Die Again (Rizzoli & Isles, #11)(42)

“It doesn’t mean you’re sliding into the dark side. It just means you’re doing your medical examiner thing. Always looking for the gestalt, as you put it.”

“You didn’t see a signature. Why do I?”

“Because you’re smarter than me?”

“That’s a flippant answer, Jane. And it’s not true.”

“Okay, so using my amazing cop brain, let me make an observation. You’ve had a really rough year. You broke up with Daniel, and you probably still miss him. Am I right?”

“Of course I miss him.” She added, softly: “And I’m sure he misses me.”

“Then there was your testimony against Wayne Graff. You sent a cop to jail, and Boston PD gave you a rough time because of it. I’ve read about stress factors and how they make people sick. A broken love affair, conflict at work—hell, your stress score’s so high, you should have cancer by now.”

“Thank you for giving me one more thing to worry about.”

“And now this letter. This goddamn letter from her.”

They fell silent as the waitress returned with their food. A club sandwich for Jane, the Caesar salad—dressing on the side—for Maura. Only after their server walked away did Maura ask, quietly:

“Do you ever get letters from him?”

She didn’t have to say his name; they both knew whom she was talking about. Reflexively Jane clenched fingers over her scarred palms, where Warren Hoyt had plunged his scalpels. She had not laid eyes on him in four years, yet she could remember every detail of his face, a face so unremarkable that it could blend into any crowd. Incarceration and illness had no doubt aged him, but she had no interest in seeing the changes. She drew enough satisfaction knowing that she’d delivered justice with a single bullet to his spine, and his punishment would last a lifetime.

“He tried to send me letters from rehab,” Jane said. “He dictates them to his visitors, and they mail them to me. I toss them right out.”

“You’ve never read them?”

“Why would I? It’s his way of trying to stay in my life. To let me know he’s still thinking about me.”

“The woman who got away.”

“I didn’t just get away. I’m the one who took him down.” Jane gave a hard laugh and picked up her sandwich. “He’s obsessed with me, but I won’t waste one millisecond thinking about him.”

“You really don’t think about him at all?”

The question, asked so softly, hung unanswered for a moment. Jane focused on her sandwich, trying to convince herself that what she’d said was true. But how could it be? Trapped though he was in his paralyzed body, Warren Hoyt still wielded power over her because of their shared history. He’d seen her helpless and terrified; he was a witness to the moment she’d been conquered.

“I won’t give him that power,” Jane said. “I refuse to think about him. And that’s what you should do.”

“Even though she’s my mother?”

“That word doesn’t apply to her. She’s a DNA donor, that’s it.”

“That’s a powerful it. She’s part of every cell in my body.”

“I thought you’d decided this, Maura. You walked away from her, and swore you were never going to look back. Why are you changing your mind?”

Maura looked down at her untouched salad. “Because I read her letter.”

“And I’m guessing she pressed all the right buttons. I’m your only blood relative. We have unbreakable bonds. Am I right?”

“Yes,” Maura admitted.

“She’s a sociopath and you don’t owe her a thing. Tear up the letter and forget about it.”

“She’s dying, Jane.”

“What?”

Maura looked at her, torment in her eyes. “She has six months, a year at the most.”

“Bullshit. She’s playing you.”

“I called the prison nurse last night, right after I read the letter. Amalthea had already signed the release form, so they shared her medical information with me.”

“She doesn’t miss a trick, does she? She knew exactly how you’d respond and she laid the trap.”

“The nurse confirmed it. Amalthea has pancreatic cancer.”

“Couldn’t happen to a more deserving candidate.”

“My only blood relative and she’s dying. She wants my forgiveness. She’s begging me for it.”

“And she expects you to give it to her?” Jane wiped mayonnaise from her fingers with swift, angry strokes of her napkin. “What about all the people she slaughtered? Who’s gonna forgive her for that? Not you. You don’t have the right.”

“But I can forgive her for abandoning me.”

“Abandoning you was the only good thing she ever did. Instead of being raised by a psycho mom, you got a chance at a normal life. Trust me, she didn’t do it because it was right.”

“Yet here I am, Jane. Healthy and whole. I grew up with every advantage, raised by parents who loved me, so I have nothing to be bitter about. Why shouldn’t I give some comfort to a dying woman?”

“So write a letter. Tell her she’s forgiven, and then forget about her.”