The Apprentice: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen Page B

all bases covered. I’ll let you know if we need you.” With that, she turned and walked away.
    “I’m not sure you understand the situation,” he said. “We’re part of the same team now.”
    “I don’t recall asking for FBI assistance.”
    “It’s been cleared through your unit commander: Lieutenant Marquette. Would you like to confirm it with him?” He held out his cell phone.
    “I have my own cell phone, thank you.”
    “Then I urge you to call him. So we don’t waste time on turf battles.”
    She was stunned by how easily he had stepped aboard. And by how accurately she had sized him up. This was a man who’d not stand quietly on the sidelines.
    She took out her own phone and began punching in numbers. But before Marquette answered, she heard Patrolman Doud call out her name.
    “Detective Sleeper’s on comm for you,” said Doud, and handed her his walkie-talkie.
    She pressed the transmit button. “Rizzoli.”
    Through a burst of static, she heard Sleeper say: “You might want to get back here.”
    “What have you got?”
    “Uh . . . you’d better see for yourself. We’re about fifty yards north of where the other one was found.”
    The other one?
    She thrust the walkie-talkie back at Doud and charged into the woods. She was in such a hurry, she did not immediately notice that Gabriel Dean was following her. Only when she heard the snap of a twig did she turn and see that he was right behind her, his face grim and implacable. She didn’t have the patience to argue with him, so she ignored him and plunged on.
    She spotted the men standing in a grim circle beneath the trees, like silent mourners with heads bowed. Sleeper turned and met her gaze.
    “They’d just finished their first sweep with the metal detector,” he said. “Crime scene tech was heading back to the golf course when the alarm went off.”
    She moved into the circle of men and crouched down to inspect what they had found.
    The skull had been separated from the body and lay isolated from the rest of the nearly skeletonized remains. A gold crown glinted like a pirate’s tooth from the row of dirt-stained teeth. She saw no clothing, no remnants of fabric, only exposed bones with leathery bits of decomposing flesh still adhering. Clumps of long brown hair were matted to leaves, suggesting that these remains were a woman’s.
    She straightened, her gaze scanning the forest floor. Mosquitoes lit on her face and fed off her blood, but she was oblivious to their sting. She focused only on the layers of dead leaves and twigs, the dense underbrush. A deeply sylvan retreat that she now regarded with horror.
    How many women are lying in these woods?
    “It’s his dump site.”
    She turned and looked at Gabriel Dean, who had just spoken. He was crouched a few feet away, sifting through the leaves with gloved hands. She had not even seen him pull on gloves. Now he stood up, his gaze meeting hers.
    “Your unsub has used this place before,” said Dean. “And he’ll probably use it again.”
    “If we don’t scare him off.”
    “And that’s the challenge. Keeping it quiet. If you don’t alarm him, there’s a chance he’ll come back. Not just to dump another body, but to visit. To recapture the thrill.”
    “You’re from the behavioral unit. Aren’t you?”
    He didn’t answer her question but turned to survey the array of personnel standing around in the woods. “If we can keep this out of the press, we might have a chance. But we’ve got to clamp down on it now.”
    We.
With that one word, he had stepped into a partnership with her that she had never sought, had never consented to. Yet here he was, issuing edicts. What made it especially galling was the fact that everyone else was listening to their conversation and understood that her authority was now being challenged.
    Only Korsak, with his customary bluntness, dared step into the dialogue. “Excuse me,
Detective
Rizzoli,” he said. “Who is this gentleman?”
    “FBI,”