I AM NO LONGER OF INTEREST TO THE POLICE. THE KILLER THEY’RE HUNTING for isn’t Johnny, but a man named Alan Rhodes, who has always lived in Boston. This is what Dr. Isles told me just before she left the house this evening, to join Detective Rizzoli at a crime scene. What a different world these people inhabit, a twisted universe that we ordinary people aren’t aware of until we read about it in the newspapers, or see it on the TV news. While most of us go about our everyday lives, someone, somewhere, is committing an unspeakable act.
And that’s when Rizzoli and Isles go to work.
I’m relieved to be escaping their world. They needed something from me, but I couldn’t deliver, so tomorrow I go home. Back to my family and Touws River. Back to my nightmares.
I pack for the morning flight, tucking shoes into the corner of my suitcase, folding wool sweaters that I won’t need when I land in Cape Town. How I’ve missed the bright colors of home and the smell of flowers. My time here has felt like hibernation, bundled in sweaters and coats against the cold and the gloom. I lay a pair of pants on top of the sweaters and as I fold a second pair, the gray cat suddenly jumps into my suitcase. During my entire stay, this cat has completely ignored me. Now here he is, purring and rolling around on my clothes, as if he wants me to bring him home. I pick him up and drop him on the floor. He climbs right back into the suitcase and begins meowing.
“Are you hungry? Is that what you want?” Of course it is. Dr. Isles was in and out of the house so quickly, she didn’t have a chance to feed him.
I head into the kitchen and he’s right beside me, rubbing against my leg as I open a can of cat food and empty it into his bowl. As he slurps up chunks of chicken in a savory sauce, I realize I’m hungry as well. Dr. Isles gave me full run of her house, so I go into her pantry and search the shelves for something quick and satisfying. I find a package of spaghetti, and I remember seeing bacon and eggs and a block of Parmesan cheese in the refrigerator. I’ll make spaghetti carbonara, the perfect meal for a cold night.
I’ve just pulled the package of spaghetti off the shelf when the cat suddenly gives a loud hiss. Through the partly open pantry door, I see him staring at something that I can’t see. His back is arched, his fur electric. I don’t know what has alarmed him; I only know that every hair on the back of my neck is suddenly standing up.
Glass cracks and clatters like hail across the floor. One bright shard glistens like a tear right outside the doorway.
Instantly I flick off the pantry light and stand trembling in the darkness.
The cat yowls and darts out of view. I want to flee with him, but I hear the door bang open, and heavy footsteps are crunching across broken glass.
Someone is in the kitchen. And I’m trapped.
JANE FELT THE ROOM SUDDENLY SPIN AROUND HER. SHE HADN’T EATEN since noon, had been on her feet for hours, and this revelation was enough to make her sag against a wall for support. “This report can’t be right,” she insisted.
“DNA doesn’t lie,” said Gabriel. “The remains found near Cape Town were matched to DNA that was already in the Interpol database. DNA that Leon Gott submitted to them six years ago, after his son vanished. The bones are Elliot’s. Based on skeletal trauma, his death was classified a homicide.”
“And these were found two years ago?”
“In parkland on the city outskirts. They can’t be specific about date of death, so he could have been killed six years ago.”
“When we know he was alive. Millie was with him on safari in Botswana.”
“Are you absolutely certain about that?” Gabriel said quietly.
That made her go silent. Are we absolutely certain Millie told the truth? She pressed a hand to her temple as thoughts swirled like a windstorm in her head. Millie couldn’t be lying, because known facts supported her. A pilot did deliver seven tourists to a landing strip in the Delta, among them a passenger with Elliot Gott’s ID. Weeks later, Millie did stumble out of the wild, with a horrifying tale of massacre in the bush. Animal scavenging had scattered the remains of the dead, and the bones of four of the victims were never found. Not Richard’s. Not Sylvia’s. Not Keiko’s. Not Elliot’s.
Because the real Elliot Gott was already dead. Murdered in Cape Town before the safari even began.
“Jane?” said Gabriel.
“Millie wasn’t lying. She was wrong. She thought Johnny was the killer, but he was a victim, like the others. Killed by the man who used Elliot’s ID to book the safari. And after it was all over, after he’d enjoyed his ultimate bush hunt, he went home. Back to who he really was.”
“Alan Rhodes.”
“Since he traveled with Elliot’s ID, there’d be no record of him entering Botswana, nothing at all to connect him to the safari.” Jane focused on the living room where she was standing. On the blank walls, the impersonal collection of books. “He’s an empty shell, like his house,” she said softly. “He can’t afford to reveal the monster he really is, so he becomes other people. After he steals their identities.”
“And leaves no record of himself.”
“But in Botswana, he made a mistake. One of his victims escaped, and she can identify …” Jane suddenly turned to Maura, who had just stepped inside and was now watching her with questions in her eyes. “Millie’s all by herself,” Jane said to her.
“Yes. She’s packing to go home.”
“Oh God. We left her alone.”
“Why does that matter?” asked Maura. “Isn’t she now irrelevant to our case?”
“No, it turns out she’s the key to it. She’s the only one who can identify Alan Rhodes.”
Maura shook her head in bewilderment. “But she’s never met Rhodes.”
“Yes she has. In Africa.”