The Apprentice

“Does it arouse you?”

“Yes. I think about her neck. Very slender. She has a nice, white neck.”

“What else do you think about?”

“I think about taking off her clothes. About how firm her breasts are. And her belly. A nice, flat belly…”

“So your fantasies about Dr. Cordell-they’re sexual?”

He paused. Blinked, as though shaken from a trance. “Dr. Cordell?”

“That’s who we’re talking about, isn’t it? The victim you never killed, Catherine Cordell.”

“Oh. I think of her, too. But she’s not the one I’m talking about.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“The other one.” He stared at the camera with a look of such intensity that Rizzoli could feel its heat. “The policewoman.”

“You mean the one who found you? That’s the woman you fantasize about?”

“Yes. Her name is Jane Rizzoli.”

EIGHTEEN

Dean stood up and pressed STOP on the VCR. The screen went blank. Warren Hoyt’s last words seemed to hang like a perpetual echo in the silence. In his fantasies, she had been stripped of her clothing and her dignity, reduced to naked body parts. Neck and breasts and belly. She wondered if that was how Dean now saw her, if the erotic visions that Hoyt had conjured were now imprinted in Dean’s mind as well.

He turned to look at her. She had never found his face easy to read, but in that instant the anger in his eyes was unmistakable.

“You understand, don’t you?” he said. “You were meant to see this tape. He laid a path of bread crumbs for you to follow. The envelope with O’Do

She stared at the blank TV. “He’s talking to me.”

“Exactly. He’s using O’Do

Once again, Hoyt’s face appeared on the screen. “It keeps me up at night. Thoughts of what might have been. The pleasure I was denied. All my life I’ve been meticulous about finishing what I start. So this disturbs me. I think about it all the time…”

Dean pressed stop and looked at her. “How does that make you feel? Knowing you’re always on his mind?”

“You know damn well how it makes me feel.”

“So does he. That’s why he wanted you to hear it.” Dean pressed FAST FORWARD and then play.

Hoyt’s eyes were eerily focused on the audience he couldn’t see. “I think about taking off her clothes. About how firm her breasts are. And her belly. A nice, flat belly…”

Again Dean hit STOP. His gaze made her flush.

“Don’t tell me,” she said. “You want to know how that makes me feel.”

“Exposed?”

“Yes.”

“Vulnerable.”

“Yes.”

“Violated.”

She swallowed and looked away. Said, softly: “Yes.”

“All the things he wants you to feel. You told me he’s attracted to damaged women. To women who’ve been violated. And that’s precisely the way he’s making you feel now. With mere words on a videotape. Just like a victim.”

Her gaze shot back to his. “No,” she said. “Not a victim. Do you want to know what I’m really feeling right now?”

“What?”

“I’m ready to tear that son of a bitch into shreds.” It was an answer launched on pure bravado, the words punched into the air. It took him aback, and he just frowned at her for a moment. Did he see how hard she was working to keep up the front? Had he heard the false note in her voice?

She forged ahead, not giving him the chance to see past her bluff. “You’re saying he knew, even then, that I’d eventually see this? That the tape was meant for me.”

“Didn’t it sound that way to you?”

“It sounded like any sicko’s fantasy.”

“Not just any sicko. And not just any victim. He’s talking about you, Jane. Talking about what he’d like to do to you.”

Alarms crackled through her nerve endings. Dean was turning it personal again, aiming it like an arrow straight at her. Did he enjoy seeing her squirm? Did this serve any purpose except to heighten her fears?

“At the time this was recorded, he already had his escape pla

“Is anyone that brilliant?”

“Isn’t Warren Hoyt?” he asked. It was another arrow launched to pierce her defenses. To drive home the obvious.

“He’s spent a year behind bars. He had a year to nurse his fantasies,” said Dean. “And they were all about you.”

“No, it was Catherine Cordell he wanted. It’s always been Cordell-”

“That’s not what he told O’Do

“Then he was lying.”

“Why?”

“To get at me. To rattle me-”

“Then you do agree. This tape was meant to end up in your hands. It’s a message directed at you.”

She stared at the blank TV. The ghost of Hoyt’s face still seemed to be staring at her. Everything he’d done was aimed at rattling her universe, destroying her peace of mind. It’s what he’d done to Cordell before he’d moved in for the kill. He wanted his victims terrified, broken down by exhaustion, and he harvested his prey only after they’d been thoroughly ripened by fear. She had no denials left to offer, no defense against the obvious.

Dean sat down and faced her across the table. “I think you should withdraw from this investigation,” he said quietly.

Startled, she stared at him. “Withdraw?”

“It’s become personal.”

“Between me and a perp, it’s always personal.”

“Not to this degree. He wants you on this case, so he can play his little games. Insinuate himself into every aspect of your life. As lead detective, you’re visible and accessible. Fully immersed in the hunt. And now he’s starting to stage the crime scenes for your benefit. To communicate with you.”

“All the more reason for me to stay on.”

“No. All the more reason for you to walk away. To put some distance between you and Hoyt.”

“I never walk away from anything, Agent Dean,” she shot back.

After a pause, he said dryly: “No. I can’t imagine you ever do.”

She was the one leaning forward now, in an attitude of confrontation. “What’s your problem with me, anyway? You’ve had it in for me from the start. You talked to Marquette behind my back. You raised doubts about me-”

“I never questioned your competence.”

“Then what is your problem with me?”

He responded to her anger in a voice that was calm and reasoned. “Consider who we’re dealing with. A man you once tracked down. A man who blames you for his capture. He’s still thinking about what he’d like to do to you. And you’ve spent the same year trying to forget what he did. He’s hungry for a second act, Jane. He’s laying the foundation, drawing you right in where he wants you. It’s not a safe place to be.”

“Is it really my safety you’re concerned about?”

“Are you implying I have another agenda?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t figured you out yet.”

He stood and went to the VCR. Ejected the tape and slid it back in the envelope. He was stalling for time, trying to come up with a believable answer.

He sat down again and looked at her. “The truth is,” he said, “I haven’t figured you out, either.”

She laughed. “Me? What you see is what you get.”

“All you’ll let me see is the cop. What about Jane Rizzoli, the woman?”

“They’re one and the same.”

“You know that’s not true. You just won’t let anyone see past the badge.”