The Surgeon (34 page)

separate from his day-to-day life. A place he retreats to in
anonymity, possibly quite distant from his apartment. It may
not be rented under his real name."
"You rent a place, you have to pay for it," said Frost. "We
follow the money."
Zucker nodded. "You'll know it's his lair when you find it,
because his trophies will be there. The souvenirs he took from
his kills. It's possible he's even prepared this lair as a place to
eventually bring his victims. The ultimate torture chamber. It's a
place where privacy is assured, where he won't be
interrupted. A stand-alone building. Or an apartment that's well
insulated for sound."
So no one can hear Cordell screaming, thought Rizzoli.
"In this place, he can become the creature he truly is. He
can feel relaxed and uninhibited. He's never left semen at any
of the crime scenes, which tells me he's able to delay sexual
gratification until he's in a safe place. This lair is that place.
He probably visits it from time to time, to re-experience the
thrill of the slaughter. To sustain himself between kills." Zucker
looked around the room. "That's where he's taken Catherine
Cordell."
The Greeks call it dere, which refers to the front of the neck,
or the throat, and it is the most beautiful, the most

vulnerable, part of a woman's anatomy. In the throat pulses
life and breath, and beneath the milky white skin of
Iphigenia, blue veins would have throbbed at the point of her
father's knife. As Iphigenia lay stretched upon the altar, did
Agamemnon pause to admire the delicate lines of his
daughter's neck? Or did he study the landmarks, to choose
the most efficient point at which his blade should pierce her
skin? Though anguished by this sacrifice, at the instant his
knife sank in, did he not feel just the slightest frisson in his
loins, a jolt of sexual pleasure as he thrust his blade into her
flesh?
Even the ancient Greeks, with their hideous tales of
parents devouring offspring and sons coupling with mothers,
do not mention such details of depravity. They did not need
to; it is one of those secret truths we all understand without
benefit of words. Of those warriors who stood with stony
expressions and hearts hardened against a maiden's
screams, of those who watched as Iphigenia was stripped
naked, and her swan neck was bared to the knife, how many
of those soldiers felt the unexpected heat of pleasure flood
their groins? Felt their cocks harden?
How many would ever again look at a woman's throat, and
not feel the urge to cut it?
*   *   *

Her throat is as pale as Iphigenia's must have been. She
has protected herself from the sun, as every redhead
should, and there are only a few freckles marring the
alabaster translucence of her skin. These two years, she
has kept her neck flawless for me. I appreciate that.
I have waited patiently for her to regain consciousness. I
know she is now awake and aware of me, because her pulse
has quickened. I touch her throat, at the hollow just above
the breastbone, and she takes in a sharp breath. She does
not release it as I stroke up the side of her neck, tracing the
course of her carotid artery. Her pulse throbs, heaving the
skin with rhythmic quakes. I feel the gloss of her sweat
beneath my finger. It has bloomed like mist on her skin, and
her face glows with its sheen. As I stroke up to the angle of
her jaw she finally releases her breath; it comes out in a
,
whimper, muffled by the tape over her mouth. This is not like
my Catherine to whimper. The others were stupid gazelles,
but Catherine is a tigress, the only one who ever struck back
and drew blood.
She opens her eyes and looks at me, and I see that she
understands. I have finally won. She, the worthiest of them
all, is conquered.
I lay out my instruments. They make a pleasant clang as I
set them on the metal tray by the bed. I feel her watching
me, and know her gaze is drawn to the sharp reflection off

stainless steel. She knows what each one is for, as she has
certainly used such instruments many times. The retractor
is to spread apart the edges of an incision. The hemostat is
to clamp tissues and blood vessels. And the scalpel--well,
we both know what a scalpel is used for.
I set the tray near her head, so she can see, and
contemplate, what comes next. I don't have to say a word;
the glitter of the instruments says everything.
I touch her naked belly and her abdominal muscles snap
tight. It is a virgin belly, without any scars marring its flat
surface. The blade will part her skin like butter.
I pick up the scalpel, and press its tip to her abdomen.
She gasps in a breath and her eyes go wide.
Once, I saw a photograph of a zebra just as a lion's fangs
have sunk into its throat, and the zebra's eyes are rolled
back in mortal terror. It is an image I will never forget. That is
the look I see now in Catherine's eyes.
,
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Catherine's breaths roared in and out of her lungs as she
felt the scalpel tip prick her skin. Drenched in sweat, she
closed her eyes, dreading the pain that was about to come. A

sob caught in her throat, a cry to the heavens for mercy, even
for a quick death, but not this. Not the slicing of flesh.
Then the scalpel lifted away.
She opened her eyes and looked into his face. So ordinary,
so forgettable. A man she might have seen a dozen times and
never registered. Yet he knew her. He had hovered on the
edges of her world, had placed her at the bright center of his
universe, while he circled around her, unseen in the darkness.
And I never knew he was there.
He set the scalpel down on the tray. And smiling, he said,
"Not yet."
Only when he'd walked out of the room did she know the
torment was postponed, and she gave a sharp gasp of relief.
So this was his game. Prolong the terror, prolong the
pleasure. For now he would keep her alive, giving her time to
contemplate what came next.
Every minute alive is another minute to escape.
The effect of the chloroform had dissipated, and she was
fully alert, her mind racing on the potent fuel of panic. She was
lying spreadeagled on a steel-framed bed. Her clothes had
been stripped off; her wrists and ankles were bound to the
bedframe with duct tape. Though she yanked and strained

against the bindings until her muscles quivered from
exhaustion, she could not free herself. Four years ago, in
Savannah, Capra had used nylon cord to bind her wrists, and
she had managed to slip one hand free; the Surgeon would
not repeat that mistake.
Drenched with sweat, too tired to keep struggling, she
focused on her surroundings.
A single bare lightbulb hung above the bed. The scent of
earth and dank stone told her she was in a cellar. Turning her
head, she could make out, just beyond the circle of light, the
cobbled surface of the stone foundation.
Footsteps creaked overhead, and she heard chair legs
scrape. A wooden floor. An old house. Upstairs, a TV went on.
She could not remember how she had arrived in this room or
how long the drive had taken. They might be miles away from
Boston, in a place where no one would think to look.
The gleam of the tray drew her gaze. She stared at the
array of instruments, neatly laid out for the procedure to come.
Countless times she herself had wielded such instruments,
had thought of them as tools of healing. With scalpels and
clamps she had excised cancers and bullets, had stanched
the hemorrhage from ruptured arteries and drained chest
cavities drowning in blood. Now she stared at the tools she
had used to save lives and saw the instruments of her own
death. He had put them close to the bed, so she could study
them and contemplate the razor edge of the scalpel, the steel

teeth of the hemostats.
Don't panic. Think. Think.
She closed her eyes. Fear was like a living thing, wrapping
its tentacles around her throat.
You beat them before. You can do it again.
She felt a drop of perspiration slide down her breast, into
the sweat-soaked mattress. There was a way out. There had
to be a way out, a way to fight back. The alternative was too
terrible to contemplate.
Opening her eyes, she stared at the lightbulb overhead and
focused her scalpel-sharp mind on what to do next. She
remembered what Moore had told her: that the Surgeon fed
on terror. He attacked women who were damaged, who were
victims. Women to whom he felt superior.
He will not kill me until he has conquered me.
She drew in a deep breath, understanding now what game
had to be played. Fight the fear. Welcome the rage. Show
him that no matter what he does to you, you cannot be
defeated.
Even in death.

twenty-four
R    izzoli jerked awake, and pain stabbed her neck
like a knife. Lord, not another pulled muscle, she thought as
she slowly raised her head and blinked at the sunlight in the
office window. The other workstations in her pod were
deserted; she was the only one sitting at a desk. Sometime
around six, she'd put her head down in exhaustion, promising
herself just a short nap. It was now nine-thirty. The stack of
computer printouts she'd used as a pillow was damp with
drool.

She glanced at Frost's workstation and saw his jacket
hanging over the back of the chair. A doughnut bag sat on
Crowe's desk. So the rest of the team had come in while she
was sleeping and had surely seen her slack-jawed and
leaking spittle. What an entertaining sight that must have
been.
She stood and stretched, trying to work the crick out of her
neck, but knew it was futile. She'd just have to go through the
day with her head askew.
"Hey, Rizzoli. Get your beauty sleep?"
Turning, she saw a detective from one of the other teams
grinning at her across the partition.
"Don't I look it?" she growled. "Where is everyone?"
"Your team's been in conference since eight."
"What?"
"I think the meeting just broke up."
"No one bothered to tell me." She headed up the hall, the
last cobwebs of sleep blasted away by anger. Oh, she knew
what was going on. This was how they drove you out, not with
a frontal assault but with the drip, drip of humiliation. Leave
you out of the meetings, out of the loop. Reduce you to
cluelessness.

She walked into the conference room. The only one there
was Barry Frost, gathering his papers from the table. He
looked up, and a faint flush spread across his face when he
saw her.
"Thanks for letting me know about the meeting," she said.
"You looked so wiped out. I figured I could catch you up on
all this later."
"When, next week?"
Frost looked down, avoiding her gaze. They'd worked
together as partners long enough for her to recognize the guilt
in his face.
"So I'm out in the cold," she said. "Was that Marquette's
decision?"
Frost gave an unhappy nod. "I argued against it. I told him
we needed you. But he said, with the shooting and all . . ."
"He said what?"
Reluctantly Frost finished: "That you were no longer an
asset to the unit."
No longer an asset. Translation: her career was finished.
Frost left the room. Suddenly dizzy from lack of sleep and

food, she dropped into a chair and just sat there, staring at the
empty table. For an instant she had a flashback to being nine
years old, the despised sister, wanting desperately to be
accepted as one of the boys. But the boys had rejected her,
as they always did. She knew Pacheco's death was not the
real reason she'd been shut out. Bad shootings had not ruined
the careers of other cops. But when you were a woman and
better than anyone else and you had the nerve to let them
know it, a single mistake like Pacheco was all it took.
When she returned to her desk, she found the workpod
deserted. Frost's jacket was now gone; so was Crowe's
doughnut bag. She, too, might as well split. In fact, she ought
to just clean out her desk right now, since there was no future
for her here.
She opened her drawer to take out her purse and paused.
An autopsy photo of Elena Ortiz stared up at her from a jumble
of papers. I'm his victim, too, she thought. Whatever
resentments she might hold against her colleagues, she did
not lose sight of the fact the Surgeon was responsible for her
downfall. The Surgeon was the one who had humiliated her.
She slammed the drawer shut. Not yet. I'm not ready for
surrender.
She glanced at Frost's desk and saw the stack of papers
that he'd gathered from the conference table. She looked
around to make sure no one was watching her. The only other

detectives were at another pod at the far end of the room.
She grabbed Frost's papers, took them to her desk, and
sat down to read.
They were Warren Hoyt's financial records. This was what
the case had come down to: a paper chase. Follow the
money, find Hoyt. She saw credit card charges, bank checks,
deposits and withdrawals. A lot of big numbers. Hoyt's
parents had left him a wealthy young man, and he'd indulged
in travel every winter to the Caribbean and Mexico. She found
no evidence of another residence, no rent checks, no fixed
monthly payments.
Of course not. He was not stupid. If he maintained a lair,
he'd pay for it in cash.
Cash. You can't always predict when you'll run out of cash.
ATM withdrawals were often unplanned or spontaneous
transactions.
She flipped through the bank records, searching for every
ATM use, and jotted them down on a separate piece of paper.
Most were cash withdrawals from locations near Hoyt's
residence or the medical center, areas within his normal field
of activity. It was the unusual she was searching for, the
transactions that didn't fit his pattern.
She found two of them. One at a bank in Nashua, New
Hampshire, on June 26. The other was at an ATM in Hobb's

FoodMart in Lithia, Massachusetts, on May 13.
She leaned back, wondering if Moore was already chasing
down these two transactions. With so many other details to
follow up on and all the interviews with Hoyt's colleagues at
the lab, a pair of ATM withdrawals might be way down on the
team's priority list.
She heard footsteps and glanced up with a start, panicked
that she'd been caught reading Frost's papers, but it was only
a clerk from the lab who walked into the pod. The clerk gave
Rizzoli a smile, dropped a folder on Moore's desk, and
walked out again.
After a moment, Rizzoli rose from her chair and went to
Moore's desk to peek inside the folder. The first page was a
report from Hair and Fiber, an analysis of the light brown
strands found on Warren Hoyt's pillow.
Trichorrhexis invaginata, compatible with hair strand
found in wound margin of victim Elena Ortiz. Bingo.
Confirmation that Hoyt was their man.
She flipped to a second page. This, too, was a report from
Hair and Fiber, on a strand found on Hoyt's bathroom floor.
This one did not make sense. This did not fit in.
She closed the folder and walked to the lab.