The Apprentice

“What’s this?” she said.

“Tequila. I found it in your cupboard.”

She took the glass and frowned at it. “I forgot I had it. It’s ancient.”

“Well, it hadn’t been opened.”

That’s because she did not care for the taste of tequila. The bottle was just another one of those useless boozy gifts her brother Frankie brought home from his travels, like the Kahlua liqueur from Hawaii and the sake from Japan. Frankie’s way of showing off what a man of the world he was, thanks to the U.S. Marine Corps. This was as good a time as any to sample his souvenir from su

She looked at Dean again. He was sitting across from her, and their gazes were now level. The drink, tossed into her empty stomach, was already asserting itself, and her limbs felt nerveless. The anesthesia of alcohol. She was detached and calm, dangerously so.

He leaned toward her, and she did not pull away with her usual defensiveness. Dean was invading her personal space, the way few men had ever tried to do, and she let him. She surrendered to him.

“We’re no longer dealing with a single killer,” he said. “We’re dealing with a partnership. And one of those two partners is a man you know better than anyone else does. Whether you want to admit it or not, you have a special link to Warren Hoyt. Which makes you a link to the Dominator as well.”

She released a deep breath and said, softly: “It’s the way Warren works best. It’s what he craves. A partner. A mentor.”

“He had one in Sava

“Yes. A doctor named Andrew Capra. After Capra was killed, Warren was left on his own. That’s when he came to Boston. But he never stopped looking for a new partner. Someone who’d share his cravings. His fantasies.”

“I’m afraid he’s found him.”

They gazed at each other, both understanding the grim consequences of this new development.

“They’re twice as effective now,” he said. “Wolves work better in a pack than they do alone.”

“Cooperative hunting.”

He nodded. “It makes everything easier. The stalking. The cornering. Maintaining control of the victims…”

She sat up straight. “The teacup,” she said.

“What about it?”

“There wasn’t one at the Ghent death scene. Now we know why.”

“Because Warren Hoyt was there to help him.”

She nodded. “The Dominator had no need for a warning system. He had a partner who could alert him if the husband moved. A partner who stood by and watched the whole thing. And Warren would get off on it. He’d enjoy it. It’s part of his fantasy. To watch as the woman is assaulted.”

“And the Dominator craves an audience.”

She nodded. “That’s why he’s chosen couples. So there’d be someone to watch. To see him enjoy ultimate power over a woman’s body.”

The ordeal she described was so intimate a violation that she found it painful to look Dean in the eyes. But she held her gaze. The sexual assault of women was a crime that awakened the prurient curiosity of too many men. As the lone woman in the room at morning investigative conferences, she had watched her male colleagues discuss the details of such assaults and had heard the electric hum of interest in their voices, even as they strove to maintain the appearance of sober professionalism. They lingered over the pathologist’s reports of sexual injuries, stared too long at the crime scene photos of women with legs splayed apart. Their reactions made Rizzoli feel personally violated as well, and over the years she had developed a hair-trigger sensitivity to even a flicker of unseemly interest in a cop’s eyes whenever the subject was rape. Now, looking into Dean’s eyes, she searched for that disturbing flicker but saw none. Nor had she seen anything but grim determination in his eyes when he had stared down at the violated corpses of Gail Yeager and Kare

“You said that Hoyt craves a mentor,” he said.

“Yes. Someone to lead the way. To teach him.”

“Teach him what? He already knows how to kill.”

She paused to take another sip of tequila. When she looked at him again, she found he had leaned even closer, as though afraid to miss her softest utterance.

“Variations on a theme,” she said. “Women and pain. How many ways can you defile a body? How many ways can you inflict torture? Warren had a pattern he stuck to for several years. Maybe he’s ready to expand his horizons.”

“Or this unsub is ready to expand his.”

She paused. “The Dominator?”

“We may have turned it around. Maybe it’s our unknown subject who seeks a mentor. And he’s chosen Warren Hoyt as his teacher.”

She stared at him, chilled by the thought. The word teacher implied mastery. Authority. Was this the role into which Hoyt had transformed during his months behind prison walls? Had confinement nurtured his fantasies, honed his urges to razor-sharp purpose? He had been formidable enough before his arrest; she did not even want to think about a more powerful incarnation of Warren Hoyt.

Dean sank back in the chair, blue eyes regarding his glass of tequila. He had sipped only sparingly, and now he set the glass down on the coffee table. He’d always struck her as a man who never let his discipline weaken, who had learned to keep all impulses in check. But fatigue was taking its toll, and his shoulders were slumping, his eyes shot through with red. He rubbed his hand across his face. “How do two monsters manage to co

“And so fast?” she added. “The Ghents were attacked only two days after Warren escaped.”

Dean lifted his head and looked at her. “They already knew each other.”

“Or they knew of each other.”

Certainly the Dominator would have known about Warren Hoyt. It was impossible to read a Boston newspaper last fall and be ignorant of the atrocities he had committed. Even if they had not met, Hoyt would know about the unsub as well, if only through news reports. He would have heard about the Yeagers’ deaths, would have known that there existed a monster very much like him. He would wonder who this other predator might be, this brother in blood. Communication through murder, the message relayed via TV news shows and the Boston Globe.

He’s seen me on TV as well. Hoyt knew I was at the Yeager death scene. And now he is trying to make my reacquaintance.

Dean’s touch made her flinch. He was frowning at her, leaning even closer than before, and it seemed to her that no man had ever focused on her so intently.

No man except the Surgeon.

“It’s not the Dominator who’s playing games with me,” she said. “It’s Hoyt. The stakeout fiasco-it was meant to bring me down. It’s the only way he can approach a woman, by bringing her down first. Demoralizing her, tearing away bits and pieces of her life. It’s why he chose rape victims to kill. Women who’d already been symbolically destroyed. Before he attacks, he needs to have us weak. Afraid.”

“You’re the last woman I’d ever characterize as weak.”

She flushed at the praise, because she knew it was not deserved. “I’m just trying to explain to you the way he works,” she said. “How he stalks his prey. Incapacitates them before he moves in. He did it with Catherine Cordell. Before his final attack, he played mind games to terrify her. Sent her messages to let her know he could walk in and out of her life without her knowing he was there. Like a ghost, walking through walls. She didn’t know when he’d appear next, or what direction the attack would come from. But she knew it was coming. That’s how he wears you down. By letting you know that someday, when you least expect it, he’ll come for you.”