The explosion sends a scarlet spray of blood onto the wall. His legs buckle and his body drops like a sack of stones.
It is not the first time I’ve seen death. I should be immune to the view by now. But as I stare at his destroyed head, at blood that seeps from his shattered skull and pools on the bedroom floor, I suddenly feel as if I am choking. I tear open my blouse and claw at the Kevlar vest that Jane Rizzoli had insisted I wear. Though the vest stopped the bullet, I still smart from the impact. The bullet will almost certainly leave a bruise. I pull off the vest and toss it aside. I don’t care that the four men in the room can see my bra. I rip away the microphone and wires that are taped to my skin, a device that has saved my life tonight. Had I not been wired, had the police not been listening, they would not have heard my conversation with Kimball. They would not have known that he was already inside my house.
Outside, sirens are screaming closer.
I rebutton my blouse, rise to my feet, and try not to look at the body of Kimball Rose as I walk out of the room.
Outside, the warm night is alive with radio chatter and the flashing rack lights of police vehicles. I am clearly visible in that kaleidoscopic glare, but I do not shrink from the light. For the first time in a quarter of a century, I do not have to hide in the shadows.
“Are you okay?”
I turn and see Detective Rizzoli standing beside me. “I’m fine,” I say.
“I’m sorry about what happened in there. He should never have gotten so close to you.”
“But it’s over now.” I take a sweet breath of freedom. “That’s all that matters. It’s finally over.”
“You still face a number of questions from the San Diego PD. About Bradley’s death. About what happened that night.”
“I can deal with it.”
There’s a pause. “Yeah, you can,” she says. “I’m sure you can deal with anything.” I hear a quiet note of respect in her voice, the same respect I’ve learned to feel toward her.
“May I leave now?” I ask.
“As long as we always know where you are.”
“You know where to find me.” It will be wherever my daughter is. I sketch a small salute of farewell in the darkness and walk to my car.
Over the years I have fantasized about this moment, about a day when I would not have to look over my shoulder, when I can finally answer to my real name without fear of consequences. In my dreams, it is a moment of incandescent joy, when the clouds would part, the champagne would flow, and I would shout out my happiness to the sky. But this reality is not what I expected. What I feel instead of delirious, foot-stomping joy is more subdued. I feel relieved and weary and a little lost. All these years, fear has been my constant companion; now I must learn to live without it.
As I drive north, I feel the fear peel away like layers of timeworn linen that flutter away in streams and float off into the night. I let it go. I leave it all behind and drive north, toward a little house in Chelsea.
Toward my daughter.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a huge debt of thanks to Dr. Jonathan Elias of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium, and to Joann Potter of the Vassar College Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, for allowing me to share in the excitement of Shep-en-Min’s CT scan. Many thanks as well to Linda Marrow for her brilliant editorial suggestions, to Selina Walker for her keen insights, and to my tireless literary agent, Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency.
Most of all, I thank my husband, Jacob. For everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TESS GERRITSEN is a physician and an internationally bestselling author. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of medical suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest. She is also the author of the bestsellers The Bone Garden, The Mephisto Club, Vanish, Body Double, The Sinner, The Apprentice, The Surgeon, Life Support, Bloodstream, and Gravity. Tess Gerritsen lives in Maine. Visit her website at www.tessgerritsen.com.
ALSO BY TESS GERRITSEN
Harvest
Life Support
Bloodstream
Gravity
The Surgeon
The Apprentice
The Sinner
Body Double
Vanish
The Mephisto Club
The Bone Garden
The Keepsake is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Tess Gerritsen
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Gerritsen, Tess.
The keepsake: a novel / Tess Gerritsen.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-50939-0
1. Rizzoli, Jane, Detective (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Policewomen—Fiction. 3. Women—Crimes against—Fiction. 4. Medical examiners (Law)—Fiction. 5. Women forensic scientists—Fiction. 6. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.E687K45 2008 813'.54—dc22 2008028131
www.ballantinebooks.com
v1.0
Tess Gerritsen, The Keepsake
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