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week she had been at the Paris conference. She was already a third of the way through when she heard footsteps, and she looked up to see Louise standing in the doorway.
    “You’re here,” Louise murmured.
    Maura greeted her with a smile.
“Bonjour!
I thought I’d get an early start on all this paperwork.”
    Louise just stared at her for a moment, then she came into the room and sat down in the chair facing Maura’s desk, as though she was suddenly too tired to stand. Though fifty years old, Louise always seemed to have twice the stamina of Maura, who was ten years younger. But this morning, Louise looked drained, her face thin and sallow under fluorescent lights.
    “Are you all right, Dr. Isles?” Louise asked quietly.
    “I’m fine. A little jet-lagged.”
    “I mean—after what happened last night. Detective Frost sounded so sure it was you, in that car . . .”
    Maura nodded, her smile fading. “It was like being in the Twilight Zone, Louise. Coming home to find all those police cars in front of my house.”
    “It was awful. We all thought . . .” Louise swallowed and looked down at her lap. “I was so relieved when Dr. Bristol called me last night. To let me know it was a mistake.”
    There was a silence, heavy with reproach. It suddenly dawned on Maura that she should have been the one to call her own secretary. She should have realized that Louise was shaken, and would want to hear her voice. I’ve been living alone and unattached for so long, she thought, that it doesn’t even occur to me that there are people in this world who might care what happens to me.
    Louise stood up to leave. “I’m so glad to see you back, Dr. Isles. I just wanted to tell you that.”
    “Louise?”
    “Yes?”
    “I brought you a little something back from Paris. I know this sounds like a lame excuse, but it’s packed in my suitcase. And the airline lost it.”
    “Oh.” Louise laughed. “Well, if it’s chocolate, my hips certainly don’t need it.”
    “Nothing caloric, I promise.” She glanced at the clock on her desk. “Is Dr. Bristol in yet?”
    “He just got here. I saw him in the parking lot.”
    “Do you know when he’s doing the autopsy?”
    “Which one? He has two today.”
    “The gunshot from last night. The woman.”
    Louise gave her a long look. “I think that one is second on his schedule.”
    “Do they know anything more about her?”
    “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Dr. Bristol.”

THREE
    A LTHOUGH SHE HAD NO AUTOPSIES on her own schedule that day, at two o’clock Maura headed downstairs and changed into a scrub suit. She was alone in the women’s locker room, and she took her time removing her street clothes, folding her blouse and slacks and placing them in a tidy pile inside the locker. The scrubs felt crisp against her bare skin, like freshly laundered sheets, and she found comfort in the familiar routine of tightening the trouser drawstrings and tucking her hair into a cap. She felt contained and protected by laundered cotton, and by the role she donned along with the uniform. She glanced in the mirror, at a reflection as cool as a stranger’s, all emotions shielded from sight. She left the locker room, walked down the hall, and pushed into the autopsy suite.
    Rizzoli and Frost were already standing beside the table, both of them gowned and gloved, their backs obstructing Maura’s view of the victim. It was Dr. Bristol who first spotted Maura. He stood facing her, his generous girth filling the extra-large surgical gown, and he met her gaze as she entered the room. His eyebrows pinched into a frown above the surgical mask, and she saw the question in his eyes.
    “I thought I’d drop in to watch this one,” she said.
    Now Rizzoli turned to look at her. She, too, was frowning. “Are you sure you want to be here?”
    “Wouldn’t you be curious?”
    “But I’m not sure I’d want to watch. Considering.”
    “I’m just going to observe. If that’s okay with you,