Body Double

THIRTY-TWO

SEEING IT FROM the other side now. As a patient, not a doctor, the ceiling lights flickering past her as the gurney rolled down the hall, as the nurse in a bouffant cap glanced down, concern in her eyes. The wheels squeaked and the nurse panted a little as she pushed the gurney through double doors, into the operating room. Different lights glared overhead now, harsher, blinding. Like the lights of the autopsy room.

Maura closed her eyes against them. As the OR nurses transferred her to the table, she thought of A

But when she awakened, it wasn’t A

“Hey, Doc.”

“Hey,” Maura whispered back.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Not so good. My arm…” Maura winced.

“Looks like it’s time for more drugs.” Rizzoli reached over and pressed the nurse’s call button.

“Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

They fell silent as the nurse came in to inject a dose of morphine into the IV. The silence lingered after the nurse had left, and the drug began to work its magic.

Maura said, softly: “Rick…”

“I’m sorry. You do know he’s…”

I know. She blinked back tears. “We never had a chance.”

“She wasn’t about to let you have a chance. That claw mark in your car door-that was all about him. About staying away from her husband. The slashed screens, the dead bird in the mailbox-all the threats A

“But then A

Rizzoli nodded. “She came back, because she learned she had a sister.”

Me.

“So Carmen finds out that the girlfriend’s back in town,” said Rizzoli. “A

Maura remembered what Carmen had said: He wasn’t yours to take.

“Charles Cassell said something to me, about love,” said Rizzoli. “He said, there’s a kind of love that never lets go, no matter what. It sounds almost romantic, doesn’t it? Till death do us part. Then you think about how many people get killed because a lover won’t let go, won’t give up.”

By now, the morphine had spread through her bloodstream. Maura closed her eyes, welcoming the drug’s embrace. “How did you know?” she murmured. “Why did you think of Carmen?”

“The Black Talon. That’s the clue I should have followed all along-that bullet. But I got thrown off the track by the Lanks. By the Beast.”

“So did I,” whispered Maura. She felt the morphine dragging her toward sleep. “I think I’m ready, Jane. For the answer.”

“The answer to what?”

“Amalthea. I need to know.”

“If she’s your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Even if she is, it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just biology. What do you gain by that knowledge?”

“The truth.” Maura sighed. “At least I’ll know the truth.”

The truth, thought Rizzoli as she walked to her car, is seldom what people really want to hear. Wouldn’t it be better to hold on to the thi

Could I have survived that horror? I’ll never know the answer. Not until I’m the one in the box.

When she reached her car in the parking garage, she found herself checking all four tires to confirm they were intact, found herself sca

She climbed into her Subaru and started the engine. Sat for a moment as it idled, as the air blowing from the vents slowly cooled down. She reached into her purse for the cell phone, thinking: I need to hear Gabriel’s voice. I need to know that I am not Mattie Purvis, that my husband does love me. The way I love him.

Her call was answered on the first ring. “Agent Dean.”

“Hey,” she said.

Gabriel gave a startled laugh. “I was about to call you.”

“I miss you.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say. I’m heading to the airport now.”

“The airport? Does that mean-”

“I’m catching the next flight to Boston. So how about a date with your husband tonight? Think you can pencil me in?”

“In permanent ink. Just come home. Please, come home.”

A pause. Then he said, softly: “Are you okay, Jane?”

Unexpected tears stung her eyes. “Oh, it’s these goddamn hormones.” She wiped her face and laughed. “I think I need you right now.”

“You hold that thought. Because I’m on my way.”

Rizzoli was smiling as she drove toward Natick to visit a different hospital, a different patient. The other survivor in this tale of slaughter. These are two extraordinary women, she thought, and I’m privileged to know them both.

Judging by all the TV vans in the hospital parking lot, and all the reporters milling near the lobby entrance, the press, too, had decided that Mattie Purvis was a woman worth knowing. Rizzoli had to walk through a gantlet of reporters to get into the lobby. The tale of the lady buried in the box had set off a national news frenzy. Rizzoli had to flash her ID to two different security guards before finally being allowed to knock on Mattie’s hospital room door. When she heard no answer, she stepped into the room.

The TV was on, but with the sound off. Images flickered onscreen, unwatched. Mattie lay in bed, eyes closed, looking nothing like the well-scrubbed young bride in the wedding photo. Her lips were bruised and swollen; her face was a map of nicks and scratches. A coiled IV tube was taped to a hand which had scabbed fingers and broken nails. It looked like the claw of a feral creature. But the expression on Mattie’s face was serene; it was a sleep without nightmares.

“Mrs. Purvis?” said Rizzoli softly.

Mattie opened her eyes and blinked a few times before she fully focused on her visitor. “Oh. Detective Rizzoli, you’re back again.”

“I thought I’d check in on you. How’re you feeling today?”

Mattie gave a deep sigh. “So much better. What time is it?”

“Nearly noon.”

“I’ve slept all morning?”

“You deserve it. No, don’t sit up, just take it easy.”

“But I’m tired of being flat on my back.” Mattie pushed back the covers and sat up, uncombed hair falling in limp tangles.

“I saw your baby through the nursery window. She’s beautiful.”

“Isn’t she?” Mattie smiled. “I’m going to call her Rose. I’ve always liked that name.”

Rose. A shiver went through Rizzoli. It was just a coincidence, one of those unexplainable convergences in the universe. Alice Rose. Rose Purvis. One girl long dead, the other just begi