Me.
“So Carmen finds out that the girlfriend’s back in town,” said Rizzoli. “Anna left that message on Rick’s answering machine, remember? The daughter heard it and told her mother. There goes any hope Carmen had of a reconciliation. The other woman was moving in again, on her territory. Her family.”
Maura remembered what Carmen had said: He wasn’t yours to take.
“Charles Cassell said something to me, about love,” said Rizzoli. “He said, there’s a kind of love that never lets go, no matter what. It sounds almost romantic, doesn’t it? Till death do us part. Then you think about how many people get killed because a lover won’t let go, won’t give up.”
By now, the morphine had spread through her bloodstream. Maura closed her eyes, welcoming the drug’s embrace. “How did you know?” she murmured. “Why did you think of Carmen?”
“The Black Talon. That’s the clue I should have followed all along-that bullet. But I got thrown off the track by the Lanks. By the Beast.”
“So did I,” whispered Maura. She felt the morphine dragging her toward sleep. “I think I’m ready, Jane. For the answer.”
“The answer to what?”
“Amalthea. I need to know.”
“If she’s your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Even if she is, it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just biology. What do you gain by that knowledge?”
“The truth.” Maura sighed. “At least I’ll know the truth.”
The truth, thought Rizzoli as she walked to her car, is seldom what people really want to hear. Wouldn’t it be better to hold on to the thinnest sliver of hope that you are not the spawn of monsters? But Maura had asked for the facts, and Rizzoli knew they would be brutal. Already, searchers had found two sets of women’s remains buried on the forested slope, not far from where Mattie Purvis had been confined. How many other pregnant women had known the terrors of that same box? How many had awakened in the darkness and had clawed, shrieking, at those impenetrable walls? How many had understood, as Mattie had, that a terrible finale waited in store for them once their usefulness, as living incubators, was over?
Could I have survived that horror? I’ll never know the answer. Not until I’m the one in the box.
When she reached her car in the parking garage, she found herself checking all four tires to confirm they were intact, found herself scanning the cars around her, searching for anyone who might be watching. This is what the job does to you, she thought; you begin to feel evil all around you, even when it’s not there.
She climbed into her Subaru and started the engine. Sat for a moment as it idled, as the air blowing from the vents slowly cooled down. She reached into her purse for the cell phone, thinking: I need to hear Gabriel’s voice. I need to know that I am not Mattie Purvis, that my husband does love me. The way I love him.
Her call was answered on the first ring. “Agent Dean.”
“Hey,” she said.
Gabriel gave a startled laugh. “I was about to call you.”
“I miss you.”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say. I’m heading to the airport now.”
“The airport? Does that mean-”
“I’m catching the next flight to Boston. So how about a date with your husband tonight? Think you can pencil me in?”
“In permanent ink. Just come home. Please, come home.”
A pause. Then he said, softly: “Are you okay, Jane?”
Unexpected tears stung her eyes. “Oh, it’s these goddamn hormones.” She wiped her face and laughed. “I think I need you right now.”
“You hold that thought. Because I’m on my way.”
Rizzoli was smiling as she drove toward Natick to visit a different hospital, a different patient. The other survivor in this tale of slaughter. These are two extraordinary women, she thought, and I’m privileged to know them both.
Judging by all the TV vans in the hospital parking lot, and all the reporters milling near the lobby entrance, the press, too, had decided that Mattie Purvis was a woman worth knowing. Rizzoli had to walk through a gantlet of reporters to get into the lobby. The tale of the lady buried in the box had set off a national news frenzy. Rizzoli had to flash her ID to two different security guards before finally being allowed to knock on Mattie’s hospital room door. When she heard no answer, she stepped into the room.
The TV was on, but with the sound off. Images flickered onscreen, unwatched. Mattie lay in bed, eyes closed, looking nothing like the well-scrubbed young bride in the wedding photo. Her lips were bruised and swollen; her face was a map of nicks and scratches. A coiled IV tube was taped to a hand which had scabbed fingers and broken nails. It looked like the claw of a feral creature. But the expression on Mattie’s face was serene; it was a sleep without nightmares.
“Mrs. Purvis?” said Rizzoli softly.
Mattie opened her eyes and blinked a few times before she fully focused on her visitor. “Oh. Detective Rizzoli, you’re back again.”
“I thought I’d check in on you. How’re you feeling today?”
Mattie gave a deep sigh. “So much better. What time is it?”
“Nearly noon.”
“I’ve slept all morning?”
“You deserve it. No, don’t sit up, just take it easy.”
“But I’m tired of being flat on my back.” Mattie pushed back the covers and sat up, uncombed hair falling in limp tangles.
“I saw your baby through the nursery window. She’s beautiful.”
“Isn’t she?” Mattie smiled. “I’m going to call her Rose. I’ve always liked that name.”
Rose. A shiver went through Rizzoli. It was just a coincidence, one of those unexplainable convergences in the universe. Alice Rose. Rose Purvis. One girl long dead, the other just beginning her life. Yet another thread, however fragile, that connected the lives of two girls across the decades.
“Did you have more questions for me?” Mattie asked.
“Well, actually…” Rizzoli pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down. “I asked you so many things yesterday, Mattie. But I never asked you how you did it. How you managed.”
“Managed?”
“To stay sane. To not give up.”
The smile on Mattie’s lips faded. She looked at Rizzoli with wide, haunted eyes and murmured: “I don’t know how I did it. I never imagined I could ever…” She stopped. “I wanted to live, that’s all. I wanted my baby to live.”
They were quiet for a moment.
Then Rizzoli said: “I should warn you about the press. They’re all going to want a piece of you. I had to walk through a whole mob of them outside. So far, the hospital’s managed to keep them away from you, but when you get home, it’s going to be a different story. Especially since…” Rizzoli paused.
“Since what?”
“I just want you to be prepared, that’s all. Don’t let anyone rush you into something you don’t want to do.”
Mattie frowned. Then her gaze lifted to the muted TV, where the noon news was playing. “He’s been on every channel,” she said.
On the screen, Dwayne Purvis stood before a sea of microphones. Mattie reached for the TV remote and turned up the volume.
“This is the happiest day of my life,” Dwayne said to the crowd of reporters. “I have my wonderful wife and daughter back. It’s been an ordeal I can’t even begin to describe. A nightmare that none of you could possibly imagine. Thank God, thank God for happy endings.”
Mattie pressed the OFF button. But her gaze remained on the blank TV. “It doesn’t feel real,” she said. “It’s like it never happened. That’s why I can sit here and be so calm about it, because I don’t believe I was really there, in that box.”
“You were, Mattie. It’s going to take time for you to process it. You might have nightmares. Flashbacks. You’ll step into an elevator, or look into a closet, and suddenly you’ll feel like you’re back in the box again. But it will get better, I promise you. Just remember that-it does get better.”