at Yoshima. He gave a nod. “I need some fresh air,” she said. “Let’s take a break.”
    They stripped off their gowns, and she led the way out of the room, to the loading bay. Only when they’d stepped out of the building, and were standing in the parking lot, did she speak again.
    “I’m sorry about the conversational runaround,” she said. “We had a security breach. I’m not comfortable talking inside right now.”
    “What happened?”
    “Last night, around three A.M. , Medford Fire and Rescue brought in a body from an accident scene. Normally we keep the exterior bay doors locked, and they have to call a night operator for the key code to get in. They discovered that the doors were already unlocked, and when they stepped inside, they saw that the lights were on in the autopsy lab. They mentioned it to the operator, and security came to check the building. Whoever broke in must have left in a hurry, because a desk drawer in my office was still open.”
    “Your office?”
    Maura nodded. “And Dr. Bristol’s computer was on. He always turns it off when he leaves at night.” She paused. “It was