The Surgeon (38 page)

Epilogue
It is cold in my cell. Outside, the harsh winds of
February are blowing and I am told it has once again begun
to snow I sit on my cot, a blanket draped over my shoulders,
.
and remember how the delicious heat had enveloped us
like a cloak on the day we walked the streets of Livadia. To
the north of that Greek town, there are two springs which were
known in ancient times as Lethe and Mnemosyne.
Forgetfulness and Memory. We drank from both springs,
you and I, and then we fell asleep in the dappled shade of

an olive grove.
I think of this now because I do not like this cold. It makes
,
my skin dry and cracked, and I cannot slather on enough
cream to counter winter's effects. It is only the lovely
memory of heat, of you and me walking in Livadia, the
sunbaked stones warming our sandals, that comforts me
now .
The days go slowly here. I am alone in my cell, shielded
from the other inmates by my notoriety. Only the
psychiatrists talk to me, but they are losing interest, because
I can offer them no thrilling glimpse of pathology. As a child I
tortured no animals, set no fires, and I never wet my bed. I
attended church. I was polite to my elders.
I wore sunscreen.
I am as sane as they are, and they know this.
It is only my fantasies that set me apart, my fantasies that
have led me to this cold cell, in this cold city, where the wind
blows white with snow.
As I hug the blanket to my shoulders, it's hard to believe
there are places in the world where golden bodies lie
glistening with sweat on warm sand, and beach umbrellas
flutter in the breeze. But that is just the sort of place where
she has gone.

I reach under the mattress and take out the scrap which I
have torn from today's cast-off newspaper, which the guard
so kindly slipped me for a price.
It is a wedding announcement. At 3:00 P.M. on February 15,
Dr. Catherine Cordell was married to Thomas Moore.
The bride was given away by her father, Col. Robert
Cordell. She wore an ivory beaded gown with an Empire
waist. The groom wore black.
A reception followed at the Copley Plaza Hotel in the
Back Bay. After a lengthy honeymoon in the Caribbean, the
couple will reside in Boston.
I fold up the scrap of newspaper and slip it under my
mattress, where it will be safe.
A lengthy honeymoon in the Caribbean.
She is there now.
I see her, lying with eyes closed on the beach, bits of sand
sparkling on her skin. Her hair is like red silk splayed
across the towel. She drowses in the heat, her arms
boneless and relaxed.
And then, in the next instant, she jerks awake. Her eyes

snap wide open, and her heart is pounding. Fear bathes her
in cold sweat.
She is thinking of me. Just as I am thinking of her.
We are forever linked, as intimately as two lovers. She
feels the tendrils of my fantasies, winding around her. She
can never break the bindings.
In my cell, the lights go out; the long night begins, with its
echoes of men asleep in cages. Their snores and coughs
and breathing. Their mumblings as they dream. But as the
night falls quiet, it is not Catherine Cordell I think of, but you.
You, who are the source of my deepest pain.
For this, I would drink deeply from the spring of Lethe, the
spring of forgetfulness, just to wipe clean the memory of our
last night in Savannah. The last night I saw you alive.
The images float before me now forcing themselves
,
before my retinas, as I stare into the darkness of my cell.
I am looking down at your shoulders, and admiring how
your skin gleams so much darker against hers, how the
muscles of your back contract as you thrust into her again
and again. I watch you take her that night, the way you took
the others before her. And when you are done, and have
spilled your seed inside her, you look at me and smile.

And you say: "There, now She's ready for you."
.
But the drug has not yet worn off, and when I press the
blade to her belly, she barely flinches.
No pain, no pleasure.
"We have all night," you say. "Just wait."
My throat is dry, so we go into the kitchen, where I fill a
glass of water. The night has just begun, and my hands
shake with excitement. The thought of what comes next has
engorged me, and as I sip the water, I remind myself to
prolong the pleasure. We have all night, and we want to
make it last.
See one, do one, teach one, you tell me. Tonight, you've
promised, the scalpel is mine.
But I am thirsty, and so I lag behind in the kitchen, while
you return to see if she is awake yet. I am still standing by
the sink when the gun goes off.
Here time freezes. I remember the silence that followed.
The ticking of the kitchen clock. The sound of my own heart
pounding in my ears. I am listening, straining to hear your
footsteps. To hear you tell me it is time to leave, and quickly.
I am afraid to move.

At last I force myself to walk down the hall, into her
bedroom. I stop in the doorway.
It takes a moment for me to comprehend the horror.
She lies with her body draped over the side of the bed,
struggling to pull herself back onto the mattress. A gun has
fallen from her hand. I cross to the bed, grasp a surgical
retractor from the nightstand, and slam it against her temple.
She falls still.
I turn and focus on you.
Your eyes are open, and you lie on your back, staring up
at me. A pool of blood spreads around you. Your lips move,
but I can't hear any words. You do not move your legs, and I
realize the bullet has damaged your spinal cord. Again you
try to speak, and this time I understand what you are telling
me:
Do it. Finish it.
You are not talking about her, but about yourself.
I shake my head, appalled by what you ask me to do. I
cannot. Please don't expect me to do this! I stand trapped
between your desperate request and my panic to flee.
Do it now your eyes plead with me. Before they come.
,

I look at your legs, splayed out and useless. I consider
the horrors that lie ahead for you, should you live. I could
spare you all of this.
Please.
I look at the woman. She doesn't move, doesn't register
my presence. I would like to wrench her hair back, to bare
her neck and sink the blade deep in her throat, for what she
has done to you. But they must find her alive. Only if she is
alive will I be able to walk away, unpursued.
My hands are sweating inside the latex gloves, and when I
pick up the gun it feels clumsy, foreign in my grasp.
I stand at the edge of the pool of blood, looking down at
you. I think of that magical evening, when we wandered the
Temple of Artemis. It was misty, and in the gathering dusk I
caught fleeting glimpses of you, walking among the trees.
Suddenly you stopped, and smiled at me through the
twilight. And our gazes seemed to meet across the great
divide that stretches between the world of the living and the
world of the dead.
I am looking across that divide now and I feel your gaze
,
on mine.
This is all for you, Andrew I think. I do this for you.
,

I see gratitude in your eyes. It is there even as I raise the
gun in my shaking hands. Even as I pull the trigger.
Your blood flicks against my face, warm as tears.
I turn to the woman who still sprawls senseless over the
side of the bed. I place the gun by her hand. I grasp her hair,
and with the scalpel, I slice off a lock near the nape of her
neck, where its absence will not be noticed. With this lock, I
will remember her. By its scent will I remember her fear, as
heady as the smell of blood. It will tide me over until I meet
her again.
I walk out the back door, into the night.
I no longer possess that precious lock of hair. But I do not
need it now because I know her scent as well as I know my
,
own. I know the taste of her blood. I know the silken glaze of
sweat on her skin. All this do I carry in my dreams, where
pleasure shrieks like a woman and walks with bloody
footprints. Not all souvenirs can be held in one's hand, or
fondled with a touch. Some we can only store in that deepest
part of our brains, our reptilian core, from which we have all
sprung.
That part inside us all which so many of us would deny.

I have never denied it. I acknowledge my essential nature;
I embrace it. I am as God created me, as God created us all.
As the lamb is blessed, so is the lion.
So is the hunter.

Read on for an exciting preview of
ICE COLD
A Rizzoli & Isles Novel
by Tess Gerritsen
On sale in hardcover June 29, 2010

Even before Detective Queenan introduced himself, Jane
would have pegged him as a cop. He stood beside a snow-
covered Toyota in the parking lot of the Mountain Lodge,
conversing with a man and a woman. As Jane and her party
climbed out of their rental car and approached the Toyota, it
was Queenan who turned to look at them, watching with the
alert gaze that characterized a man whose job was all about
observation. In every other way he seemed ordinary--balding,
overweight, his mustache streaked with the first hints of gray.
"Are you Detective Queenan?" said Gabriel.
The man nodded. "You must be Agent Dean."
"And I'm Detective Rizzoli," said Jane.
Queenan frowned at her. "Boston PD?"
"Homicide unit," she said.
"Homicide? Aren't you folks kind of jumping the gun here?
We don't know that any crime's been committed."
"Dr. Isles is a friend of ours," said Jane. "She's a reliable
professional, and she wouldn't go missing on a whim. We're
all concerned about her welfare."
Queenan turned to look at Brophy. "And are you with Boston

PD, too?"
"No, sir," said Brophy. "I'm a priest."
At that, Queenan gave a startled laugh. "A fibbie, a cop,
and a priest. Now, that's a team I haven't seen before."
"What have you got so far?" Jane asked.
"Well, we have this," Queenan said, and he pointed at the
parked Toyota where two people stood, watching the
conversation. The man was named Finch, and he worked as a
security guard for the lodge. The woman was an employee
with the Hertz rental car agency.
"This Toyota's been parked here since at least Friday
night," said Finch. "Hasn't been moved."
"You confirmed that on surveillance video?" asked Jane.
"Uh, no, ma'am. Cameras don't cover this lot."
"Then how do you know it's been here that long?"
"Look at the snow piled up on it. We had a big storm on
Saturday that dumped almost two feet, which is about what I
see on this car."
"This is Maura's car?"
The Hertz lady said, "The rental contract for this vehicle was

made out to a Dr. Maura Isles. It was booked online three
weeks ago, and she picked it up last Tuesday. Paid for it with
an AmEx card. It was supposed to be returned to our airport
lot yesterday morning."
"She didn't call to extend the rental?" asked Gabriel.
"No, sir." The woman pulled a key ring out of her pocket and
looked at Queenan. "Here's that spare key you wanted,
Detective."
Queenan pulled on a set of latex gloves and unlocked the
front passenger door. Gingerly he leaned inside and opened
the glove compartment, where he found the rental contract.
"Maura Isles," he confirmed, scanning the papers. He peered
at the odometer. "Looks like she put in about ninety miles. Not
much driving for a six-day rental."
"She was here for a medical conference," said Jane. "And
she was staying at this hotel. She probably didn't get much of
a chance for sightseeing." Jane peered through the window,
careful not to touch the glass. Except for a folded USA Today
lying on the front passenger seat, the interior looked spotless.
Of course it would be; Maura was a neatness freak, and Jane
had never spied so much as a stray Kleenex in her Lexus.
"What's the date on that newspaper?" she asked.
Queenan unfolded the USA Today . "It's last Tuesday's."
"The day she flew here," said Brophy. "She must have

picked it up at the airport."
Queenan straightened. "Let's take a look in the trunk," he
said. He circled to the rear, brushed off the snow, and pressed
the unlock button on the remote. They all gathered around to
watch, and Jane noticed Queenan hesitate before reaching
down with a gloved hand to lift open the trunk. The same
thought was probably going through all their heads at that
moment. A missing woman. An abandoned vehicle . Too
many surprises had been found in car trunks, too many
horrors folded like embryos inside steel wombs. In these
freezing temperatures, there would be no odors to alert
anyone, no olfactory clues of what might lie inside. As
Queenan lifted the trunk, Jane felt her breath catch in her
throat. She stared into the now revealed space.
"Empty and clean as a whistle," said Queenan, and she
heard relief in his voice. He looked at Gabriel. "So we have a
rental car that looks to be in good shape, and no luggage.
Wherever your friend went, she took her stuff with her. That
sounds like a planned jaunt to me."
"Then where is she?" said Jane. "Why isn't she answering
her cell phone?"
Queenan looked at her as though she were merely an
irritating distraction. "I don't know your friend. Maybe you have
a better handle on that answer than I do."
The Hertz lady said, "When can we get this vehicle back?

It's part of our fleet."
"We'll need to hold on to it for a while," said Queenan.
"How long?"
"Until we decide if a crime has actually been committed. At
the moment, I'm not sure."
"Then how do you explain her disappearance?" said Jane.
Once again, that flicker of irritation passed through his eyes
when he looked at her. "I said I'm not sure. I'm keeping an
open mind, ma'am. How about we all try doing that?"
"I CAN'T SAY I really remember this particular guest," said
Michelle, a desk clerk at the Mountain Lodge. "But then, we
had two hundred doctors, plus their families, staying here last
week. There's no way I could have kept track of everyone."
They had crowded into the manager's office, which was
barely large enough to hold them all. The manager stood near
the door with his arms crossed as he watched the interview. It
was his presence, more than the questions, that seemed to
make Michelle nervous, and she kept glancing toward her
boss, as if afraid he'd disapprove of her answers.
"Then you don't recognize her picture?" Queenan asked,
tapping on the official photo that Jane had printed off the
Massachusetts medical examiner's website. It was an image