Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Set

Surely you must linger a moment, studying her. Considering with pleasure the task that lies ahead. Because it is pleasurable for you, isn’t it? You are growing more and more excited. The thrill moves through your bloodstream like a drug, awakening every nerve, until even your fingertips are pulsing with anticipation.
    Elena Ortiz did not have time to scream. Or, if she did, no one heard her. Not the family in the unit next door, nor the couple below.
    The intruder brought his tools with him. Duct tape. A rag soaked in chloroform. A collection of surgical instruments. He had come fully prepared.
    The ordeal would have lasted well over an hour. Elena Ortiz was conscious for at least part of that time. The skin on her wrists and ankles was chafed, indicating she had struggled. In her panic, her agony, she had emptied her bladder, and urine had soaked into the mattress, mingling with her blood. The operation was a delicate one, and he took the time to do it right, to take only what he wanted, nothing more.
    He did not rape her; perhaps he was incapable of doing so.
    When he’d finished his terrible excision, she was still alive. The pelvic wound continued to bleed, the heart to pump. How long? Dr. Tierney had guessed at least half an hour. Thirty minutes, which must have seemed an eternity to Elena Ortiz.
    What were you doing during that time? Putting your tools away? Packing your prize in a jar? Or did you merely stand here, enjoying the view?
    The final act was swift and businesslike. Elena Ortiz’s tormentor had taken what he wanted, and now it was time to finish things. He’d moved to the head of the bed. With his left hand he’d grasped a handful of her hair, yanking backward so hard he tore out more than two dozen strands. These were found later, scattered on the pillow and floor. The bloodstains shrieked out the final events. With her head immobilized and the neck fully exposed, he’d made a single deep slash starting at the left jaw and moving rightward, across the throat. He had severed the left carotid artery and the trachea. Blood spurted. On the wall to the left of the bed were dense clusters of small circular drops flowing downward, characteristic of arterial spray as well as exhalation of blood from the trachea. The pillow and sheets were saturated from downward dripping. Several cast-off droplets, thrown off as the intruder swung away the blade, had spattered the windowsill.
    Elena Ortiz had lived long enough to see her own blood spurt from her neck and hit the wall in a machine-gun spray of red. She had lived long enough to aspirate blood into her severed trachea, to hear it gurgle in her lungs, to cough it out in explosive bursts of crimson phlegm.
    She had lived long enough to know she was dying.
    And when it was done, when her agonal struggles had ceased, you left us a calling card. You neatly folded the victim’s nightshirt, and you left it on the dresser. Why? Is it some twisted sign of respect for the woman you’ve just slaughtered? Or is it your way of mocking us? Your way of telling us that you are in control?
    Moore returned to the living room and sank into an armchair. It was hot and airless in the apartment, but he was shivering. He didn’t know if the chill was physical or emotional. His thighs and shoulders ached, so maybe it was just a virus coming on. A summer flu, the worst kind. He thought of all the places he’d rather be at that moment. Adrift on a Maine lake, his fishing line whicking through the air. Or standing at the seashore, watching the fog roll in. Anywhere but this place of death.
    The chirp of his beeper startled him. He shut it off and realized his heart was pounding. He made himself calm down first before he took out the cell phone and punched in the number.
    “Rizzoli,” she answered on the first ring, her greeting as direct as a bullet.
    “You paged me.”
    “You never told me you got a hit on VICAP,” she said.
    “What hit?”
    “On Diana Sterling. I’m looking at her murder book now.”
    VICAP, the Violent Criminals Apprehension Program, was a national database of homicide and assault information gathered from cases across the country. Killers often repeated the same patterns, and with this data investigators could link crimes committed by the same perpetrator. As a matter of routine, Moore and his partner at the time, Rusty Stivack, had initiated a search on VICAP.
    “We turned up no matches in New England,” said Moore. “We ran down every