The Surgeon (13 page)

prepared for the horror.
The woman's abdomen had been flayed open. Loops of
small bowel spilled out of the incision and hung like grotesque
streamers over the side of the bed. Blood dribbled from the
open neck wound and collected in a spreading pool on the
floor.
It took Moore an eternity to process what he was seeing.
Only then, as he fully registered the details, did he understand
their significance. The blood, still fresh, still dripping. The
absence of arterial spray on the wall. The ever-widening pool
of dark, almost black blood.
At once he crossed to the body, his shoes tracking straight
through the blood.
"Hey!" yelled Rizzoli. "You're contaminating the scene!"
He pressed his fingers to the intact side of the victim's
neck.
The corpse opened her eyes.
Dear god. She's still alive.

eight
C   atherine jerked rigid in bed, heart slamming in her
chest, every nerve electric with fear. She stared at the
darkness, struggling to quell her panic.
Someone was pounding on the door of the call room. "Dr.
Cordell?" Catherine recognized the voice of one of the E.R.
nurses. "Dr. Cordell!"
"Yes?" said Catherine.

"We have a trauma case coming in! Massive blood loss,
abdominal and neck wounds. I know Dr. Ames is covering for
trauma tonight, but he's delayed. Dr. Kimball could use your
help!"
"Tell him I'll be there." Catherine turned on the lamp and
stared at the clock. It was 2:45 A.M. She'd slept only three
hours. The green silk dress was still draped over the chair. It
looked like something foreign, from another woman's life, not
her own.
The scrub suit she'd worn to bed was damp with sweat, but
she had no time to change. She gathered her tangled hair in a
ponytail and went to the sink to splash cold water on her face.
The woman staring back at her from the mirror was a shell-
shocked stranger. Focus. It's time to let go of the fear. Time
to go to work. She slipped her bare feet into the running shoes
she'd retrieved from her hospital locker and, with a deep
breath, stepped out of the call room.
"ETA two minutes!" called the E.R. clerk. "Ambulance says
pressure's down to seventy systolic!"
"Dr. Cordell, they're setting up in Trauma One."
"Who've we got on the team?"
"Dr. Kimball and two interns. Thank god you're already in-
house. Dr. Ames's car conked out and he can't get in. . . ."

Catherine pushed into Trauma One. In a glance she saw the
team had prepared for the worst. Three poles were hung with
Ringer's lacate; IV tubes were coiled and ready for
connection. A courier was standing by to run blood tubes to
the lab. The two interns stood on either side of the table,
clutching IV catheters, and Ken Kimball, the E.R. doc on duty,
had already broken the tape sealing the laparotomy tray.
Catherine pulled on a surgical cap, then thrust her arms into
the sleeves of a sterile gown. A nurse tied the gown in back
and held open the first glove. With every piece of the uniform
came another layer of authority and she was feeling stronger,
more in control. In this room, she was the savior, not the victim.
"What's the story on the patient?" she asked Kimball.
"Assault. Trauma to the neck and abdomen."
"Gunshot?"
"No. Stab wounds."
Catherine paused in the act of snapping on the second
glove. A knot had suddenly formed in her stomach. Neck and
abdomen. Stab wounds.
"Ambulance is pulling in!" a nurse yelled through the
doorway.
"Blood and guts time," said Kimball, and he stepped out to

meet the patient.
Catherine, already in sterile garb, stayed right where she
was. The room had suddenly gone silent. Neither the two
interns flanking the table nor the scrub nurse, poised to hand
Catherine surgical instruments, said a word. They were
focused on what was happening beyond the door.
They heard Kimball yell: "Go, go, go!"
The door flew open, and the gurney wheeled in. Catherine
caught a glimpse of blood-soaked sheets, of a woman's
matted brown hair and a face obscured by the tape holding an
ET tube in place.
With a one-two-three! they slid the patient onto the table.
Kimball pulled off the sheet, baring the victim's torso.
In the chaos of that room, no one heard Catherine's sharp
intake of breath. No one noticed her take a stumbling step
backward. She stared at the victim's neck, where the
pressure dressing was saturated a deep red. She looked at
the abdomen, where another hastily applied dressing was
already peeling free, spilling trickles of blood down the naked
flank. Even as everyone else sprang into action, connecting
IV's and cardiac leads, squeezing air into the victim's lungs,
Catherine stood immobilized by horror.
Kimball peeled off the abdominal dressing. Loops of small

bowel spilled out and plopped onto the table.
"Systolic's barely palpable at sixty! She's in sinus tach--"
"I can't get this IV in! Her vein's collapsed!"
"Go for a subclavian!"
"Can you toss me another catheter?"
"Shit, this whole field's contaminated. . . ."
"Dr. Cordell? Dr. Cordell?"
Still in a daze, Catherine turned to the nurse who'd just
spoken and saw the woman frowning at her over the surgical
mask.
"Do you want lap pads?"
Catherine swallowed. Took a deep breath. "Yes. Lap pads.
And suction . . ." She re-focused on the patient. A young
woman. She had a disorienting flashback to another E.R., to
the night in Savannah when she herself had been the woman
lying on the table.
I won't let you die. I won't let him claim you.
She grabbed a handful of sponges and a hemostat from the
instrument tray. She was fully focused now, the professional
back in control. All the years of surgical training automatically

kicked into gear. She turned her attention first to the neck
wound and peeled off the pressure dressing. Dark blood
dribbled out and splattered the floor.
"The carotid!" said one of the interns.
Catherine slapped a sponge against the wound and took a
deep breath. "No. No, if it was the carotid she'd already be
dead." She looked at the scrub nurse. "Scalpel."
The instrument was slapped in her hand. She paused,
steadying herself for the delicate task, and placed the tip of
the scalpel on the neck. Maintaining pressure on the wound,
Catherine swiftly slit through the skin and dissected upward
toward the jaw, exposing the jugular vein. "He didn't cut deep
enough to reach the carotid," she said. "But he did get the
jugular. And this end's retracted up into the soft tissue." She
tossed down the scalpel and grabbed the thumb forceps.
"Intern? I need you to sponge. Gently! "
"You going to re-anastomose?"
"No, we're just going to tie it off. She'll develop collateral
drainage. I need to expose enough vein to get suture around
it. Vascular clamp."
Instantly the instrument was in her hand.
Catherine positioned the clamp and snapped it over the
exposed vessel. Then she released a sigh and glanced at

Kimball. "This bleeder's down. I'll tie it off later."
She turned her attention to the abdomen. By now Kimball
and the other intern had cleared the field using suction and lap
pads, and the wound was fully exposed. Gently Catherine
nudged aside loops of bowel and stared into the open
incision. What she saw made her sick with rage.
She met Kimball's stunned gaze across the table.
"Who would do this?" he said softly. "Who the hell are we
dealing with?"
"A monster," she said.
"The vic's still in surgery. She's still alive." Rizzoli snapped her
cell phone shut and looked at Moore and Dr. Zucker. "We now
have a witness. Our unsub's getting careless."
"Not careless," said Moore. "Rushed. He didn't have time to
finish the job." Moore stood by the bedroom door, studying the
blood on the floor. It was still fresh, still glistening. It's had no
time to dry. The Surgeon was just here.
"The photo was e-mailed to Cordell at seven fifty-five P.M.,"
said Rizzoli. "The clock in the photo said two-twenty." She
pointed to the clock on the nightstand. "That's set at the
correct time. Which means he must have taken the photo last

night. He kept that victim alive, in this house, for over twenty-
four hours."
Prolonging the pleasure.
"He's getting cocky," said Dr. Zucker, and there was an
unsettling note of admiration in his voice. An acknowledgment
that here was a worthy opponent. "Not only does he keep the
victim alive for a whole day; he actually leaves her here, for a
time, to send that e-mail. Our boy is playing mind games with
us."
"Or with Catherine Cordell," said Moore.
The victim's purse was lying on top of the dresser. With
gloved hands, Moore went through the contents. "Wallet with
thirty-four dollars. Two credit cards. Triple A card. Employee
ID badge for Lawrence Scientific Supplies, Sales
Department. Driver's license, Nina Peyton, twenty-nine years
old, five foot four, a hundred thirty pounds." He flipped over the
license. "Organ donor."
"I think she just donated," said Rizzoli.
He unzipped a side pocket. "There's a datebook."
Rizzoli turned to look at him with interest. "Yes?"
He opened the book to the current month. It was blank. He
flipped backward until he found an entry, written nearly eight

weeks before: Rent due. He flipped further back and saw
more entries: Sid's B-day. Dry cleaning. Concert 8:00. Staff
meeting. All the mundane little details that make up a life. Why
had the entries suddenly stopped eight weeks ago? He
thought of the woman who had written these words, printing
neatly in blue ink. A woman who had probably looked ahead
to the blank page for December and pictured Christmas and
snow with every reason to believe she would be alive to see it.
He closed the book and was so overwhelmed by sadness
that for a moment he could not speak.
"There's nothing at all left behind in the sheets," said Frost,
crouched by the bed. "No loose surgical threads, no
instruments, nothing."
"For a guy who was supposedly in a hurry to leave," said
Rizzoli, "he did a good job of cleaning up after himself. And
look. He had time to fold the nightclothes." She pointed to a
cotton nightgown, which lay neatly folded on a chair. "This
doesn't go along with his being in a rush."
"But he left his victim alive," said Moore. "The worst
possible mistake."
"It doesn't make sense, Moore. He folds the nightgown,
picks up after himself. And then he's so careless as to leave
behind a witness? He's too smart to make this mistake."
"Even the smartest ones screw up," said Zucker. "Ted

Bundy got careless at the end."
Moore looked at Frost. "You're the one who called the
victim?"
"Yeah. When we were running down that list of phone
numbers the library gave us. I called this residence around
two, two-fifteen. I got the answering machine. I didn't leave any
message."
Moore glanced around the room but saw no answering
machine. He walked out to the living room and spotted the
phone on the end table. It had a caller ID box, and the memory
button was smeared with blood.
He used the tip of a pencil to press the button, and the
phone number of the last caller was displayed on the digital
readout.
Boston PD 2:14 A.M.
"Is that what spooked him?" asked Zucker, who'd followed
him into the living room.
"He was right here when Frost called. There's blood on the
caller ID button."

"So the phone rang. And our unsub wasn't finished. He
hadn't achieved satisfaction. But a phone call in the middle of
the night must have rattled him. He came out here, into the
living room, and saw the number on the caller ID box. Saw it
was the police, trying to reach the victim." Zucker paused.
"What would you do?"
"I'd clear out of here."
Zucker nodded, and a smile twitched at his lips.
This is all a game to you, thought Moore. He went to the
window and looked out at the street, which was now a bright
kaleidoscope of flashing blue lights. Half a dozen cruisers
were parked in front of the house. The press was out there,
too; he could see the local TV vans setting up their satellite
feeds.
"He didn't get to enjoy it," Zucker said.
"He completed the excision."
"No, that's just the souvenir. A little reminder of his visit. He
wasn't here just to collect a body part. He came for the
ultimate thrill: to feel a woman's life drain away. But this time
he didn't achieve it. He was interrupted, distracted by fear that
the police were coming. He didn't stay long enough to watch
his victim die." Zucker paused. "The next one's going to come
very soon. Our unsub is frustrated, and the tension is getting
unbearable for him. Which means he's already on the hunt for

a new victim."
"Or he's already chosen her," said Moore. And thought:
Catherine Cordell.
The first streaks of dawn were lightening the sky. Moore
had not slept in nearly twenty-four hours, had been going full
throttle for most of the night, fueled only by coffee. Yet as he
looked up at the brightening sky, what he felt was not
exhaustion but renewed agitation. There was some
connection between Catherine and the Surgeon that he did
not understand. Some invisible thread that bound her to that
monster.
"Moore."
He turned to see Rizzoli and instantly picked up on the
excitement in her eyes.
"Sex Crimes just called," she said. "Our victim is a very
unlucky lady."
"What do you mean?"
"Two months ago, Nina Peyton was sexually assaulted."
The news stunned Moore. He thought of the blank pages in
the victim's datebook. Eight weeks ago, the entries had
stopped. That was when Nina Peyton's life had screeched to
a halt.

"There's a report on file?" said Zucker.
"Not just a report," said Rizzoli. "A rape kit was collected."
"Two rape victims?" said Zucker. "Could it be this easy?"
"You think their rapist comes back to kill them?"
"It's got to be more than random chance. Ten percent of
serial rapists later communicate with their victims. It's the
perp's way of prolonging the torment. The obsession."
"Rape as foreplay to murder." Rizzoli gave a disgusted
snort. "Nice."
A new thought suddenly occurred to Moore. "You said a
rape kit was collected. So there was a vaginal swab?"
"Yep. DNA's pending."
"Who collected that swab? Did she go to the emergency
room?" He was almost certain that she'd say: Pilgrim
Hospital.
But Rizzoli shook her head. "Not the E.R. She went to
Forest Hills Women's Clinic. It's right down the road."
On a wall in the clinic waiting room, a full-color poster of the