The Surgeon: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel: With Bonus Content by Tess Gerritsen

“Please take it,” she whispered. “I don’t want it in my house.”
    Rizzoli slipped the necklace into a Ziploc bag. “I’ll write you a receipt.”
    “No, just take it away! I don’t care if you keep it.”
    Rizzoli wrote the receipt anyway and placed it on the kitchen table next to the baby’s dish of creamed spinach. “I need to ask one more question,” she said gently.
    Anna kept pacing the kitchen, jiggling the baby in agitation.
    “Please go through your sister’s jewelry box,” said Rizzoli. “Tell me if there’s anything missing.”
    “You asked me that last week. There isn’t.”
    “It’s not easy to spot the
absence
of something. Instead, we tend to focus on what doesn’t belong. I need you to go through this box again. Please.”
    Anna swallowed hard. Reluctantly she sat down with the baby in her lap and stared into the jewelry box. She took out the items one by one and laid them on the table. It was a sad little assortment of department store trinkets. Rhinestones and crystal beads and faux pearls. Elena’s taste had run toward the bright and gaudy.
    Anna laid the last item, a turquoise friendship ring, on the table. Then she sat for a moment, a frown slowly forming on her face.
    “The bracelet,” she said.
    “What bracelet?”
    “There should be a bracelet, with little charms on it. Horses. She used to wear it every day in high school. Elena was crazy about horses. . . .” Anna looked up with a stunned expression. “It wasn’t worth anything! It was just made of tin. Why would he take it?”
    Rizzoli looked at the Ziploc bag containing the necklace—a necklace she was now certain had once belonged to Diana Sterling. And she thought,
I know exactly where we’ll find Elena’s bracelet: around the wrist of the next victim.
     
    Rizzoli stood on Moore’s front porch, triumphantly waving the Ziploc bag containing the necklace.
    “It belonged to Diana Sterling. I just spoke to her parents. They didn’t realize it was missing until I called them.”
    He took the bag but didn’t open it. Just held it, staring at the gold chain coiled inside the plastic.
    “It’s the physical link between both cases,” she said. “He takes a souvenir from one victim. Leaves it with the next.”
    “I can’t believe we missed this detail.”
    “Hey, we
didn’t
miss it.”
    “You mean
you
didn’t miss it.” He gave her a look that made her feel ten feet taller. Moore wasn’t a guy who’d slap your back or shout your praises. In fact, she could not remember ever hearing him raise his voice, either in anger or in excitement. But when he gave her
that look
, the eyebrow raised in approval, the mouth tilted in a half smile, it was all the praise she’d ever need.
    Flushing with pleasure, she reached down for the bag of take-out food she’d brought. “You want dinner? I stopped in at that Chinese restaurant down the street.”
    “You didn’t have to do that.”
    “Yeah, I did. I figure I owe you an apology.”
    “For what?”
    “For this afternoon. That stupid deal with the tampon. You were just standing up for me, trying to be the good guy. I took it the wrong way.”
    An awkward silence passed. They stood there, not sure of what to say, two people who don’t know each other well and are trying to get past the rocky start of their relationship.
    Then he smiled, and it transformed his usually sober face into that of a much younger man. “I’m starved,” he said. “Bring that food in here.”
    With a laugh, she stepped into his house. It was her first time here, and she paused to glance around, taking in all the womanly touches. The chintz curtains, the floral watercolors on the wall. It was not what she expected. Hell, it was more feminine than her own apartment.
    “Let’s go into the kitchen,” he said. “My papers are in there.”
    He led her through the living room, and she saw the spinet piano.
    “Wow. You play?” she asked.
    “No, it’s Mary’s. I’ve got a tin