Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen

Author:Tess Gerritsen [Gerritsen, Tess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 0345458931
Amazon: B000FC1V38
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2004-08-17T05:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

DR. JOYCE O’DONNELL’S HOUSE in Cambridge was a large white colonial in a neighborhood of distinguished homes on Brattle Street. A wrought-iron fence enclosed a front yard with a perfect lawn and bark-mulched flower beds where landscape roses obediently bloomed. This was a disciplined garden, no disorder allowed, and as Maura walked up the path of granite pavers to the front door, she could already envision the house’s occupant. Well groomed, neatly dressed. A mind as organized as her garden.

The woman who answered the door was just as Maura had imagined.

Dr. O’Donnell was an ash blonde with pale, flawless skin. Her blue Oxford shirt, tucked into pressed white slacks, was tailored to emphasize a trim waist. She regarded Maura with little warmth. Rather, what Maura saw in the other woman’s eyes was the hard-edged gleam of curiosity. The gaze of a scientist regarding some new specimen.

“Dr. O’Donnell? I’m Maura Isles.”

O’Donnell responded with a crisp handshake. “Come in.”

Maura stepped into a house as coolly elegant as its owner. The only touches of warmth were the Oriental carpets covering dark teak floors. O’Donnell led the way from the foyer, into a formal sitting room where Maura settled uneasily on a couch upholstered in white silk. O’Donnell chose the armchair facing her. On the rosewood coffee table between them was a stack of files and a digital recorder. Though not turned on, the threat of that recorder was yet another detail that added to Maura’s unease.

“Thank you for seeing me,” said Maura.

“I was curious. I wondered what Amalthea’s daughter might be like. I do know of you, Dr. Isles, but only what I read in the newspapers.” She leaned back in the easy chair, looking perfectly comfortable. Home advantage. She was the one with the favors to grant; Maura was merely a supplicant. “I know nothing about you personally. But I’d like to.”

“Why?”

“I’m well acquainted with Amalthea. I can’t help wondering if . . .”

“Like mother, like daughter?”

O’Donnell lifted one elegant eyebrow. “You said it, I didn’t.”

“That’s the reason for your curiosity about me. Isn’t it?”

“And what’s the reason for yours? Why are you here?”

Maura’s gaze shifted to a painting over the fireplace. A starkly modern oil streaked with black and red. She said: “I want to know who that woman really is.”

“You know who she is. You just don’t want to believe it. Your sister didn’t, either.”

Maura frowned. “You met Anna?”

“No, actually, I never did. But I got a call about four months ago, from a woman identifying herself as Amalthea’s daughter. I was about to leave for a two-week trial in Oklahoma, so I couldn’t meet with her. We simply talked on the phone. She’d been to visit her mother at MCI–Framingham, so she knew I was Amalthea’s psychiatrist. She wanted to know more about her. Amalthea’s childhood, her family.”

“And you know all that?”

“Some of it is from her school records. Some from what she could tell me, when she was lucid. I know she was born in Lowell. When she was about nine, her mother died, and she went to live with her uncle and a cousin, in Maine.

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