Vanish: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

hour before Barsanti and his team arrived. They tried to step right into our show, and we ended up having a tug-of-war right there, on the front porch. Till we got a call from the Justice Department, asking us to cooperate.”
    “How did the FBI get wind of this case so quickly?” asked Jane.
    “We never got a good answer to that question.” Wardlaw crossed to the VCR, ejected the tape, then turned to face her. “So that’s what we were dealing with. Five dead women, none of them with fingerprints on file. No one’s reported them missing. They’re all Jane Does.”
    “Undocumented aliens,” said Gabriel.
    Wardlaw nodded. “My guess is, they were Eastern Europeans. There were a few Russian-language newspapers in the downstairs bedroom. Plus a shoe box with photos of Moscow. Considering what else we found in that house, we can make a pretty good guess as to their occupations. In the pantry, there were supplies of penicillin. Morning-after pills. And a carton full of condoms.” He picked up the file containing the autopsy reports and handed it to Gabriel. “Check out the DNA analysis.”
    Gabriel flipped directly to the lab results. “Multiple sexual partners,” he said.
    Wardlaw nodded. “Put it all together. A bevy of young, attractive women living together under the same roof. Entertaining a number of different men. Let’s just say that house was no convent.”

TWENTY-SEVEN
    The private road cut through stands of oak and pine and hickory. Chips of sunlight filtered through the canopy, dappling the road. Deep among the trees, little light shone through, and in green shadows thick with underbrush, saplings struggled to grow.
    “No wonder the neighbors didn’t hear anything that night,” Jane said, gazing at dense woods. “I don’t even see any neighbors.”
    “I think it’s just ahead, through those trees.”
    Another thirty yards, and the road suddenly widened, their car emerging into late afternoon sunshine. A two-story house loomed before them. Though now in disrepair, it still had good bones: a redbrick facade, a wide porch. But nothing about this house was welcoming. Certainly not the wrought-iron bars across the windows, or the NO TRESPASSING signs tacked to the posts. Knee-high weeds were already taking over the gravel driveway, the first wave of invaders, preparing the way for encroaching forest. Wardlaw had told them that an attempt at renovations was abruptly abandoned two months ago, when the contractor’s equipment had accidentally touched off a small fire, scorching an upstairs bedroom. The flames had left black claw marks on a window frame, and plywood still covered the broken glass. Maybe the fire was a warning, thought Jane.
This house is not friendly.
    She and Gabriel stepped out of the rental car. They had been driving with the AC on, and the heat took her by surprise. She paused in the driveway, perspiration instantly blooming on her face, and breathed in the thick and sullen air. Though she could not see the mosquitoes, she could hear them circling, and she slapped her cheek, saw fresh blood on her hand. That was all she heard, just the hum of insects. No traffic, no birdsong; even the trees were still. Her neck prickled—not from the heat, but from the sudden, instinctive urge to leave this place. To climb back in the car and lock the doors and drive away. She did not want to go in there.
    “Well, let’s see if Wardlaw’s key still works,” said Gabriel, starting toward the porch.
    Reluctantly she followed him up creaking steps, where blades of grass grew through seams between the boards. On Wardlaw’s video, it had been wintertime, the driveway bare of vegetation. Now vines twisted up the railings and pollen dusted the porch like yellow snow.
    At the door, Gabriel paused, frowning at what remained of a padlock hinge that had once secured the front entrance. “This has been here a while,” he said, pointing to the rust.
    Bars on the windows. A padlock on the door. Not to guard against intruders, she thought; this lock was meant to keep people
in.
    Gabriel jiggled the key in the lock and gave the door a push. With a squeal it gave way, and the smell of old smoke wafted out; the aftermath of the contractor’s fire. You can clean a house, repaint its walls, replace the drapes and the carpets and furniture, yet the stench of fire endures. He stepped inside.
    After a pause, so did she. She was surprised to find bare wood floors; on the video, there had been an ugly