Maura slowly opened her eyes. She expected to be blinded by the neon lights on the ceiling, but instead, she looked into her own face. Her reflection was staring down from the ceiling: There she was, still in her olive green costume, sprawled on a steel table, arms and legs strapped down. She blinked until she realized there was a mirror hanging above her. The expected neon lights were next to it, illuminating a room painted completely black. Even without seeing what was behind her, she had the feeling that it was a small room. There were no windows. There was a camera on a tripod in front of the steel table. Mozart's Hallelujah was playing softly in the background.
Her body was still heavy, her limbs felt as if they had been severed from her torso. When she tried to crook a finger, she didn't know if it was actually moving. Her senses weren't working properly. Every time she blinked, she had trouble focusing her gaze again afterward. She smelled the stale champagne in her hair. She tried to speak, but her whole mouth was numb and felt swollen. The words came out garbled and slurred as if she had no tongue at all.
She turned her head to the right and saw him standing in a corner with his back to her. He was humming to himself. She heard water flowing and the clang of metal. The sounds pounded in her ears, becoming alternately loud and soft, loud and soft, pulsing like a headache.
Now he turned to her and tilted his head thoughtfully. "You seem to be taking quite a beating. I didn't expect you back for a few hours."
Again Mara tried to speak, but all that came out was an unintelligible slur. Next to him was a metal cart. On a white cloth lay sharp, bright instruments, flashing in the neon light. And then she saw the bolt cutter. "Maybe this stuff is expired? Anyway. You're here, that's all that matters. How are you doing, Maura?" He shined the flashlight in her eyes. She blinked. "Not too good, I guess. Better not say anything, I can't understand you anyway." He unstrapped her arm, put a finger on her wrist, and felt for a pulse. "Uh-oh, you're supposed to be asleep. You should be practically in a coma, but your pulse is racing. You must be a fighter, huh?" He let go of her hand and watched it fall to the metal table with a thud. His forearm was bandaged, and the champagne bottle came back to her. "Don't, don't fight. Just don't stress. It raises your pulse, your blood flows faster, and frankly, it makes a bigger mess. Not that I mind bathing in your blood, but cleaning up afterward wants to be thought about."
Maura tried to move her head.
"You're starting to understand now, aren't you?" Smiling, he watched her gradually grasp the horror he was feeding her. How she tried to comprehend despite her condition. "Don't think I'm going to tell you my well-kept family recipe and deliver a detailed confession at the last minute to clear up all the questions, because I'm not going to do that. You'll just have to take some of the riddles to your grave." He sighed and touched her hair. "Suffice it to say, I've always preferred blondes, Maura. Ever since I met you ten years ago, I can't get you out of my mind. Beautiful Maura Isles, the sensational prosecutor who day after day tries in vain to hide her beauty, not to attract attention. And who carries around a dark, terrible secret that she confides in only one person. Her psychiatrist. Spends her sad, lonely life with the demons of the past, the nightmares that don't let her sleep at night, that always stand between her and a partner who would make her life less sad and lonely. The diagnosis is post-traumatic stress disorder. And reactive depression each Christmas and Valentine's Day. Does that sound familiar, Maura? Does it get to the heart of the matter? Let's see, seventy-five dollars an hour, because of the police discount, times how many months of therapy? How many years? And I can explain you in two sentences." He brushed her hair out of her sweaty face. Then he leaned over her. In the blue eyes, she had always thought were so kind, she now saw regret. And a hint of contempt? "And you know what the nicest thing is, Maura?" he whispered in her ear. "You weren't that cracked. No more depressed than the average housewife from Newton bored in her gilded cage. The only difference is that you were aware of your broken life. And unfortunately, you chose me to help you mend it." From his breast pocket, he pulled out a syringe and a vial. "After all, I promised not to bore you with last-minute confessions of all my misdeeds. But you and Bill have been a wonderful experiment, I must say. An extraordinary experimental setup. The rapist and his victim. What happens when you reverse the signs? When the hunted becomes the huntress? Faced with a choice, which path would she take ... the ethical or the justice? And how far would she go for her revenge? With what would Billy Boy have to pay for his crime of passion? With his freedom? It was really exciting to watch you, Maura. And the clueless Billy Boy, whose only problem is that he can't keep his dick in his pants. And, of course, that he can't control his aggression." Chambers pointed to her belly as he drew up the syringe. "When you were asleep, I looked at his work. You were right. Really barbaric." He pursed his mouth. "And then ... Watching him, with his overinflated ego, thinking he was getting free all this time. He just underestimated you. I was tempted to let him go. To keep all my trophies. And to wait and see what would happen when they unlocked his cell and put five dollars in his hand for the bus ride.
Would you have waited there in the shade with your father's toy gun to pump him full of lead? But then I thought this would be the happier ending. Now you're about to stand before your Creator, knowing that you've caused other people to lock an innocent man away forever. Try explaining that to God. Or maybe they won't do it after all ... . Maybe, just maybe Billy will win the appeal. And be set free. Wouldn't that be cynical? You'd be dead, and he'd be alive and still fucking some women with his big, ugly knife."
She tried to say something, but out came only desperate unintelligible sounds.
"Don't be afraid, Maura. I'll have to leave you alone for once, but I'll be back soon. I just wanted to give you something to think about until the next session. But now I have to go, earn my money. At nine o'clock I have a patient... an obsessive-compulsive... and Estelle is stuck in rush-hour traffic. I have to get to the office." He jabbed the needle into her arm. "There, that'll make you feel better for now. I'm sure you've heard of it. Haloperidol? Get a tight sleep, and I'll see you later. Then we'll take some pictures and have some fun."
She heard the rattle of the key, and the door creaked open.
The black room went fuzzy and blurry again. She felt her eyelids close, her fists go loose, then numb. Her body became weightless, and then she had the feeling of falling into the bottomless pit.
„So long," was the last thing she heard.
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Jane was sitting at her desk, holding her breath when she heard the familiar voice on the other end. But the next moment she realized it was just the answering machine again, and her stomach clenched.
Where is she? Where the hell is she? Maura had stood her up at the restaurant yesterday, and today she hadn't shown up at the office. She wasn't at home either. No one had heard from her since the sentencing.
Had the relationship become too close for her again? Had she run away because she needed time to herself? Without saying anything to the detective? But a bad feeling overshadowed her thoughts, and Jane couldn't shake it. A bad hunch, an instinct that told her something was more than fishy here. Worried, the detective hadn't slept all night. An accident? She had called all the surrounding hospitals without result, and there was nothing at the police stations either.
Maura had been missing for over twenty-four hours now. Jane couldn't wait any longer. She called the BPD, gave instructions to look for Maura's car, and reported a missing person under suspicious circumstances.
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When Maura opened her eyes again, it was completely black around her. Was she dead? Was it all over?
She turned her head right and left. There was not the slightest glimmer of light. Maybe she was dead. But then her cheek touched the cold steel of the metal table, and she remembered that the walls were black and the room had no windows. There was no light because he had turned it off.
How many hours had passed? How many days? Was he still here? Here in the room watching her? She tried to lift her fingers, but they were too heavy. She tried wiggling her toes, but she didn't know if they were actually moving. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick. How much of the drug had he injected her with?
Greg Chambers. Boogeyman. Brilliant psychiatrist. Good friend. Cruel serial killer. Why? How? Therapy had been a game to him all these years. He had made fun of her all the time. It had amused him how she struggled against the horrible late effects of rape. Then he had met the crazy Bill Bantling and started playing a game of chess with them both. To the death.
Not fighting ... honestly, makes a bigger mess.
Whose heart had been in the champagne bucket? The hearts of the eleven boogeyman victims had been clearly matched by DNA analysis. What she had seen proved there were more victims. And she too would soon be one, but no one would make the connection. Because no one was looking anymore. It would be a long time before people concluded that she was a serial killer again. If ever.
He would kill her. And she knew how, too. She could describe his method in the most prosaic medical terms, for she had had eleven opportunities to study his work. She had listened to the ME, read the autopsy reports, seen the macabre trophy photographs.
And she knew he would make her watch. She thought of the tape on Anna Prado's eyelids.
He would tape her eyelids open and force her to look into the large mirror on the ceiling of the black room, her death chamber. Where no one would hear her scream.
Maura whimpered. She tried to call out, but couldn't. Tears ran inexorably down her face, down her neck, forming a puddle on the metal table.
Then she remembered the wheeled cart in the corner, the flashing sharp instruments. Dr. Neilson's face appeared before her, and she thought of his words as he bounced the laser pointer across the mannequin's chest.
It was a scalpel. The cuts are deep. They go down to the bone, through three layers: Skin, fatty tissue, and muscle.
She knew how it would end. She even guessed how it would feel.
When would death come? Or was he already here, watching her silently in the dark? Watching her whimper and cry? As she struggled? Did he hope her pulse wasn't getting too fast?
In the complete darkness, there was nothing she could do but wait. Just wait and see.
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"Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Chambers, but there's someone here to see you." Estelle's voice crackled from the speaker on his desk. He stared at the device. "It's Detective Rizzoli from the BPD."
"All right. Ask her to take a seat in the waiting room until I'm done here," he replied. Then he went back over the notes he had taken during the last session.
Estelle could clearly tell Jane Rizzoli was worried. She knew the detective from the television broadcasts of the trial, and there she had always seemed so controlled, so confident. Today, the Italian was terribly nervous. Probably because of the news, she thought. "Detective Rizzoli, the doctor will be right in, please sit down for a moment." She pointed to the chairs in the waiting room.
"Thank you," Jane said, nodding.
Curious, Estelle watched as the detective walked over to the armchairs. Jane stopped. She walked around the waiting room, checking her watch twice.
Then the door opened, and Dr. Chambers appeared at the registration desk. "Hello, Jane. Please, come on in," he said, directing her across the tiled hallway to the pastel-colored consulting room. Behind them, he closed the door. "What can I do for you, Jane?"
"I'm sure you've heard -" Jane began.
"That Maura Isles has disappeared? Yes, yes, of course. It's been the main topic on the news for two days, after all. Are there any clues?"
"No. Nothing. That's why I'm here." Jane hesitated, then continued with a deep frown, "I don't know if you know we're together. Maura told me she was in treatment with you. So I wanted to ask you a few questions."
"Of course, I'll help you as much as I can, of course; but please don't ask what Maura and I talked about in our sessions. I can't say anything about that, and I won't."
"I understand that. But I need to know the last time you saw Maura."
Greg Chambers looked at her. He had been counting on the possibility that Rizzoli would come to him. But if the fabulous cop had known, or even guessed, the answer to her question, she would have been knocking on the doctor's door two days ago. And just as little did she apparently know what other name was on his list of favorite patients. Clearly, Maura had been keeping a few things secret from the Italian. "Oh, not since the trial. It's been a couple of weeks, I'm sure."
"Have you talked to her?"
"No, not since then. We've stopped the sessions. I wish I could be more helpful." He shrugged.
"I understand. Can you think of anything else? Where she might have gone? To whom? Was she afraid of anyone, maybe?"
Clearly, she was totally fishing in the dark. The police didn't even know if they were dealing with a missing person, or if Maura had disappeared voluntarily. What a downright tragic sight: The great investigator was struggling with the thought that perhaps her lover had abandoned her. Had run off with someone else. And now she pondered whether she had ever really known her.
"No, I'm sorry, I can't help you. Except -" He hesitated, apparently weighing his next thought for a moment before speaking it. "Maura has a mind of her own. Since you ask me that ... it's not completely inconceivable that she might have spaced out a bit, sought some space when she felt she needed it." He looked the cop straight in the eye, and his meaningful look gave Jane the answer he expected but certainly didn't want to hear.
Jane nodded slowly. Then she said, "Thank you. Please call me if you do hear from her. I wrote my home number on the back, but I can always be reached on my cell phone, just in case you don't catch me -"
"I will. Again, Jane, I'm really sorry I can't be more helpful."
Jane turned and trotted down the hallway with her head down and her shoulders slumped. The classic, unmistakable body language. Dr. Chambers watched her walk away, nodding exhaustedly to Estelle; digesting what the doctor had said and what he hadn't. Everything that had been said between the lines.
He watched as Detective Jane Rizzoli walked out the heavy oak door, got into the car, and drove away.
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The door opened, and glaring light filled the room. Behind him, Maura heard the rattle of the key.
He went to the sink in the corner and washed his hands with his back to her. Next to the sink was the cart with the cutlery. Scalpels, arranged by size, scissors, bolt cutters, needles, Band-Aids, a Braun's cannula, razor blades, and an IV bag. He spent at least five minutes scrubbing his hands over the sink like a surgeon, then carefully dried them with paper towels. He opened a drawer under the sink, took a pair of sterile rubber gloves out of a box, and slipped them on.
"I'm sorry I'm so late," he said. "I got stuck in a meeting. You think you're in trouble. You should hear what people are carrying around out there. Schizophrenic seventeen-year-olds going after their own mother with a knife. Can you believe that? Their own mother?" Chambers walked over to the tripod and glanced through the camera. He pointed the lens at her face. She stared up at the ceiling, eyes wide open. Then he pressed the shutter button. "You must be photogenic. You have a beautiful face." He took another picture, then changed the crop so that now the whole table was in the picture.
Then he turned to the metal cart and thought for a moment. He reached back into the drawer under the sink and pulled out a fresh pair of green scrubs. There was a chair in the corner of the room. He took off his jacket and hung it neatly over the back, then loosened his tie and took off his shirt and pants as well. He folded everything neatly on the chair. As he slipped into the scrubs, he hummed to himself.
"Your girlfriend was at my office this morning," he said as he pulled the lime green booties over his shoes. "Jane. She wanted to know if I could help her. If I knew where you might have gone, and with whom. She was sad after hearing my opinion. Devastated." He pulled the metal cart to the side of the table. Then he put on his scrub cap. "Did you know I did my residency in surgery?" Then he looked down at her arm and frowned. The arm wasn't cuffed. He had forgotten to strap it back down after giving her the shot. He lifted it and let it go, dropping it onto the steel table with a thud.
Maura muttered something he didn't understand. Senseless sounds. Tears ran down the side of her face, into her hair.
It was a real pity. This beautiful specimen, his work-in-progress. He had thought that he would look forward to the end with elation, joy at seeing his hypothesis confirmed. But when Bill was condemned, when the game was up and only the last move had to be executed, he was, he was indeed unhappy. He had planned the experiment from the beginning; ever since Bill walked into the doctor's office three years ago with a suitcase full of problems, down on his luck, and without a soul to talk to. Only the good doctor had listened to Bill's drooling and ranting against the world. Listened to what abominations Bill had done to all the nice women over the years. And he had understood. Had known right away that coincidences, while rare, do happen. And at that moment, Gregory Chambers, M.D., knew that he had found the two ideal specimens for the most extraordinary experiment in the history of modern psychiatry. And even though he had experimented with death before, long before the sessions with the depressed Maura or the narcissistic sociopath Bill, those first experiments had been simply ludicrous. The guinea pigs hadn't even been missed. Their deaths were insignificant, trivial.
But this, the experiment, was a veritable symphony. He thought of the thrill, the excitement, when he had made the decision then, and the expression on poor Nicolette's face when he cut her open. She hadn't even known how important her part in all this was. She had been the first. The first of many in this masked study.
And now that it was all supposed to be over, he was sad. Also because he knew that he couldn't share his greatest work with anyone, that his masterpiece had to remain hidden from the world. His colleagues would never know about it; his observations and results couldn't be made available to his contemporaries. To them, he would remain some suburban shrink.
"Now, now, no tears," he said empathetically. "I'd like to promise you it won't hurt, but I'm afraid that would be a lie. As you know, we're going to put an IV in you first."
He handled the wheeled cart and brought out a syringe and a rubber sleeve to tie off the vein. But suddenly he turned and grabbed her right wrist with lightning speed, slamming it onto the table with an iron grip. He bent low over her face. Searching, he looked into her empty eyes, which stared helplessly at the ceiling. "But before we begin -" he smiled, "be a good girl and give me back my scalpel."
How clever, how exceedingly clever. Of course, he had noticed that the scalpel was missing the moment he entered the room. How stupid did Maura think he was? A classic mistake that others had made before her, and they had been much more sophisticated than she. In the excitement, she had underestimated him, thought he was a fool.
Victory in chess is prepared by a series of seemingly meaningless but complicated moves until the other person is trapped. The thrill was in whispering checkmate while the stunned opponent was still in the process of making his oh-so-fatal plot against the enemy queen. It was the same here. And a worthy opponent only increased the thrill. As he paced the room, he set up the pieces, laid out the trap, and the thought of the amazement on her beautiful face filled him with euphoria. He discovered that her arm was not strapped down and her fist was shaking with nervous tension before she would try to save her life, to attack him in a last, desperate effort. He saw her eyes widen in fear and waited until she had her pawn in place. Then, with lightning speed, he attacked. The preemptive strike was thwarted; his words were checkmate.
Maura had clenched her hand into a fist, and he saw the bright red blood gushing from it, running down her wrist and dripping onto the metal table. With both hands, he pried her fingers apart. She moaned. There it was, the scalpel, and the gaping wound it had left in her flesh. He wrung the blade from her fist like an unruly toddler.
Slowly Maura shook her head, obviously having realized her defeat, and tears streamed down her face. Her last chance had been lost. He was pleased that she had possessed so much strength in the first place. A worthy opponent: perhaps even better than all the others. But unfortunately not good enough.
Only now he heard the scream, her words were clear, not slurred, and at that moment he realized that the Haldol was no longer working properly. He hadn't expected that. Pain, hot and stabbing, shot through his throat, and he felt the warm stream of his own blood running into his scrubs, the green fabric slowly turning red.
His joy gave way to stupefaction, and he stared at her screaming at him, tear-streaked face dark and angry. He grabbed his neck, trying to hold the hole shut, but blood spurted through his fingers. Feeling himself drowning in his own blood, he wanted to speak, but now his words were only choked gasps. He had to watch the life gushing out of him, slowly flowing down his body over his shoes onto the floor.
He wanted to grab her and strangle her, but he staggered backward and fell against the wall. She sat up on the metal table, her eyes sparkling with hatred. In her left hand, she held the second blade, from which red blood dripped onto the table. His blood.
At that moment he got scared because he realized that he had made the most classic mistake.
He had underestimated her.