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Silence.
No, it’s not entirely silent. Footsteps move closer. From beneath the earthmover, I see a pair of shoes halt right beside where I am hiding. Black ankle boots, narrow and scuffed and strangely familiar.
“Mom?”
Jane’s face suddenly peers at me beneath the earthmover. We stare at each other and for a moment I think I am hallucinating. How is this possible? My brilliant, relentless daughter has magically arrived. She’s come to rescue me.
“Hey, are you okay?” she says.
I crawl out from beneath the earthmover and haul her into my arms. I can’t remember the last time I hugged my daughter this hard. Not since years and years ago, when she was still a little girl, when I could sweep her up off her feet into my arms. She is too big for that now, but I can still try, and as her heels lift off the floor, I hear her laugh. “Whoa, Ma!”
I used to be the one who came to her rescue, who patched up skinned knees and brought down fevers. Now she’s the one who rescues me, and I have never been so grateful to have this girl, this daughter.
“Ma.” She pulls away and stares at my battered face. “What the fuck did theydoto you?”
“Knocked me around a little. But I’m okay.”
She turns and yells: “Greeley! I found her!”
“Who’s Greeley?” I ask.
Then I see him striding toward us, the man I once knew as Matthew Green. He looks me up and down, coolly tallying up my damage. “You think you need an ambulance, Mrs. Rizzoli?” he asks.
“I just want to go home,” I say.
“That’s what I thought you’d say. Let’s have your daughter take you home and get you cleaned up. And then you and I need to have a chat.” He turns to leave.
“About Nina?” I ask.
He halts. Turns back to face me. “What do you know about her?”
“I know she’s going to testify against him. I know that if he ever finds her, she’s a dead woman. I know he has a snitch inside Revere PD feeding him information, so you better check into that. And one of his men is over at the Colonnade right now, looking for her.”
He regards me for a moment, as if seeing me—really seeing me—for the first time. The corner of his mouth tilts up. “I guess there’s more to you than meets the eye.” He turns to Jane. “Please take her home, Detective. And keep her out of my hair. If you can.”
“What about Nina?” I call out as he turns away.
“She’ll be fine now.”
“How do you know that?”
“Trust me.”
“Why should I? And is Greeley even your real name?”
He raises his hand in a careless wave and just keeps walking away.
“Come on, Ma,” says Jane. “I’ll take you home.”
Now that I’m no longer terrified, my cheekbone is really starting to ache. Maybe I do need an ambulance, but I’m too proud to admit it, so I just let Jane lead me away from the earthmover, toward the bay door, where a dozen officers wearing vests labeledU.S. Marshalare milling around.
“Don’t look, Ma,” Jane warns me.
So of course I have to look. At the blood spattering the concrete floor. At the two bodies lying at the officers’ feet. So this is why Greeley said Nina will be fine. Because the man who’s been hunting her now lies dead, shot to death in a gun battle with U.S. Marshals. I can still smell his stinky aftershave.
I pause, staring down at the man who’d battered my face, who’d breezily ordered me killed, and I want to give that corpse a good, hard kick. But I have my dignity, and all these officers are watching. So I just keep walking out of the warehouse and climb into my daughter’s car.
—
