Warning: contains attempted rape
Chapter 1:
April 20
The moon was full. It made it even more complicated. The silver glow that was cast by the moon made shadows as defined as midday despite the thin layer of cloud cover. Dressed entirely in black, with only her eyes showing beneath her hood, Jane Rizzoli moved like a shadow in the stillness of the night. The thousands of natural noisemakers, crickets and tree frogs, gave her some cover, but not enough. There was never enough cover. She reminded herself that she was in Connecticut corn country facing a clueless adversary, but then she remembered the penalty for failing to respect one's adversary.
The O'Rourke brothers had been arguing for every one of the twenty minutes that Jane had been monitoring them. The bud in her left ear picked up every word, beamed to her form the tiny wireless transmitter she'd stuck to the lowest pane of the front window. From what she'd been able to determine from her hasty research in the past few hours, the O'Rourkes were nobodies – just a pair of losers from Boston whose motives for this kidnapping adventure were unclear, and from Jane's perspective, irrelevant.
The stress of the kidnappers' ordeal had clearly begun to take its toll. They'd counted on Maura Isles' parents coughing up the ransom quickly, and now they couldn't figure out what had gone wrong.
"I'm tired of being jerked off by that asshole," Lionel said, the older of the two and the hothead. "Old Paddy Doyle needs more proof; maybe we should just cut off a piece of Maura and send it to her old man in an envelope."
Jane picked up her pace, kneeling in the dew-wet grass to un-sling her black rucksack and open the flap. With her night vision girl in place, the darkness burned like green daylight.
"You're not serious," said Little Brother Tommy. His tone carried an unstated plea. He was the pacifist. Jane liked pacifists. They lived longer.
"Watch me."
Lionel continued to rant as Jane pulled a coli of detonating cord from her pack and slid a K-Bar knife from its sheath on her left shoulder. She measured out about an inch of cord, sliced it off the roll, and slid the knife back into its sheath. With a loop of black electrician's tape, she attached the detonating cord to the cable that bought electrical service to the house, then slid the initiator into place. Detonating cord was the best stuff in the world. It could be a bit of overkill in this case, but it was unquestionably effective.
"Chris said to wait," Tommy said to his brother.
Jane pressed the transmit button in the center of her Kevlar vest and whispered, "Boss's name is Chris." It was the missing piece of data from three days of gathering intel.
A familiar voice crackled in her ear. "Copy that. Any sign of him yet?"
"I was going to ask you," Jane whispered. "I've only got two friends here." They knew from an eyewitness to Maura Isles' kidnapping that three hooded figures had carried the struggling Boston Cambridge University student, Maura Isles, out of her apartment in the middle of the night. Jane didn't like the fact that one member of the team was unaccounted for.
The tone and the pace of the kidnappers' argument told him that their frustration level had passed the tipping point into desperation. She moved faster.
"This whole thing is hopelessly messed up," Lionel said. "Maybe Chris got picked up by the cops."
"Maybe you're just paranoid." Tommy soothed.
"This was supposed to be easy money. My ass."
Jane was at the back of the house now – the black side, as she thought of it – and it was time to prepare the doors for entry. The O'Rourkes had stashed Maura Isles in the basement cellar. Constructed entirely of stone, from the outside it could be accessed through two heavy wooden doors that sloped at a shallow angle from ground level. When the time came those doors would become Jane's point of entry.
Pulling her cell phone from its pouch on her vest, Jane opened the cover and viewed the image transmitted by the spaghetti-sized fiber optic camera she'd inserted between the doors. In the light cast by the single dim light bulb inside, she had difficult making out any real detail, but she saw what she needed. Their precious cargo hadn't moved in the last half hour. The fourth-year doctor major lay on the basement floor, her arms, legs, and mouth lay bound with duct tape.
"Hang on a little longer," Jane whispered. The woman on the other side of the door had no idea that she was moments away from rescue. For all she knew, this was all she'd ever see again. Even after she was safe, there'd be no way to erase the trauma of these past four days. Whoever Maura Isles had been before the kidnapping would be forever changed. It would be years before she'd feel real joy again, and the chances were, she'd never rediscover the trust she once felt toward others.
The speaker bud in her right ear – the one not occupied by the O'Rourkes – crackled again. "Sit rep, please." Apparently two minutes had passed since they'd last spoken, and Jane's airborne partner, Vince Korsak – "Bulldog" – wanted a situation report, per their standard operating procedure. They spoke on encrypted radio channels without worry of casual eavesdroppers.
"I'm preparing for breach now." Jane said.
Still using night vision, she removed three General Purpose Charges, GPCs, from her rucksack, one for each of the door hinges on the right side, and a third of the heavy-duty padlock in the middle. Constructed of C4 explosives with a tail of detonating cord to ensure proper activation GPCs were as manageable as modeling clay, reliable and unquestionably effective.
Lionel said, "Let's cut off her 'pinky' finger."
Jane felt her stomach drop.
"What?" At least Tommy was horrified. That was a good sign.
"You heard me. We'll cut of her finger and send it to her father for jerking us around."
"That's horrible." Tommy said.
"What's horrible about it? She's gonna die anyway."
"Don't say that."
Jane pressed her transmit button again. "See our friend Chris yet? Looks like I'm going to have to pull the trigger on this thing."
In her ear, "Sorry, boss, I got nothing. Nearest headlight are two miles away and headed in the other direction.
"I copy," Jane said. Just calm down in there.
Lionel was explaining the way of the world to his little brother. "You seriously thought we were keeping her alive? Why would we do that?"
"Because they paid the ransom."
Lionel laughed. "That's why Grandma always loved you best. You were always the sweet naïve one."
With the breaching charges in place, timed to fire 500 milliseconds apart, Jane took a few steps back from the doors and glanced again at the image on her phone. Maura Isles had shifted from her stomach onto her side, her knees still drawn up, just as they had been in all the photos they'd sent. Jane scowled. If the woman hadn't moved in four days, she wasn't going to be much of a runner when the time came to move.
"Don't you get it, little brother?" Lionel went on. Jane could hear the sick smile. "Kidnapping gets you thrown in jail forever. Add murder and you get forever plus a couple of years. It doesn't matter. I'm not taking the chance that Ms. Rich Kid is gonna testify against me. We get the money, we kill her, bury the body, and disappear."
"Nobody said anything about killing!" Tommy protested.
"Because no one thought you were an idiot."
"So what's all this bullshit with the photos and everything been about?"
Lionel laughed long and hard. "Just what you said, bullshit. The family was suspecting we were gonna kill her, so they kept insisting on a new, more recent picture. That meant we had to keep her alive until the money was in our hands. Get it?"
Jane winced. She herself had devised the ruse of demanding photos – a proven tactic to buy time to figure out where Maura was. She decided to move back around to the front of the house to see if she could peek through the windows and get a better handle on their emotions.
"Hey, you know what?" Lionel said. His voice had dropped to a dangerous whisper. "We might be on our way to jail anyway. Maybe Chris went straight to the cops and told them everything. I bet they're outside right now." There were footsteps in Jane's ear, then ahead and to the left, the front porch door flew open and Lionel stepped out onto the front porch.
"Shit," Jane hissed. She was frozen in plain sight, but concealed by the house's moon shadow. If she didn't move, maybe she'd stay invisible. Certainly, this was not the time to duck for cover. Her hand moved to raise her battle-slung M4 rifle to her shoulder. She had no desire to take her adversary here, but she wasn't going to get shot either.
"Are you out here, assholes?" Lionel shouted. He held a pistol in his hand. "Why don't you come and get me?" He fired two shots into the night. To Jane's ear they were .38s.
Tommy's voice hissed in an urgent, whisper shout, "What the hell are you doing? The whole county will hear."
"What do I care?"
Jane could hear them both now, out on the porch, and she wondered if Tommy might become Lionel's first victim. Calculating the distance and correcting for wind, Jane slipped a gloved finger into the trigger guard and waited.
"I'm done with this shit," Lionel shouted. "I'm fucking done with it."
"We're almost home." Tommy soothed. "We've come this far. We don't want to screw it up by -"
"Don't you get it? There is nothing left to screw up. We've been abandoned, little brother."
"You don't know that. Negotiations just aren't going as good as they were supposed to."
"You don't know that." Lionel was aching for a fight, and he'd take it however he could get it. The two O'Rourke brothers stood there, staring at each other. Finally, Lionel nodded. "Okay." He said.
Jane watched the tension drain from Tommy's shoulders.
"You're right, Tommy. It's just negotiations." Lionel stepped back inside. Just from the length of his first stride, Jane knew that more was coming. "So let's do something to speed them along." More footsteps.
Tommy hurried after him. "What are you doing?" Panic had returned to his voice.
"What I should have done a long time ago," Lionel said
"Shit. What are you doing with those?"
"Just what you think I am, after I get a piece of her."
Jane cursed under her breath. Her equipment didn't have the capability to monitor two images at once, and now she wished she'd opted to slip the camera into the top floor instead of the basement.
"We can't do that," Tommy begged. "Not yet. We can't."
"Watch me," Lionel growled. "You just hold her down."
Jane dashed back to the cellar doors. This whole thing was spiraling downward. As the O'Rourke brothers moved away from the microphone, their conversation became blurred and difficult to understand. But she could see them both as they paraded down the interior stone steps. They looked remarkably like their driver's license photos. She pressed her transmit button. "I think it's going hot," she whispered.
"Roger that, boss. I'll move in closer, but stay airborne till you advise."
Jane didn't even bother to respond. Things were happening too fast now. In the cellar, Lionel led the way, with Tommy close behind. We're not supposed to do anything till Chris comes back." He seemed to think that repeating the same sentiment could change the future.
"Fuck Chris," Lionel spat. "I should have done this a very long time ago. Spred her legs and hold her down.
Maura Isles bucked wildly on the floor, a pointless effort to get away, to do something. Lionel fired a brutal kick into Maura's side, but Maura only doubled the intensity of her struggle. Lionel bent down to straddle Maura. Her dress she was wearing just minutes before was turning into shreds.
It was time.
Jane let the rifle fall against its sling, drew her .45, and press against the wall.
"Relax," Lionel said with a laugh. "I bet you'll be begging me for mo –"
Plugging her right ear to protect it from the concussion that was on its way, Jane punched a three-digit code into her cell and pressed Send.
Jane registered the explosions as four separate blasts, but inside it sounded like the end of the world. The first explosion severed the electrical service; the next three blew the right-hand panel off its hinges. It fell inward, flat against the interior stairs, forming a kind of sliding board, which Jane utilized to skid into the room.
"Freeze!" She yelled. "Don't move or I'll kill you!" Victim and captors were blind in the darkness, but Jane could see every detail in the green hue of her night vision goggles. The Colt 1911 was an old friend in her hand, the grip settled into her leather-palmed Nomex gloves. She never even glanced at her sights—there was no need. If she pulled the trigger the target would die. "Put your hands where I can see them!"
What happened next was as predictable as it was inevitable. Lionel was pissed, and he was scared, the deadliest combinations. He stood up from his kneeling position and drew his pistol from the waistband of her jeans. It was a little .380 automatic, and he fired toward the sound of Jane's voice. The bullet missed by more than a foot.
Jane did not. She fired three times before the echo of Lionel's shot had faded, hitting the kidnapper twice in the heart and once in the forehead, dropping him like a rock. On the floor, Maura Isles reassumed her fetal position, trying to keep herself as small as possible.
Tommy panicked in the darkness. "Lionel!" He yelled. He reached out with both hands, as if to imitate a blind man.
"He's dead, Tommy," Jane said. "And I'll kill you, too, unless you do what I say. Raise your hands and spread your fingers."
"You're lying," Tommy said
"Take two giant steps backward and raise your hands." Jane's voice was neither soft nor harsh. Matter-of-fact, it left no room for negotiation.
"Who are you?" Tommy shouted. Panic rattled his voice.
"Hands, Tommy. Don't make me shoot you."
Tommy O'Rourke was clueless. Jane could tell from the confused look that he had lost his grip on what was real and what was not. The kidnapper's eyes darted to every compass point, his pupils glowing like monster-eyes in the infrared light.
Maura hollered behind her gag.
"Maura, be quiet. You're safe. This is almost over. Tommy, I need to see those hands."
"Who are you?" Tommy asked again. It was if his brain was stuck, and couldn't progress until he got his answer. he was crying. He paced blindly, his brain lost in that separated panic from lunacy.
"I'm not waiting forever," Jane said. "If I shoot your knees, you'll hit the floor. Is that what you want? It's your call." Tommy shook his head frantically. He reflexively moved two paces to his left. No, he did not want his knees to be shot. His sneakers bumped his brother's brother, and he slipped in the gore, almost losing his balance. "What's that?" he whined. He stooped to his upper legs and felt out into the darkness. "Oh my, is that Lionel?" His hands found his brother's shoulder. Then they found the gaping trench that had been gouged through his brain.
"On the floor, damn it!" Jane commanded.
Tommy made a small animal sound, part wail and part shriek. The sound reverberated off the walls. "You killed him!" he sobbed. "You killed him!"
Jane saw the hysteria in Tommy's face.
"He left me no choice," Jane said, her tone more appropriate for a business decision than a shoot-out. "Don't make the same mistake."
Jane might as well be speaking Swahili. Tommy just stayed there, squatting on the floor, hugging his knees, making a kneeing sound. "You killed him. You killed him…" He said it over and over again.
Three feet away, Maura tried to rise to her knees.
"Stay put, Maura!" The last thing she needed was to have her aim spoiled. "Just stay on the floor out of the way. You're not going to get hurt."
When Tommy O'Rourke looked up, Jane saw that he'd made up his mind to be stupid. Uncannily, he looked straight at Jane when he said for the dozenth time, "You killed him."
"Don't be an idiot, Tommy. You've got no cards here…"
Tommy dropped to the floor and rolled to his left, on the concrete, drawing a snub-nose revolver from his pants pocket. The shoulder roll ended with Tommy on one knee, aiming at the night. Jane took two steps to the side, knowing that right-handed shooters tend to pull to their left when they fired.
Tommy fired his bullet ricocheting off the concrete wall to Jane's right.
"Drop it now!" Jane roared. Tommy didn't need to die, dammit. Lionel had been the nut job, not him.
This time, Tommy zoned in on Jane's voice and aimed dangerously close. It was done.
Jane's finger flinched by sheer instinct and her pistol bucked twice. Tommy made a barking sound as two .45 caliber slugs drilled his chest through a single hole, shredding his heart. He was dead before the second bullet hit.
"Damn it," Jane spat. How could a ransom be worth this? She dropped the magazine out of the grip of her pistol and replaced it with a fresh one from her belt, slipping the used one into the vacated pouch. She holstered her weapon with it cocked, as always, and pressed the transmit button on her chest. "Room secure, two friends sleeping. Exfil in five."
Korsak replied, "I copy room secure. See you in five."
Maura Isles was screaming, but with the duct tape gag in place, nothing made sense. Jane approached the woman carefully, not wanting to get kicked, and even more not wanting to leave any unnecessary footprints in the spreading pool of gore.
"Maura, be quiet," she said "You're safe. I'm here to take you home. They're both dead, and you're going to be just fine. Do you understand that? Nod if you do."
Maura hesitated, and then she nodded. It was clearly a calculated move. The fear remained in her eyes, but how could she go wrong allowing the new attacker to think otherwise?"
"I'm going to get some light now," Jane explained. As she snapped her goggles out of the way, she reached behind her head into a side pocket of her rucksack and produced a glow stick. She cracked it to life. The room glowed green again, only now they could both see.
The fear in Maura's eyes peaked when she saw Jane's masked face. The rescuer tried hard to make her eyes look friendly. "I'm going to cut you loose," Jane explained. "That means I have to use a knife. Don't freak out when you see it."
The eight-inch tempered steel blade of the K-Bar was honed to a razor's edge, and looked scary as hell. It was every bit as deadly as it was useful, and Jane didn't relish the thought of Maura wriggling her way into a knife wound. She took care as she slipped the blade between Maura's ankles first, to free her feet, then her knees, and finally between her wrists.
"I'll let you get the tape on your mouth yourself," Jane said. She imagined that it was pretty much welded to her skin by now.
Maura Isles seemed to have a hard time finding the margins of the tape. Jane left her to work it out herself, turning to the task of picking up her spent shell casings. All five had landed within feet of each other over in the corner near the splintered steps. She slipped the shells into a pouch pocket in her trousers.
Maura found the handle for the tape on her mouth, and she peeled it away with a moan.
"Are you hurt?" Jane asked.
"They were going to rape me, then cut off one of my fingers," Maura said. She seemed at once terrified and amazed. "Are you a cop?" She whipped her head around trying to find the other party in the room. "Who were you just talking to?"
Jane ignored the questions. She found a roll of paper towels near a slop sink in the corner farthest from the blasted doors and pulled off a healthy length, wrapping them around her fist. Then she soaked the wad with water from the spigot and handed the ripping mess to Maura.
Maura eyed her suspiciously. "Thought you might like to clean yourself up."
Self-conscious, Maura took the towels as Jane looked away to grant her some measure of dignity. Jane stooped to Lionel's body and sifted through his pockets. "When you're finished wiping down, I need you to strip this guy and get into his clothes as quickly as possible. There's one more of these assholes out there somewhere, and I don't want to be here when he comes back."
"No, Maura said. There's only these two."
"Nope, trust me. There's one more. Come on now, move." Finding only a wallet, Jane moved on to Tommy's corpse which yielded the same. She put both billfolds into a zippered pocket on the side of her rucksack. "Come on, woman. Unless you want to go naked."
Maura squatted and started fumbling with the laces on Lionel's boot.
"Hurry," Jane urged. "We've got zero time to delay."
"If you're not a cop, then who are you?"
Jane had enough. "I'm going upstairs to look around. When I get back, I want you dressed, understand? Naked or dressed, we're out of here in three minutes."
She held Maura's gaze, then turned on her heel. "Two minutes and fifty seconds," she said.