Read The Surgeon: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel: With Bonus Content for Free Online

glimpse of the inner Catherine Cordell. Not the accomplished trauma surgeon, not the cool and elegant redhead, but the woman beneath the surface.
    Detective Rizzoli spoke now, and unlike Moore, she made no effort to soften her questions. She simply wanted answers, and she didn’t waste any time going after them. “When did you move here, Dr. Cordell?”
    “I left Savannah a month after I was attacked,” said Catherine, matching Rizzoli’s businesslike tone.
    “Why did you choose Boston?”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s a long way from the South.”
    “My mother grew up in Massachusetts. She brought us to New England every summer. It felt like . . . I was coming home.”
    “So you’ve been here over two years.”
    “Yes.”
    “Doing what?”
    Catherine frowned, perplexed by the question. “Working here at Pilgrim, with Dr. Falco. On Trauma Service.”
    “I guess the
Globe
got it wrong, then.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I read the article about you a few weeks ago. The one on women surgeons. Great photo of you, by the way. It said you’ve been working here at Pilgrim for only a year.”
    Catherine paused, then said, calmly, “The article was correct. After Savannah, I took some time to . . .” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t join Dr. Falco’s practice until last July.”
    “And what about your first year in Boston?”
    “I didn’t work.”
    “What did you do?”
    “Nothing.” That answer, so flat and final, was all she’d damn well say. She was not going to reveal the humiliating truth of what that first year had been like. The days, stretching into weeks, when she was afraid to emerge from her apartment. The nights when the faintest sound could leave her shaking in panic. The slow and painful journey back into the world, when just riding an elevator, or walking at night to her car, was an act of sheer courage. She’d been ashamed of her vulnerability; she was still ashamed, and her pride would never allow her to reveal it.
    She looked at her watch. “I have patients coming in. I really have nothing more to add.”
    “Let me re-check my facts here.” Rizzoli opened a small spiral-bound notebook. “A little over two years ago, on the night of June fifteenth, you were attacked in your home by Dr. Andrew Capra. A man you knew. An intern you worked with in the hospital.” She looked up at Catherine.
    “You already know the answers.”
    “He drugged you, stripped you. Tied you to your bed. Terrorized you.”
    “I don’t see the point of—”
    “Raped you.” The words, though spoken quietly, had an impact as brutal as a slap.
    Catherine said nothing.
    “And that’s not all he planned to do,” continued Rizzoli.
    Dear god, make her stop.
    “He was going to mutilate you in the worst possible way. As he mutilated four other women in Georgia. He cut them open. Destroyed precisely what made them women.”
    “That’s enough,” said Moore.
    But Rizzoli was relentless. “It could have happened to you, Dr. Cordell.”
    Catherine shook her head. “Why are you doing this?”
    “Dr. Cordell, there is nothing I want more than to catch this man, and I would think you’d want to help us. You’d want to stop it from happening to other women.”
    “This has nothing to do with me! Andrew Capra is
dead
. He’s been dead for two years.”
    “Yes, I’ve read his autopsy report.”
    “Well, I can guarantee he’s dead,” Catherine shot back. “Because I’m the one who blew that son of a bitch away.”

     

four
    M oore and Rizzoli sat sweating in the car, warm air roaring from the AC vent. They’d been stuck in traffic for ten minutes, and the car was getting no cooler.
    “Taxpayers get what they pay for,” said Rizzoli. “And this car’s a piece of junk.”
    Moore shut off the AC and rolled down his window. The odor of hot pavement and auto exhaust blew into the car. Already he was bathed in perspiration. He didn’t know how Rizzoli could stand keeping her blazer on; he had shed his