The Apprentice

“You’re afraid I’ll rub off on you.”

“It’s like getting too close to fire. We’re drawn to it, even though we know damn well it’ll burn us.”

She pressed her lips to his. “A little danger,” she whispered, “can be very exciting.”

The evening drifted into night. They showered off each other’s sweat and gri

But even distance, and the comfort of a man’s arms, could not shut Hoyt from her dreams. She lurched awake in darkness, drenched in the sweat of fear, not passion. Through the pounding of her heart, she heard her cell phone ringing. It took her a few seconds to disentangle herself from Dean’s arms, to reach across him toward the nightstand on his side of the bed and flip open her cell phone.

“Rizzoli.”

Frost’s voice greeted her. “I guess I woke you up.”

She squinted at the clock radio. “Five A.M.? Yeah, that’s a safe assumption.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Why?”

“Look, I know you’re flying back today. But I thought you should know before you got here.”

“What?”

He didn’t immediately answer her. Over the phone, she heard someone ask him a question about bagging evidence, and she realized that at that moment he was working a scene.

Beside her, Dean stirred, alerted by her sudden tension. He sat up and turned on the light. “What’s going on?”

Frost came back on the line. “Rizzoli?”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I got called to a ten sixty-four. That’s where I am right now-”

“Why are you answering burglary calls?”

“Because it’s your apartment.”

She went completely still, the phone pressed to her ear, and heard the throb of her own pulse.

“Since you were out of town, we temporarily halted surveillance on your building,” said Frost. “Your neighbor down the hall in two-oh-three called it in. Ms., uh-”

“Spiegel,” she said softly. “Ginger.”

“Yeah. Seems like a real sharp girl. Says she’s a bartender down at McGinty’s. She was walking home from work and noticed glass under the fire escape. Looked up and saw your window was broken. Called nine-one-one right away. First officer on the scene realized it was your place. He called me.”

Dean touched her arm in silent inquiry. She ignored him. Clearing her throat, she managed to ask, with deceptive calmness, “Did he take anything?” Already she was using the word he. Without saying his name, they both knew who had done this.

“That’s what you’ll need to tell us when you get here,” said Frost.

“You’re there now?”

“Standing in your living room.”

She closed her eyes, feeling almost nauseated with rage as she pictured strangers invading her home. Opening her closets, touching her clothes. Lingering over her most intimate possessions.

“It looks to me like things are undisturbed,” said Frost. “Your TV and CD player are here. There’s a big jar of spare change still sitting on the kitchen counter. Is there anything else they might want to steal?”

My peace of mind. My sanity.

“Rizzoli?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

A pause. He said, gently: “I’ll go through it all with you, inch by inch. When you get home, we’ll do it together. Landlord’s already boarded up the window so the rain won’t get in. If you want to stay at my house for a while, I know it’ll be fine with Alice. We got a spare room never gets used-”

“I’m okay,” she said.

“It’s no problem-”

“I’m okay.”

There was anger in her voice, and pride. Most of all, pride.

Frost knew enough to ease off and not feel offended. He said, unruffled, “Give me a call as soon as you get in.”

Dean was watching as she hung up. Suddenly she could not stand to be looked at while naked and afraid. To have her vulnerability on full display. She climbed out of bed, went into the bathroom, and locked the door.

A moment later, he knocked. “Jane?”

“I’m going to take another shower.”

“Don’t shut me out.” He knocked again. “Come out and talk to me.”

“When I’m finished.” She turned on the shower. Stepped in, not because she needed to wash but because ru

She stepped out of the bathroom. Dean was sitting in the armchair by the window. He said nothing, just watched as she began to dress, picking up her clothes from the floor as she circled the bed, its rumpled sheets the mute evidence of their passion. One phone call had ended it, and now she moved about the room with brittle resolve, buttoning her blouse, zipping up her slacks. Outside, it was still dark, but for her, the night was over.

“Are you going to tell me?” he said.

“Hoyt was in my apartment.”

“They know it was him?”

She turned to face him. “Who else would it be?”

The words came out shriller than she’d intended. Flushing, she retrieved her shoes from under the bed. “I have to get home.”

“It’s five in the morning. Your plane leaves at nine-thirty.”

“Do you really expect me to go back to sleep? After this?”

“You’ll get into Boston exhausted.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Because you’re wired on adrenaline.”

She shoved her feet into her shoes. “Stop it, Dean.”

“Stop what?”

“Trying to take care of me.”

A silence passed. Then he said, with a note of sarcasm, “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.”

She paused with her back to him, already regretting her words. Wishing for the first time that he would take care of her. That he would put his arms around her and coax her back to bed. That they would sleep holding each other until it was time for her to leave.

But when she turned to face him, she saw that he was out of the chair and already getting dressed.

TWENTY-FOUR

She fell asleep on the plane. As they started the descent into Boston, she woke up feeling drugged and desperately thirsty. The bad weather had followed her from D.C., and turbulence rattled seat-back trays and passengers’ nerves as they dropped through the clouds. Outside her window, the wing tips vanished behind a curtain of gray, but she was too tired to register even a twinge of anxiety about the flight. And Dean was still on her mind, distracting her from what she should be focused on. She stared out at the mist and remembered the touch of his hands, the warmth of his breath on her skin.

And she remembered their last words at the airport curb, a cool and rushed good-bye under pattering rain. Not the parting of lovers but of business associates, anxious to get on with their separate concerns. She blamed herself for the new distance between them and blamed him, as well, for letting her walk away. Once again, Washington had turned into the city of regrets and stained sheets.

The plane touched down in a driving rain. She saw ramp perso

Wheeling her suitcase from baggage claim, she stepped outside and was hit with a blast of wind-driven rain that angled under the overhang. A long line of dispirited people stood waiting for taxis. Sca