"I'm sure she won't go to the boy. She'd be running straight into the arms of the investigators."

Nikki went straight to the hotel with Mike after she showered at home. She knew her mother would only flee Boston if contacting Caleb Hayes sooner or later. In addition, his parents were due to arrive shortly, so she had good reason to believe the teenager would still be in his hotel room. She and Mike entered the lobby together and walked confidently to the reception desk. The counters were not manned, so Nikki pressed the bell.

"The press doesn't seem to have found out that Caleb is staying here yet," Mike noted with a furrowed brow, having noticed the absence of journalists. "How do you actually know that?"

"How do I know," she replied, also frowning. "I'm her daughter," she replied, rolling her eyes when she saw Mike's questioning look. "Besides, I called John Michaelson from the crosshairs. He's into it when BPD owes him something. Speaking of Michaelson, what was with that stupid interview from the kid anyway?"

Nikki had watched the conversation with Caleb after she'd showered in her apartment. The student had basically just pointed out that he couldn't say anything about the series of murders Elizabeth was suspected of. And that although he could give her an alibi for two of the three murders, he didn't want to say what the alibi was for various reasons. All in all, almost no critical information had been extracted from the teenager. Nikki had even had the impression that the teenager had deliberately played dumb.

"I can't tell you," Mike replied, shaking his head. "Why is the boy calling the media if he won't tell them anything?"

The receptionist approached the counter and politely apologized for keeping the guests waiting.

Nikki and Mike showed their badges at the same time.

"Don't worry, it's nothing serious," Nikki immediately reassured the employee, but she reacted calmly.

"Your colleagues have already been here," she reported. "Is it about Mr. Hayes again?"

"We'd like to speak to him," Mike confirmed.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hayes is not in the house. Your colleagues have already looked for him, but he's outside his room or in the wellness area. We've already had him paged several times."

Nikki looked at Mike with a meaningful look. "Do you have any information about where he might be? Or when he'll be back?" she then asked.

"Unfortunately not, Mr. Hayes hasn't left anything."

Mike was about to ask his girlfriend to talk to him privately when a voice sounded behind them. "Hayes? Is it about our son?"

While the receptionist smiled pleasantly, the two detectives turned to the couple who had just arrived.

"Are you Caleb's parents?" Nikki asked.

"Yes, and who are you?" replied Caleb Hayes Senior, the teenager's father.

The two detectives showed their badges again and briefly explained why they wanted to speak to the teenager.

"I'll call him now; he can't be far away."

Gabriele Hayes reached for her cell phone, but Nikki reacted with lightning speed:

"No, don't!" she said, "because I hope he really is with Elizabeth right now." Nikki looked urgently at the Hayeses before asking: "Has anyone from BPD asked you for Caleb's cell phone number yet?"

"We've only just arrived."

"Is the cell phone contract in Caleb's name?"

Caleb Senior waved it off. "He insisted on a prepaid phone," he replied.

"I'm sure he agreed with Elizabeth about that. Because of all the secrecy. So we're the only ones who know CJ's cell phone number now?"

Mike looked at his girlfriend suspiciously. "So that's what you're talking about," he realized. "Oh, man, that's big trouble!"

xxx

"And you didn't find out all this time?" Caleb asked incredulously after Leonore had turned away from him again and walked over to her handbag, which she had placed on the floor in the middle of the room.

"I wasn't supposed to find out, so I didn't," Elizabeth replied with a furrowed brow, licking her lips. "That story with the organs and the skeleton seemed so elaborate; I never would have guessed that someone just improvised it to make us all run in the wrong direction like idiots."

"Elizabeth is just too nice," Leonore added. "She has too much respect for the lives of normal people."

Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows and listened deeply after hearing the words. "I was so in love with Leonore that I didn't realize how vicious she could be. I've always tried to put my abilities at the service of those weaker than me. Leonore, on the other hand, treats normal people like a lower species. Like mosquitoes that you swat when they get on your nerves."

Leonore then rejoined the conversation. "Well, my young friend, if you think that's sick, I'm curious to know what you think!"

She took a medium-sized ampoule containing a reddish liquid from her handbag. She approached the teenager, who instinctively took a step towards Elizabeth. "Drink this," she urged Caleb, holding the vial.

"Are you stupid?" the boy responded, stunned. "You can drink your own shit!"

While Leonore smiled mildly, Elizabeth put her arm around the boy's shoulders and looked at him with a familiar look. "It's okay, CJ," she soothed him. "You can go. I'll sort this out with Leonore alone."

"But she has proof --" Caleb tried to explain, but the captain interrupted him.

"I know. She showed it to me outside my house before I was arrested."

Leonore did not move. She was still holding the vial in her hand.

"Are you joking? She showed you the USB stick before you were arrested. Then why did you get yourself arrested?"

"Because I didn't want to pay her price."

Caleb didn't seem to understand the world anymore. His eyes shifted excitedly back and forth between Elizabeth, Leonore, and the vial with the mysterious liquid inside. "What kind of prize?"

"That's enough," Leonore interrupted, pulling a gun out of her handbag and holding it directly against Elizabeth's temple. "You finish this ampoule now, or we'll end this whole story right here."

"You'd never do that!" Caleb speculated, looking anxiously at the gun to Elizabeth's head. "Elizabeth is the only one who understands you. You're not going to kill her."

"Yes, CJ, she does," Elizabeth contradicted. "Leonore is crazy. So are a lot of geniuses. When your synapses are firing off one firework after another all day, it can drive you insane. She's murdered three people in the last few days who had absolutely nothing to do with me or our past. Simply to put me in this exact position here."

"Don't belittle it!" Leonore defended herself with almost childlike anger. "Do you have any idea how much work that was? I had to spend months spying on your new habits. Knowing when you do what. Finding out the PIN of your debit card, stealing your house keys, making a print of them, and smuggling them back into your briefcase. Steal fibers from your coat, check when you are back home, and act as your doppelganger with a wig and colored contact lenses in that exact time slot. And you did it all so that you wouldn't notice."

"Respect," Caleb interjected with the corners of his mouth pulled down. "Elizabeth always notices everything!"

Leonore ignored the comment. Instead, she continued. "I had to find the right doctor, make sure he'd meet with me alone. Then, I had to find a patient in the file whose name could be written with Sanskrit endings. I then had to sign pictures for him to construct a link to the case. That one day took me over a year of planning and preparation!"

Caleb thought about overpowering Leonore but didn't want to risk a shot going off.

"The actor was the best," the still surprisingly calm woman continued. "I told him we wanted to surprise you on your anniversary with a contrived murder case that you must solve using videos and clues. That's why I filmed everything he did. I told him that we were going to set you up and that, in the end, you would find out that you were the murderer. He thought that was a great idea!"

Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly and licked her lips. "I remember the camera in the phaeton very well," she confirmed. "That Coppens was compelling. I admit that I thought he was a contract killer."

"That was the whole point," Leonore said. "It's a shame about him, really. There are so few talented actors." With that, she cocked the revolver and ordered Caleb. "Drink this now!"

"You can drink it," Elizabeth said reassuringly to the teenager, who was apparently hopelessly overwhelmed by the situation. "I know Leonore well. It's just an anesthetic. Don't worry, CJ, I'm here for you!"

"All right," Caleb finally gave up. "Then, when Leonore finally stops threatening you."

Reluctantly, he reached for the ampoule, broke it open, and poured all the contents into his mouth. He swallowed the bitter liquid, shook himself, put the empty ampoule in his trouser pocket, and then propped himself up on the table, which had been rusting in front of the corpse compartments for years.

Elizabeth gritted her teeth several times and clenched her hands into fists. "Just lie down on the floor, CJ."

Caleb nodded dazedly and followed the advice. Only a few seconds later, he had sunk into a deep sleep.

"Please carry him into the car; he's too heavy for me," Leonore asked the captain.

Elizabeth looked at the other woman in astonishment. "But the dead Praetorius wasn't too heavy either."

"He was lighter without the organs and blood." With that, Leonore holstered the revolver again and reached for her handbag.

Elizabeth looked around briefly and pulled the corners of her mouth down. "The morgue, then. So you haven't lost your sense of drama," she noted as she looked around the dark room again. "You were afraid I was wearing a microphone," she stated as Leonore searched for something particular. "You chose the cellar as your meeting place because no radio signals can be sent outside from down here. But how will you escape this dungeon if the cavalry is outside?"

"They can just stand outside." With these words, Leonore pulled the USB stick out of her trouser pocket. She said rather casually: "They're certainly not going to arrest me."

Before Elizabeth could react, she took a small hammer out of her pocket and immediately began hitting the USB stick with it until it was utterly destroyed.

"So, that was the last data carrier that still had the videos on it," Leonore explained without malice. "From this second on, you alone are the murderer of Molloy and everyone else. So now we can safely leave the stupid world of your beloved idiot people behind us and finally pick up where we left off."

Elizabeth pulled her lower lip in and nodded slowly. "Do you know what my detective Fisher said a few days ago?" she asked surprisingly calmly, leaving out that it was about her daughter's boyfriend. "He had the feeling that I was the last hope for Praetrius' murderer. How right he was!"

"Seems like a smart guy, your detective."

"He certainly is. He also realized that the name Ishmael was a reference to Moby Dick," Elizabeth added. "Ishmael isn't the main character, though."

"It's Ahab and the white whale," Leonore confirmed.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and looked closely at the other woman. "So, which one of us is the whale?"

Leonore shrugged her shoulders.

xxx

"It's as I feared," Juluis Houstin told the prosecutor by telephone, "Rizzoli only withdrew money from an ATM once, and that was near her house. After that, every trace disappears."

"She can't disappear forever," Kline replied calmly. "Why don't you use sniffer dogs?"

Specially trained sniffer dogs, known as man trailers, can often track a fugitive for miles based solely on the scent trail they inevitably leave behind. Unlike other dogs, mantrailers can differentiate between the multitude of scents they encounter. Even under difficult circumstances, they can follow the one specific trail that their trainer has given them.

"It's too late for that," Houston dismissed the suggestion. "We can't search the whole of Boston."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the prosecutor's door. Shortly afterward, his assistant entered.

"Laura, what is it?" Kline asked with interest. He knew his assistant had yet to enter his office without being asked.

"It's about the girl that Captain Rizzoli is supposed to have found in Connecticut, but nobody knows anything about her," Laura Aporius replied.

"All right, Houston," Kline concluded the meeting with the detective without further ado. "Let me know if there's anything new."

Kline set his cell phone aside and then rose to walk over to Aporius, who was still standing in the doorway. "What's going on?" he inquired.

Aporius could tell that she had some important news to share. "This story happened quite a long time ago. And as far as I've heard, most of it is only based on hearsay among colleagues who weren't involved in the case themselves," the knowledgeable woman began to report.

"And what else?"

"Well, I'll ask the colleagues. Maybe someone in the city simply misheard what was going on."

Andrew Kline grinned. He knew very well why he had been able to count on Aporius' cooperation since the beginning of his career. "An interesting thought," he conceded. "And I suspect you're not in front of me because your idea hasn't borne fruit."

"You suspect correctly, Andy. Captain Rizzoli was indeed involved in the discovery of an unknown child. And that was fifteen years ago. But not in Connecticut, but in New Hampshire."

"That's interesting. Go on."

"The child wasn't, as they said, over a year old at the time. It was an infant."

Andrew Kline didn't even realize that he was now tensely bringing his hand to his mouth. As a prosecutor, he didn't usually let his tension show. "And do you have any information about what happened to the girl?" he asked.

"Well, there's something to be said on that point, too," Aporius reported. "None of the colleagues knew anything about a girl. The baby that Rizzoli found back then was a boy!"