The Silent Girl

The Silent Girl

A volume in the continuing adventures of Rizzoli and Isles Praise for The Silent Girl "Suspense doesn't get smarter than this. Not just recommended but mandatory."—Lee Child   "She did it to me again!  I can't get anything done when Tess puts out a new book and this one caught me as I was starting work on Season 2 of "Rizzoli & Isles."  So instead of memorizing my lines, I was sucked up into Boston's Chinatown with Jane, Maura, and company and could not put this one down. Just like the other books. Every time.   And to top it off, now I have to wait for the NEXT one to come out--you're killing me, Tess!  So good..."—Lorraine Bracco   “[A] deft thriller.”— Publisher’s Weekly   Praise for Ice Cold and Tess Gerritsen   “Gerritsen paces Ice Cold with surgical precision.”— Salon   “The kind of book you’d read in one sitting.”— Chicago Sun-Times   “Amazing . . . another winner.”— The Plain Dealer   “[Gerritsen] has an imagination that allows her to conjure up depths of human behavior do dark and frightening that she makes Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft seem like goody-two-shoes.”— Chicago Tribune   “One of the most versatile voices in thriller fiction today.”— The Providence Journal Tess Gerritsen is a physician and an internationally bestselling author. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest. She is also the author of the bestsellers Ice Cold , The Keepsake , 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. ONE San Francisco ALL DAY, I HAVE BEEN WATCHING THE GIRL. She gives no indication that she's aware of me, although my rental car is within view of the street corner where she and the other teenagers have gathered this afternoon, doing whatever bored kids do to pass the time. She looks younger than the others, but perhaps it's because she's Asian and petite at seventeen, just a wisp of a girl. Her black hair is cropped as short as a boy's, and her blue jeans are ragged and torn. Not a fashion statement, I think, but a result of hard use and life on the streets. She puffs on a cigarette and exhales a cloud of smoke with the nonchalance of a street thug, an attitude that doesn't match her pale face and delicate Chinese features. She is pretty enough to attract the hungry stares of two men who pass by. The girl notices their looks and glares straight back at them, unafraid, but it's easy to be fearless when danger is merely an abstract concept. Faced with a real threat, how would this girl react, I wonder. Would she put up a fight or would she crumble? I want to know what she's made of, but I have not seen her put to the test. As evening falls, the teenagers on the corner begin to disband. First one and then another wanders away. In San Francisco, even summer nights are chilly, and those who remain huddle together in their sweaters and jackets, lighting one another's cigarettes, savoring the ephemeral heat of the flame. But cold and hunger eventually disperse the last of them, leaving only the girl, who has nowhere to go. She waves to her departing friends and for a while lingers alone, as though waiting for someone. At last, with a shrug, she leaves the corner and walks in my direction, her hands thrust in her pockets. As she passes my car, she doesn't even glance at me, but looks straight ahead, her gaze focused and fierce, as if she's mentally churning over some dilemma. Perhaps she's thinking about where she's going to scavenge dinner tonight. Or perhaps it's something more consequential. Her future. Her survival. She's probably unaware that two men are following her. Seconds after she walks past my car, I spot the men emerging from an alley. I recognize them; it's the same pair who had stared at her earlier. As they move past my car, trailing her, one of the men looks at me through the windshield. It's just a quick glance to assess whether I am a threat. What he sees does not concern him in the least, and he and his companion keep walking. They move like the confident predators they are, stalking weaker prey who cannot possibly fight them off. I step out of my car and follow them. Just as they are following the girl. She heads into a neighborhood where too many buildings stand abandoned, where the sidewalk seems paved with broken bottles. The girl betrays no fear, no hesitation, as if this is familiar territory. Not once does she glance back, which tells me she is either foolhardy or clueless about the world and what it can do to girls like her. The men following her don't glance back, either. Even if they were to spot me, which I do not allow to happen, they would see nothing to be afraid of. No one ever does. A block ahead, the girl turns right, vanishing through a doorway. I retreat into the shadows and watch what happens next. The two men pause outside the building that the