13505 Dahlia Street, Apt. 13, Flushing, Queens County, New York.

There it was, in black and white. Captured in the car trackback Jane had dropped off for her last night. William Rupert Bantling's address, as he had given it for his New York driver's license. A couple of bus stops from St. John's College, ten minutes by car down Northern Boulevard to her apartment on Rocky Hill Road, and only a block away from Bally's Fitness at the corner of Main Street and 135th Street, where she went to work out.

Maura sat back and took a deep breath. Although she had known instinctively the moment she heard his sick voice in the courtroom that Bantling was the clown, she was already relieved to see confirmed that she had been right. That she wasn't losing it again. It was his voice, and Maura wasn't suffering from paranoia. Here she had the proof.

He had lived only a few miles away. She remembered his words that night, the giggle as he whispered in her ear. I'll be watching you, Maura, always. You won't escape me, because I'll always find you.

And he'd meant that literally, she realized now because he really had been shadowing her. Probably at the gym. Maybe on the subway. Maybe at the Peking House in Flushing or at Tony's, her favorite pizza place on Bell Boulevard in Bayside. He'd been able to watch her everywhere, because he'd been there, around the corner, all the time. Her mind raced back twelve years, searching her life then for the face she knew now, but she couldn't find it.

There was a knock, but before she could say "come in," the door was yanked open, and Cara stood on the threshold. Seventeen gold bangles rattled on her arm. "You wanted to see me?" she asked.

"Yes. I wanted to talk about the testimonies in the Boogeyman case we have to take next week." Maura handed her Bantling's arrest report. Next to each officer, she had written a proposed date for the interrogation. Jane was put at the very end of the week, even though Jane, as head of the investigation, really belonged at the beginning. Maura had made a second decision this morning after the session with Dr. Chambers. The first was that she would continue to work the case to the best of her ability, at least until everything was in place. The second was that she had come to the conclusion that this was not the right time for a love story, and certainly not with the lead detective on such an important case, whose defendant was not just any defendant either. Maura had to keep her distance, scale back the relationship to the purely professional. No matter how she felt or might feel about Jane, there were just too many secrets that stood between them. And a love based on deception and lies was like a house of cards: in the end, it would all collapse.

"We have very little time, Cara, and we have a lot of witnesses to interview." Maura tried the teamwork approach. "We have to bring this case to the grand jury in two weeks. I've suggested the date that would be most convenient for each officer. Arrange forty-five minutes with each officer and three hours with Korsak and Rizzoli."

Cara reached for the arrest log. "Okay. Anything else? It's almost 4:30 p.m."

Ah yes. The hour of the dropped stylus. Maura almost forgot. And when the world ended, after 4:30 p.m., Cara wasn't working.

"Yeah. I've got a lot of research to do over the next few days. I'll probably be here until late at night. Please reschedule the questioning of the Wilkerson relatives tomorrow morning and the meeting on the Valdon case with Detectives Milesi and Hogan tomorrow afternoon. With Valdon, it's two weeks until trial. Tell them next Friday is more convenient for me. Oh, and please keep the calls away from me for the next few days until the Attorney General is on or the building is on fire." She smiled, wondering if Cara had any sense of humor at all.

Apparently, she didn't. "Fine," was all Cara said before slamming the door shut.

Maura heard her swearing wildly as she stomped back to her desk and she rolled her eyes. Cara certainly wouldn't let her know if there really was a fire; that was the price of their intimate enmity. But there were the smoke detectors, and besides, it would only be a jump from the second floor. In any case, the teamwork thing hadn't worked. Alone again in her office, the attorney stared out the window across the street to where the courthouse stood and thought of the Suffolk County Department of Corrections. There sat her rapist, a guest in jail, a Massachusetts state prisoner without bail.

She took a sip of cold coffee and watched as colleagues returned from the courthouse, some carrying files under their arms, lugging file boxes, or pulling folding carts behind them. After the morning session with Dr. Chambers, the thick, impenetrable fog that had enveloped her for the past forty-eight hours gradually began to lift. Things around her were making sense again, and she had a new perspective. Now Maura had a goal, a direction she would go, even if it turned out to be wrong in the end.

What she was looking for were answers. Answers to the many questions in the Boogeyman case that had been gnawing at her for a year. And to the ones she'd been asking herself off and on for twelve years. Maura felt an overwhelming urge to find out everything, everything there was to know about this stranger, this monster. Who was Bill Bantling? Did he have children? Family? Friends? Where had he lived? What did he do for a living? How did he know his victims? How did he choose them?

Where had he noticed Maura Isles? How had he come upon her?

When had he become a rapist? And when a murderer? Were there more victims? That maybe they didn't even know about yet?

Were the others similar to her?

And then the question of why. Why did he hate women? Slashed them and tortured them? Took out their hearts? Why did he kill? And why had he chosen those particular girls? Why had he chosen Maura? Why had he left her alive?

More than twelve years lay between her rape and the Boogeyman murders, and yet she found it hard to separate the questions that needed to be asked. The lines suddenly blurred, the cases seemed inextricably intertwined, demanding the same answers.

Where had Bantling been hiding for the past twelve years? Where had he acted out his sick, disturbed urges? Maura knew from experience as a prosecutor and from numerous seminars and conferences she had attended over the years that violent sex offenders didn't just appear out of nowhere. Nor did they just stop committing their crimes. On the contrary, they usually escalated gradually until the final realization of their perverted sexual desires. Sometimes these fantasies developed over weeks, months, even years before they were put into action, and for so long the perpetrator was outwardly the nice guy next door, the charming neighbor, the friendly colleague, the best husband, the dearest dad. Everything happens only in his head, where no one sees the ugly, corrosive thoughts boiling and bubbling until they finally overflow, like lava, consuming everything in their path. A "harmless" peeping tom becomes a burglar. The burglar becomes the rapist. The rapist becomes the murderer. Gradually, step by step, he implements his obsession. And with each crime he commits without being caught, he becomes bolder, inhibitions disappear, and the next degree is all the easier. Serial rapists don't stop until they are stopped. By imprisonment, physical infirmity, or death.

Bantling fit the classic profile of the serial rapist. Obviously, he was also a sadist, deriving pleasure from inflicting pain on others. Maura thought again of that stormy night twelve years ago. He had planned everything perfectly, from beginning to end, had even packed a bag of "toys" to act out his fantasies. Raping her hadn't been enough for him. He had had to torture her, torment her, did violence to her in every possible way. Her pain had aroused him sexually, excited him. But the cruelest weapon was neither the toy nor the serrated knife, but his detailed knowledge of her life. The private personal facts about her, her family, her relationships, her plans, from her nickname to her favorite shampoo, and this knowledge he wielded like a sword; deliberately cutting her trust in people, destroying her confidence. Maura Isles had not become his victim that night by accident. He had "chosen" her. And then he had stalked and struck.

So if Bantling was a serial rapist whose crimes had since escalated and made him a serial killer, and Maura assumed he was, where were the other victims from the eleven years before the Boogeyman murders had begun? The new inmate at the Department of Corrections in Suffolk County had lived in many places: New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Miami. Maura had requested the police records of every state where he had lived, but there was nothing on him, not even a ticket.

On paper, Bantling was a model boy. Could it be that he had been dormant for more than a decade, his hatred and sick imaginings fermenting deep within him until they finally grew and exploded into Boogeyman's barbaric cruelty? Maura doubted it.

The careful, precise planning of her own rape spoke for the fact that she hadn't been his first victim, and the brutality he had displayed in the process showed little self-control. He was probably already finding it difficult to restrain himself during the months when he was tracking down the next victim. Maura thought it impossible that he had been able to restrain himself for an entire decade. Maybe he had wanted to murder her, too, and she had just happened to be found in time? Or had he intentionally left her alive?

She knew the task force would take Bantling's life apart, piece by piece, looking for answers. There, too, they had already requested the file of every state and jurisdiction where he had lived. In the coming days, investigators across the country would interview his ex-girlfriends, ex-bosses, and ex-neighbors to find out if Bantling might have wielded an ax in California before going around Massachusetts as a scalpel-wielding psychopath. His name and a description of the Boogeyman murders had already been sent through FBI and Interpol databases to compare whether there were similar unsolved cases under any other jurisdiction. Had some young women suddenly gone missing in the cities Bantling visited for work? But so far, at least, they had found nothing. Of course, they had also been looking only for murders.

Using Lexus/Nexus, the online legal database the DA's office worked with, Maura began her own search for answers. She started with old newspaper articles, from the cities where Bantling had since been registered; first L.A., where he had spent the longest time, with two residences in four years. She picked up the Los Angeles Times and first entered terms related to the Boogeyman murders: blonde, women, disappeared, dismembered, murdered, kidnapped, knife, tortured, etc. Twenty words in twenty combinations. She even asked phone support for help on how best to phrase the search terms. A few missing and murdered prostitutes, several unrelated family dramas, a few runaway teenagers, but nothing resembled the Boogeyman. No coeds or models or unsolved ritual murders either, no hearts cut out. Using the same words, she fed the computer for the Chicago Tribune, the San Diego Times, the New York Times, the Daily News, and the New York Post, but still nothing. Then she tried a new search. This time, she typed in just five terms: Woman, raped, knife, clown, mask.

Three articles appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Nine years ago in January, a UCLA student was awakened at 3 a.m. in her ground-floor apartment by an intruder standing over her bed wearing a rubber clown mask. She was brutally raped, tortured, and beaten for hours. The perpetrator couldn't be identified; he escaped out the window.

In July seven years ago, a waitress was surprised by an unknown man wearing a latex clown mask after her shift at her Hollywood apartment. She was also brutally raped. She also suffered several knife wounds, but is on the road to recovery, the article said. The attacker hasn't yet been caught.

Seven years ago in December, a Santa Barbara student was found severely injured in her ground-floor apartment after being the victim of a gruesome rape, perpetrated by an unidentified man who broke in through the window at night. The burglar had worn a clown mask. There were no suspects.

Three articles. Three intruders wearing clown masks. Always the same modus operandi: first floor apartments, masked burglar, brutal rapes. It had to be one and the same perpetrator. Maura widened the search terms and found another victim up the coast in San Luis Obispo, the same MO, only this time the rapist wore an alien mask.

Four victims. And Maura had only just begun. They had happened in four counties in three years, probably in different police districts, and no one had ever made the connection. She researched further but found no other entries. Only one other small article had appeared about the Hollywood waitress. Four days later, the woman, whose name was kept secret, had been released from the hospital, she was told, and was recovering with relatives.

There have been no arrests yet and no suspects, it said. It said the public is encouraged to contact the LAPD with tips. There wasn't even that for the other three victims.

Maura then took a look at the cities where Bantling had lived before moving to Boston. She found a September alien mask rape in Chicago eleven years ago and a clown mask rape in San Diego ten years ago. Now she had six cases. And those were just the ones that had been reported in the press. But had it really been Bantling each time, or were the matches pure coincidence? She looked up Bantling's old addresses in Chicago and San Diego on city maps on the Internet, plus the addresses of the rape victims, as far as they could tell from the newspaper articles. He had never lived more than six miles away. Maura held her breath and looked through the Florida newspapers: the Miami Herald, the Sun Sentinel, the Key West Citizen, and the Palm Beach Post. But she found nothing here.

Maura flipped through the copy of Bantling's passport that had been given to the court. Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, the Philippines, India, Malaysia. Once it had been for Indo Expressions, an expensive design house in California, and now it was Tommy Tan, for both houses he had traveled extensively around the world. Business trips that lasted anywhere from two weeks to a month each. According to the list Tommy Tan had provided them, the furniture factories and workshops Bantling visited there were usually in poor settlements on the outskirts of large cities, where it was easy to remain anonymous. Bantling had visited many of these cities more frequently. Were there perhaps more victims abroad?

Maura twiddled her Rolodex and found the number for Christine Frederick of Interpol in Lyon. Christine and Maura had worked together on a murder case a few years ago when a man in a Provincetown hotel room had wiped out his entire family with a shotgun. He had fled to southern Germany, and Interpol and the German police eventually tracked him down eating schnitzel in Munich. Christine had arranged for his extradition to the United States. Over the months it took for the guy to finally get back to Massachusetts, something like a friendship had developed between the two women. But it had been a while since they had spoken.

At the very first ring, Christine's answering machine picked up. In French, German, Spanish, Italian, and, fortunately, English. Maura looked at her watch. It was already 10:30 p.m. She had completely forgotten the time. With the time difference, it had to be just before sunrise in France. Maura left her name and number and hoped Christine remembered her.

It was dark outside, the sun had set behind the skyline hours ago, and Maura's office was lit only by the old desk lamp her father had given her ages ago. She liked the coziness of that light; the glaring neon lights in the office hurt her eyes. The hallway outside her closed office door was in darkness; no one had been there for a long time. She would call the security guard in the lobby to escort her to her car.

Then she looked out the window again across the street, where lights burned on every floor. Strange, desperate figures loitered outside the barbed wire fence, waiting for their boyfriend or girlfriend, their pimp, their business partner, or their mother.

Maura turned back to her desk, wanting to pack her bag and finally go home. The light from the laptop screen shone brightly in the dark office. The screen displayed the latest article Lexus/Nexus had pulled off the web. It was from the New York Post. Maura stared at the lines, but she didn't need to read them. The date was July 1, twelve years ago. And even though the newspaper concealed the identity of the twenty-four-year-old rape victim, Maura knew all too well who she was dealing with.

Quickly, she flipped the laptop shut and tugged on the chain of her desk lamp. Then she put her head in her hands and began to cry in the darkness where no one could see her.

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By 8:10 a.m, Friday morning, Maura was already back at her desk. Again she had slept fitfully, tossing and turning with the familiar, ghastly nightmares. So at 5 a.m., she had finally given it up, gotten up, worked out, and then driven to work.

In addition to the two messages on the answering machine at her office, Jane had left one at her home last night. The detective asked why she hadn't come to the medical examiner's office if she wasn't feeling well? Also, after talking to Dr. Neilson, apparently, there was news pertaining to the case, she should please call the detective back.

Strange. Finally, after all these years, she had met a woman who could play a role in her life. Someone she could talk to, someone she had things in common with, and who might even eventually let her into the well-entrenched foxhole that was her soul. When she talked to Jane, everything was so simple. There were no cramped pauses. No hollow small talk. It was all real, every word she had exchanged with Jane in each of their conversations, even if the topic was insignificant. And maybe it sounded silly, but she was excited every time she heard just Jane's voice, eager to hear what the Italian would say, what she would tell Maura. Because every word, every piece of information was a piece of the million-piece puzzle that made up this detective, what Jane thought she was.

Maura had never been attracted to a cop, let alone a female cop. Most of them were far too overbearing, the lawyer thought, each riding their own personal power trip, something that was hard to avoid in this line of work. And Maura wasn't a person to be bossed around. So she was particularly taken aback by how different Jane was. She was strong, but she wasn't domineering. Jane was in control of every situation without being domineering. Jane ran a task force full of potential egos, but under her, they had merged into a united front, despite all the flashbulbs and cameras over the past year. Besides, Maura had noticed that Jane listened first and talked then, another trait that was uncommon among cops. Over the past twelve months, they had had a lot to say to each other, even outside the world of manhunts and criminal trials. And if they'd had the opportunity, they could have lived out all the things they'd discovered they had in common, running, biking, traveling, and music.

Maura had never cared about a person as much as about Jane Rizzoli, not even Michael. Never had she wanted to know everything about someone so badly. And now, after the detective had shown her her feelings the other night, Maura wondered if maybe Jane felt the same way? If maybe the Italian wanted to know everything about her, too? And she would have even let that happen. That's why it was all the harder now. To have to sacrifice these overwhelming sensations before they could even fully develop. To probably always have to ask herself afterward, what if. Because maybe Maura would have let Jane into her heart, but circumstances made that impossible now. The detective was another victim in this game.

For a moment Maura was tempted to call the detective back, to hear Jane's voice, perhaps to feel once again the warm feeling she had had at her front door two days ago. But she quickly pushed the idea away. Her decision to continue working on the Boogeyman case included consequences. She knew that, and she accepted it.

Still, Maura would need to talk to Jane at some point, if only professionally, to move forward with the case. At that moment, the landline rang.

"District Attorney's Office, Isles speaking."

"Bonjour, Madame Prosecutor." It was Christine Frederick.

"Christine? How are you?" Maura preferred not to try her French skills at all. It was better for all concerned. It didn't matter, either, because the voice on the other end of the line spoke perfect English, with the hint of a French accent.

"Maura Isles! Hi. How is it in Boston?"

" Hot right now. So how about you?"

"I always say if I were a criminal, I'd work somewhere that's always sunny and warm. Here, everything is just fine! I can't complain. Except that it's raining right now."

"I wouldn't advise that, Christine. You'd better go to the Riviera, where at least the international criminals are rich and the food is good, what's it called again, magnifique?"

Christine laughed. "Très bien, mon amie! I got your message. Are you free right now?"

"Yes. Thank you for returning my call so quickly. I need your help on a case. I'd hate to go through Washington the correct way because I don't want to make it official yet."

"Well, sure, Maura. How can I help you?"

"Could you run a modus operandi through Interpol and see if there are any parallels? We have a possible serial rapist here in Boston who regularly travels extensively, mostly to poor countries in South America, and also to Mexico and the Philippines. I need to know if anything fits him."

"What do you have?"

"He's white, male, about forty. Uses a rubber mask. Mostly a clown or alien mask, but maybe other Halloween costumes. He breaks into first-floor apartments of young women who are living alone. He probably scouts them out for a while before striking. His weapon is a knife, and in most cases, he ties up the victim." Maura took a breath and continued as calmly as she could while running a hand through her hair, "We have evidence that he's a sadist. He likes to torture. A couple of the girls were pretty badly beaten up, devastatingly injured in the breast and vaginal areas."

She heard Christine taking notes on the other end. "Anything else?" she asked.

"No. Look at the last ten years in particular. That's when he started traveling."

"Do you have DNA?"

"No. Nothing. No fingerprints, no semen, no hair. He leaves the crime scene squeaky clean."

"Do you have a name for me?"

"I've already run that by Interpol. Now I'd like to try it another way. Do me a favor and do it without the name. Let's just look for similarities."

"Okay. That's enough. What South American countries are we talking about?"

Maura reached for the copy of Bantling's passport and read the names. "Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina."

"Okay. And then the Philippines and Mexico. Any other countries you want me to try?"

"Yes. Look at Malaysia and India, too."

"You got it. I'll call you back as soon as I have something."

"Thanks, Christine. I'll give you my cell number in case you have something this weekend."

"All right. Oh, whatever happened to that guy who killed his family on vacation in Provincetown? The one we found in Germany?"

"He got a life sentence with no chance of parole."

"Oh."

Maura hung up, and she remembered what Jane had said on the answering machine. She needed to know what Joe Neilson had for her at the ME's office. So she picked up the phone and called Korsak, hoping Jane wasn't standing right next to him.

"Good morning! Where were you yesterday, Counselor? We missed you."

"Hello, Vince. Are you at BPD yet?"

"Are you kidding? I'm sitting in the car. I need my morning caffeine fix. I'm already at the point where I can't think without the stuff."

"I'm about to call Neilson, but first I wanted to talk to you. How did it go at the ME's office yesterday?"

"Have you talked to Jane yet? I think she was looking for you yesterday."

A pang of guilt stirred in Maura, and she felt herself blushing. Had Jane told him something? About the other night? "No, not yet. I'll call her later."

"Oh. All right. Neilson, if you ask me, he's a goddamn freak, but still, Neilson says Prado was full of Haloperidol."

"Haloperidol?"

"That's right, it goes under Haldol."

"Isn't that the stuff Jane found at Bantling's? During the house search?"

"That's right, Counselor. The psycho is leading us straight to his door."

Maura could hear the sound of voices in the background now, wildly. Apparently, Korsak had gotten out of his car and was walking, because Maura could hear him panting. "Where are you, Vince?"

"Told you. I'm getting my coffee." In the background, she could hear him ordering. Then he spoke into the phone again. "Better make that two, it's going to be a long day. I've got to do my best."

The connection was good. Too good. She had to listen as he sipped both coffees, then let out a loud "Aaah" and puffed back to his car. "So they found Haldol in Prado's body. Why? What effect would the drug have had on her?" she asked. "Was Neilson able to say anything about it?"

"It's a sedative. It even sedates the insane. Insane people get it for psychosis. It calms them down, makes them tractable. Master detective Neilson thinks Boogeyman sedated the girls with it while they were still in the Level."

"And you don't believe that?"

"Yes, I do. I think he's really onto something. This Haldol seems to have the same effect as Rohypnol or Liquid X. You know that crap with the party drugs, lots of rapes with that stuff. Even in front of a bunch of witnesses. Girls are smuggled out of the clubs practically unconscious.

They are screwed so often that not even their grandchildren are born virgins. And then they wake up like Sleeping Beauty in some hotel room and remember nothing. The pervert lying next to them, they ask, 'Where am I?' The problem isn't that I don't believe Neilson's theory, Counselor. I just think he's disgusting, the way he twitches and blinks around all the time."

"Yeah. He probably has some kind of nervous tic."

"He's creepy as hell, anyway, if you ask me. And I haven't even told you the best part, and Neilson's happy as a clam about it, he found another drug in her. Apparently, the son of a bitch had the victim hooked up to an IV, because that's the only way to administer the stuff. Most likely the crud was still flowing through her veins when she died. It's called Mivacurium chloride. Have you ever heard of it?"

"No."

"Neither have I. That stuff is a muscle relaxant, but it doesn't make you unconscious; it just paralyzes you. And the worst part is, it has no analgesic effect at all. You feel everything, you just can't move. How does that sick shit sound? Neilson says she was on a drip when Boogeyman cracked her chest open and cut out her heart. He says he also has evidence that her eyelids were taped open so she had to watch the whole time."

Maura couldn't get a word out. A scene built in her mind's eye. Bantling had forced her to watch as he cut her breasts. Instinctively, she put her hand protectively on her chest. She remembered the terrible pain that shot through her, the scream that rang through her head again and again, but only there. She felt dizzy like she was going to throw up. The morning coffee was making itself uncomfortably in her stomach. She sat down carefully.

There was a long pause until Korsak's voice was heard again. "Counselor? Are you still there?"

"Yes, Vince. I'm just thinking," she said, her voice little more than a whisper. She had leaned forward to get the blood flowing in her head again. She needed to get stronger, to toughen up. Because she was determined to get through all of this.

"I thought you were gone. Neilson believes Prado wasn't the only one he did this with. Now that he knows what he's looking for, he's testing the other nine again. Maybe he'll have some results by today. Jane will call him if she hasn't heard anything by four. You should talk to her."

Maura sat up again. The dizziness had subsided. "I'll call Neilson myself. I want to look at Prado's body. We may have to have the ones that weren't cremated exhumed. Can you find out for me about the doctor who prescribed the Haldol? I want to know who treated him and for what."

"Eddie Bowman called him yesterday. His name is Fineberg, I think, or Feinstein. Something like that. Doc told Bowman that without a court order, he could go off the deep end. He didn't even say if Bantling was his patient. Goddamn confidentiality! 'Oh, no, Detective, I can't tell you how many women my patient killed, that wouldn't be okay! People need to be able to talk to their therapists without fear of being arrested just for cutting out a pretty girl's heart.'"

Maura rolled her eyes. "Okay, Vince. Give me the data, and I'll apply for the order."

A long silence ensued. Maura heard the detective eating something, traffic noise in the background. Finally, he said, "We nailed that sick bastard, didn't we?"

"Yes, we did, Vince," she said quietly.

"Now it's your turn, Counselor. Just do the right thing and make sure this son of a bitch never sees the light of day as a free man again."