The Apprentice

FOURTEEN

She sat in her car, warm air blasting from the AC vent, sweat beading on her face. Even the night’s heat could not dispel the chill she still felt from the autopsy room. I must be coming down with a virus, she thought, massaging her temples. And no wonder; she had been going full throttle for days, and now it was catching up with her. Her head ached and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

She drove straight home. Walked into her apartment and once again performed the ritual that had become such an important part of maintaining her sanity. The turning of the dead bolts, the sliding of the chain into its groove, were performed with deliberate care, and only after she completed her security checklist and had locked every lock, peered into every closet, did she finally kick off her shoes, peel off her slacks and blouse. Stripped down to her underwear, she sank onto the bed and sat massaging her temples, wondering if she still had any aspirin in the medicine cabinet yet feeling too drained to get up and look.

Her apartment intercom buzzed. She snapped straight, pulse galloping, alarms lighting up every nerve. She was not expecting visitors, nor did she want any.

The buzzer rang again, the sound like steel wool against raw nerve endings.

She rose and went into the living room to press the intercom button. “Yes?”

“It’s Gabriel Dean. May I come up?”

Of all people, his was the last voice she’d expected to hear. She was so startled that for a moment she didn’t respond.

“Detective Rizzoli?” he said.

“What is this about, Agent Dean?”

“The autopsy. There are issues we need to talk about.”

She pressed the lock release and almost immediately wished she hadn’t. She didn’t trust Dean, yet she was about to let him into the safe haven of her apartment. With the careless press of a button, the decision had been made, and now she could not change her mind.

She’d barely had time to pull on a cotton bathrobe when he knocked. Through the fish-eye lens of the door’s peephole his sharp features appeared distorted. Ominous. By the time she’d unfastened all the various locks, that grotesquely distorted image had solidified in her mind. Reality was far less threatening. The man who stood in her doorway had tired eyes and a face that registered the strain of having witnessed too many horrors on too little sleep.

Yet his first question was about her: “Are you holding up all right?”

She understood the implication of that question: That she was not all right. That she was in need of checking up on, an unstable cop about to fracture into brittle shards.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she said.

“You left so soon after the autopsy. Before we had the chance to talk.”

“About what?”

“Warren Hoyt.”

“What do you want to know about him?”

“Everything.”

“I’m afraid that would take all night. And I’m tired.” She tugged her bathrobe tighter, suddenly self-conscious. It had always been important to her to appear professional, and she usually slipped on a blazer before heading to a crime scene. Now she stood before Dean in nothing more than her robe and underwear, and she did not like this feeling of vulnerability.

She reached for the door, a gesture with an unmistakable message: This conversation is over.

He didn’t budge from her doorway. “Look, I admit I made a mistake. I should have listened to you from the start. You were the one who saw it first. I didn’t recognize the parallels with Hoyt.”

“That’s because you never knew him.”

“So tell me about him. We need to work together, Jane.”

Her laughter was sharp as glass. “Now you’re interested in teamwork? This is new and different.”

Resigned to the fact that he was not leaving, she turned and walked into the living room. He followed her, shutting the door behind him.

“Talk to me about Hoyt.”

“You can read his file.”

“I already have.”

“Then you’ve got everything you need.”

“Not everything.”

She turned to face him. “What else is there?”

“I want to know what you know.” He stepped closer, and she felt a thrill of alarm because she was at such a disadvantage, standing before him in her bare feet, too exhausted to fend off his assault. It felt like an assault, all these demands he was making and the way his gaze seemed to penetrate what little clothing she wore.

“There’s some sort of emotional bond between you two,” he said. “An attachment.”

“Don’t call it a fucking attachment.”

“What would you call it?”

“He was the perp. I’m the one who cornered him. It’s as simple as that.”

“Not so simple, from what I’ve heard. Whether or not you want to admit it, there is an attachment between you two. He’s purposefully stepped back into your life. That grave site where they left Karenna Ghent’s body was not chosen at random.”

She said nothing. On that point she could not disagree.

“He’s a hunter, just like you are,” said Dean. “You both hunt humans. That’s one bond between you. Common ground.”

“There is no common ground.”

“But you understand each other. No matter what your feelings are, you’re linked to him. You saw his influence on the Dominator before anyone else did. You were way ahead of us.”

“And you thought I needed a shrink.”

“Yes. At the time, I did.”

“So now I’m not crazy. I’m brilliant.”

“You’ve got the inside track into his mind. You can help us figure out what he’ll do next. What does he want?”

“How should I know?”

“You got a more intimate look at him than any other cop has.”

“Intimate? Is that what you call it? That son of a bitch almost killed me.”

“And there’s nothing more intimate than murder. Is there?” She hated him at that moment, because he had stated a truth she wanted to cringe from. He had pointed out the very thing she could not bear to acknowledge: That she and Warren Hoyt were forever bound to each other.

That fear and loathing are more powerful emotions than love could ever be. She sank onto the couch. Once, she would have fought back. Once, she’d been fierce enough to match any man word for word. But tonight, she was tired, so tired, and she did not have the strength to fend off Dean’s questions. He would continue to push and prod until he had answers, and she might as well surrender to the inevitable. Get it over with so that he would leave her alone.

She straightened and found herself staring at her hands, at the matching scars on her palms. These were only the most obvious souvenirs left by Hoyt; the other scars were not so visible: the healed fractures of her ribs and facial bones, which could still be seen on X-ray. Least visible of all were the fracture lines that still split her life, like cracks left by an earthquake. In the last few weeks, she had felt those cracks begin to widen, as though the ground itself threatened to give way beneath her feet.

“I didn’t realize he was still there,” she whispered. “Standing right behind me in that cellar. In that house…”

He sat down in the chair across from her. “You’re the one who found him. The only cop who knew where to look.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She gave a shrug, a laugh. “Dumb luck.”

“No, it’s got to be more than that.”

“Don’t give me credit I don’t deserve.”

“I don’t think I’ve given you enough credit, Jane.” She looked up and found him staring at her with a directness that made her want to hide. But there was no place to retreat to, no defense she could mount against a gaze so piercing. How much does he see? she wondered. Does he know how exposed he makes me feel? “Tell me what happened in the cellar,” he said.

“You know what happened. It’s in my statement.”

“People leave things out of statements.”

“There’s nothing more to tell.”

“You’re not even going to try?”

Anger ripped through her like shrapnel. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Yet you can’t help returning to it. Can you?” She stared at him, wondering what game he was playing and how she’d been so easily sucked into it. She had known other men who were charismatic, men who could draw a woman’s gaze so fast she’d get whiplash. Rizzoli had enough good sense to keep her distance from such men, to regard them for what they were: the genetically blessed among mere mortals. She had little use for such men, and they had little for her. But tonight, she had something Gabriel Dean needed, and he was focusing the full force of his attraction on her. And it was working. Never before had a man made her feel so confused and aroused all at once.

“He had you trapped in the cellar,” said Dean.

“I walked right into it. I didn’t know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

It was a startling question and it made her pause. She thought back to that afternoon, standing at the open cellar door, dreading the descent down those dark stairs. She remembered the suffocating heat of the house and how the sweat had soaked into her bra, her shirt. She remembered how fear had lit up every nerve in her body. Yes, she had known something was not right. She’d known what waited for her at the bottom of the steps.

“What went wrong, Detective?”

“The victim,” she whispered.

“Catherine Cordell?”

“She was in the cellar. Tied to a cot in the cellar…”

“The bait.”

She closed her eyes and could almost smell the scent of Cordell’s blood, of damp earth. Of her own sweat, sour with fear. “I took it. I took the bait.”

“He knew you would.”

“I should have realized-”

“But you were focused on the victim. On Cordell.”

“I wanted to save her.”

“And that was your mistake.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him in anger. “Mistake?”

“You didn’t secure the area first. You left yourself open to attack. You committed the most basic of errors. Surprising, for someone so capable.”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know the situation I faced.”

“I read your statement.”

“Cordell was lying there. Bleeding-”

“So you responded the way any normal human being would. You tried to help her.”

“Yes.”

“And it got you into trouble. You forgot to think like a cop.”

Her look of outrage did not seem to disturb him in the least. He merely gazed back at her, his expression immobile, his face so composed, so assured, that it only served to magnify her own turmoil.

“I never forget to think like a cop,” she said.

“In that cellar, you did. You let the victim distract you.”

“My primary concern is always the victim.”

“When it endangers you both? Is that logical?”

Logical. Yes, that was Gabriel Dean. She had never met anyone like this man, who could regard both the living and the dead with an equal absence of emotion.

“I couldn’t let her die,” she said. “That was my first- my only-thought.”

“You knew her? Cordell?”

“Yes.”

“You were friends?”

“No.” Her answer was so immediate, Dean’s eyebrow slanted up in a silent query. Rizzoli took a breath and said, “She was part of the Surgeon investigation. That’s all.”

“You didn’t like her?”

Rizzoli paused, taken aback by Dean’s penetrating insight. She said, “I didn’t warm to her. Let’s put it that way.” I was jealous of her. Of her beauty. And her effect on Thomas Moore.

“Yet Cordell was a victim,” said Dean.

“I wasn’t sure what she was. Not at first. But toward the end, it became clear she was the Surgeon’s target.”

“You must have felt guilty. About doubting her.”

Rizzoli said nothing.

“Is that why you needed so badly to save her?”

She stiffened, insulted by his question. “She was in danger. I didn’t need any other reason.”

“You took risks that weren’t prudent.”

“I don’t think risk and prudent are words that go together in the same sentence.”

“The Surgeon set the trap. You took the bait.”

“Yeah, okay. It was a mistake-”

“One he knew you’d make.”

“How could he possibly know that?”

“He knows a lot about you. It’s that bond, again. That connection between you two.”

She shot to her feet. “This is bullshit,” she said, and walked out of the living room.

He followed her into the kitchen, relentlessly pursuing her with his theories, theories she didn’t want to hear. The thought of any emotional link between herself and Hoyt was too repellent to consider, and she couldn’t stand listening any longer. But here he was, crowding into her already claustrophobic kitchen, forcing her to hear what he had to say.

“Just as you have a direct channel into Warren Hoyt’s psyche,” Dean said, “he has one into yours.”

“He didn’t know me at the time.”

“Can you be sure of that? He would have been following the investigation. Would have known you were on the team.”

“And that’s all he would have known about me.”

“I think he understands more than you give him credit for. He feeds off women’s fears. It’s all written there, in his psychological profile. He’s attracted to damaged women. To the emotionally battered. The whiff of a woman’s pain turns him on, and he’s exquisitely sensitive to its presence. He can detect it using the most subtle of clues. A woman’s tone of voice. The way she holds her head or refuses eye contact. All the tiny physical signs that the rest of us might miss. But he picks up on them. He knows which women are wounded, and those are the ones he wants.”

“I’m no victim.”

“You are now. He made you one.” He moved closer, so close they were almost touching. She felt the sudden wild urge to lean into his arms and press herself against him. To see how he would react. But pride and common sense kept her perfectly rigid.

She forced out a laugh. “Who’s the victim here, Agent Dean? Not me. Don’t forget, I’m the one who put him away.”

“Yes,” he answered quietly. “You put the Surgeon away. But not without a great deal of damage to yourself.”

She stared back, silent. Damaged. That was exactly the word for what had been done to her. A woman with scars on her hands and a fortress of locks on her door. A woman who would never again feel August’s hot breath without remembering the heat of that summer day and the smell of her own blood.

Without a word, she turned and walked out of the kitchen, back into the living room. There she sank on the couch and sat in dazed silence. He did not immediately follow her, and for a moment she was left blessedly alone. She wished he would simply vanish, walk out of her apartment and grant her the seclusion that every suffering animal craves. She was not so lucky. She heard emerge from the kitchen, and she looked up to see him holding two glasses. He held one out to her.

“What’s this?” she said.

“Tequila. I found it in your cupboard.”

She took the glass and frowned at it. “I forgot I had it. It’s ancient.”

“Well, it hadn’t been opened.”

That’s because she did not care for the taste of tequila. The bottle was just another one of those useless boozy gifts her brother Frankie brought home from his travels, like the Kahlua liqueur from Hawaii and the sake from Japan. Frankie’s way of showing off what a man of the world he was, thanks to the U.S. Marine Corps. This was as good a time as any to sample his souvenir from sunny Mexico. She took a sip and blinked away the sting of tears. As the tequila warmed its way into her stomach, she suddenly thought of a detail from Warren Hoyt’s past. His early victims had first been incapacitated by the drug Rohypnol, slipped into their drinks. How easy it is to catch us unguarded, she thought. When a woman is distracted or has no reason to distrust the man who hands her a drink, she is just another lamb in the chute. Even she had accepted a glass of tequila without question. Even she had allowed a man she did not know well into her apartment.

She looked at Dean again. He was sitting across from her, and their gazes were now level. The drink, tossed into her empty stomach, was already asserting itself, and her limbs felt nerveless. The anesthesia of alcohol. She was detached and calm, dangerously so.

He leaned toward her, and she did not pull away with her usual defensiveness. Dean was invading her personal space, the way few men had ever tried to do, and she let him. She surrendered to him.

“We’re no longer dealing with a single killer,” he said. “We’re dealing with a partnership. And one of those two partners is a man you know better than anyone else does. Whether you want to admit it or not, you have a special link to Warren Hoyt. Which makes you a link to the Dominator as well.”

She released a deep breath and said, softly: “It’s the way Warren works best. It’s what he craves. A partner. A mentor.”

“He had one in Savannah.”

“Yes. A doctor named Andrew Capra. After Capra was killed, Warren was left on his own. That’s when he came to Boston. But he never stopped looking for a new partner. Someone who’d share his cravings. His fantasies.”

“I’m afraid he’s found him.”

They gazed at each other, both understanding the grim consequences of this new development.

“They’re twice as effective now,” he said. “Wolves work better in a pack than they do alone.”

“Cooperative hunting.”

He nodded. “It makes everything easier. The stalking. The cornering. Maintaining control of the victims…”

She sat up straight. “The teacup,” she said.

“What about it?”

“There wasn’t one at the Ghent death scene. Now we know why.”

“Because Warren Hoyt was there to help him.”

She nodded. “The Dominator had no need for a warning system. He had a partner who could alert him if the husband moved. A partner who stood by and watched the whole thing. And Warren would get off on it. He’d enjoy it. It’s part of his fantasy. To watch as the woman is assaulted.”

“And the Dominator craves an audience.”

She nodded. “That’s why he’s chosen couples. So there’d be someone to watch. To see him enjoy ultimate power over a woman’s body.”

The ordeal she described was so intimate a violation that she found it painful to look Dean in the eyes. But she held her gaze. The sexual assault of women was a crime that awakened the prurient curiosity of too many men. As the lone woman in the room at morning investigative conferences, she had watched her male colleagues discuss the details of such assaults and had heard the electric hum of interest in their voices, even as they strove to maintain the appearance of sober professionalism. They lingered over the pathologist’s reports of sexual injuries, stared too long at the crime scene photos of women with legs splayed apart. Their reactions made Rizzoli feel personally violated as well, and over the years she had developed a hair-trigger sensitivity to even a flicker of unseemly interest in a cop’s eyes whenever the subject was rape. Now, looking into Dean’s eyes, she searched for that disturbing flicker but saw none. Nor had she seen anything but grim determination in his eyes when he had stared down at the violated corpses of Gail Yeager and Karenna Ghent. Dean was not turned on by these atrocities; he was deeply appalled.

“You said that Hoyt craves a mentor,” he said.

“Yes. Someone to lead the way. To teach him.”

“Teach him what? He already knows how to kill.”

She paused to take another sip of tequila. When she looked at him again, she found he had leaned even closer, as though afraid to miss her softest utterance.

“Variations on a theme,” she said. “Women and pain. How many ways can you defile a body? How many ways can you inflict torture? Warren had a pattern he stuck to for several years. Maybe he’s ready to expand his horizons.”

“Or this unsub is ready to expand his.”

She paused. “The Dominator?”

“We may have turned it around. Maybe it’s our unknown subject who seeks a mentor. And he’s chosen Warren Hoyt as his teacher.”

She stared at him, chilled by the thought. The word teacher implied mastery. Authority. Was this the role into which Hoyt had transformed during his months behind prison walls? Had confinement nurtured his fantasies, honed his urges to razor-sharp purpose? He had been formidable enough before his arrest; she did not even want to think about a more powerful incarnation of Warren Hoyt.

Dean sank back in the chair, blue eyes regarding his glass of tequila. He had sipped only sparingly, and now he set the glass down on the coffee table. He’d always struck her as a man who never let his discipline weaken, who had learned to keep all impulses in check. But fatigue was taking its toll, and his shoulders were slumping, his eyes shot through with red. He rubbed his hand across his face. “How do two monsters manage to connect in a city the size of Boston?” he said. “How do they find each other?”

“And so fast?” she added. “The Ghents were attacked only two days after Warren escaped.”

Dean lifted his head and looked at her. “They already knew each other.”

“Or they knew of each other.”

Certainly the Dominator would have known about Warren Hoyt. It was impossible to read a Boston newspaper last fall and be ignorant of the atrocities he had committed. Even if they had not met, Hoyt would know about the unsub as well, if only through news reports. He would have heard about the Yeagers’ deaths, would have known that there existed a monster very much like him. He would wonder who this other predator might be, this brother in blood. Communication through murder, the message relayed via TV news shows and the Boston Globe.

He’s seen me on TV as well. Hoyt knew I was at the Yeager death scene. And now he is trying to make my reacquaintance.

Dean’s touch made her flinch. He was frowning at her, leaning even closer than before, and it seemed to her that no man had ever focused on her so intently.

No man except the Surgeon.

“It’s not the Dominator who’s playing games with me,” she said. “It’s Hoyt. The stakeout fiasco-it was meant to bring me down. It’s the only way he can approach a woman, by bringing her down first. Demoralizing her, tearing away bits and pieces of her life. It’s why he chose rape victims to kill. Women who’d already been symbolically destroyed. Before he attacks, he needs to have us weak. Afraid.”

“You’re the last woman I’d ever characterize as weak.”

She flushed at the praise, because she knew it was not deserved. “I’m just trying to explain to you the way he works,” she said. “How he stalks his prey. Incapacitates them before he moves in. He did it with Catherine Cordell. Before his final attack, he played mind games to terrify her. Sent her messages to let her know he could walk in and out of her life without her knowing he was there. Like a ghost, walking through walls. She didn’t know when he’d appear next, or what direction the attack would come from. But she knew it was coming. That’s how he wears you down. By letting you know that someday, when you least expect it, he’ll come for you.”

Despite the chilling nature of her words, she had maintained a calm voice. Unnaturally calm. Through it all, Dean watched her with quiet intensity, as though searching for a glimpse of real emotion, real weakness. She let him see none.

“Now he has a partner,” she said. “Someone he can learn from. Someone he can teach in return. A hunting team.”

“You think they’ll stay together.”

“Warren would want to. He’d want a partner. They’ve already killed together once. That’s a powerful bond, sealed in blood.” She took a final sip of her drink, draining the glass. Would it numb her brain of nightmares tonight? Or was she beyond the comforts of anesthesia?

“Have you requested protection?”

His question startled her. “Protection?”

“A cruiser, at the very least. To watch your apartment.”

“I’m a cop.”

He tilted his head, as though waiting for the rest of the answer.

“If I were a man,” she said, “would you have asked that question?”

“You’re not a man.”

“That means I automatically need protection?”

“Why do you sound so offended?”

“Why does my being a woman make me incapable of defending my own home?”

He sighed. “Do you always have to outdo the men, Detective?”

“I’ve worked hard to be treated like everyone else,” she said. “I’m not going to ask for special favors because I’m a woman.”

“It’s because you’re a woman that you’re in this position. The Surgeon’s sexual fantasies are about women. And the Dominator’s attacks aren’t about the husbands, but about the wives. He rapes the wives. You can’t tell me that your being female is irrelevant to this situation.”

She flinched at the mention of rape. Up till now, the discussion of sexual assault had been about other women. That she was a potential victim brought the focus to a far more intimate level, a level she was not comfortable discussing with any man. Even more than the subject of rape, it was Dean himself who made her uneasy. The way he studied her, as though she held some secret he was eager to mine.

“It’s not about you being a cop, or whether you’re capable of defending yourself,” he said. “It’s about you being a woman. A woman Warren Hoyt has probably fantasized about all these months.”

“Not me. Cordell’s the one he wants.”

“Cordell is out of his reach. He can’t touch her. But you’re right here. You’re within his grasp, the very woman he almost defeated. The woman he pinned to the floor in that cellar. He had his blade at your throat. He could already smell your blood.”

“Stop it, Dean.”

“In a way, he’s already claimed you. You’re already his. And you’re out in the open every day, working the very crimes he leaves behind. Every dead body’s a message meant for your eyes. A preview of what he has planned for you.”

“I said, stop it.”

“And you think you don’t need protection? You think a gun and an attitude is all it takes to stay alive? Then you’re ignoring your own gut feelings. You know what he’ll do next. You know what he craves, what turns him on. And what turns him on is you. What he plans to do to you.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Her outburst startled them both. She stared at him, dismayed by her loss of control and by the tears that sprang from nowhere. Goddamn it, goddamn it, she would not cry. She had never let a man see her crumble, and she wouldn’t allow Dean to be the first.

She took a deep breath and said, quietly, “I want you to leave now.”

“I’m only asking you to listen to your own instincts. To accept the same protection you’d offer any other woman.”

She stood and went to the door. “Good night, Agent Dean.”

For a moment he did not move, and she wondered what it would take to eject this man from her home. At last he rose to leave, but when he reached the door he stopped and looked down at her. “You’re not invincible, Jane,” he said. “And no one expects you to be.”

Long after he’d walked out, she stood with her back pressed to the locked door, her eyes closed, trying to calm the turmoil left in the wake of his visit. She knew she was not invincible. She had learned that a year ago, when she’d looked up into the Surgeon’s face and waited for the bite of his scalpel. She did not need to be reminded of that, and she resented the brutal manner in which Dean had brought home that lesson.

She crossed back to the couch and picked up the phone from the end table. It would not be dawn yet in London, but she could not delay making this call.

Moore answered on the second ring, his voice gruff but alert despite the hour.

“It’s me,” said Rizzoli. “Sorry to wake you.”

“Let me go into the other room.”

She waited. Over the phone she heard the creak of box springs as he got out of bed, then the sound of a door closing behind him.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“The Surgeon’s hunting again.”

“There’s been a victim?”

“I saw the autopsy a few hours ago. It’s his work.”

“He didn’t waste any time.”

“It gets worse, Moore.”

“How could it get any worse?”

“He has a new partner.”

A long pause. Then, softly: “Who is it?”

“We think it’s the same unsub who killed that couple in Newton. Somehow, he and Hoyt found each other. They’re hunting together.”

“So quickly? How could they link up just like that?”

“They knew each other. They had to know each other.”

“Where did they meet? When?”

“That’s what we have to find out. It could be key to the Dominator’s identity.” Suddenly she thought of the operating room from which Hoyt had escaped. The handcuffs. It had not been the guard who’d unlocked them. Someone else had walked into that O.R. to free Hoyt, someone disguised perhaps in an orderly’s scrub suit or a doctor’s borrowed lab coat.

“I should be there,” said Moore. “I should be working this with you-”

“No, you shouldn’t. You should be right where you are, with Catherine. I don’t think Hoyt can find her. But he’ll be trying. He never gives up; you know that. And now there are two of them, and we have no idea what this partner looks like. If he turns up in London, you won’t know his face. You need to be ready.”

As if anyone could be ready for the Surgeon’s attack, she thought as she hung up. A year ago, Catherine Cordell had thought she was ready. She’d turned her home into a fortress and lived her life as though under siege. Yet Hoyt had slipped through her defenses; he had struck when she least expected it, in a place she thought was safe.

Just as I think my home is safe.

She rose and crossed to the window. Looking down at the street, she wondered if, at that moment, anyone was looking at her, watching her as she stood framed in the window’s light. She would not be difficult to find. All the Surgeon had to do was look in the phone book under “RIZZOLI J.”

On the street below, a vehicle slowed down and pulled over to the curb. A police cruiser. She watched it for a moment, but it did not move, and the engine lights shut off, indicating it had settled in for a stay. She had not requested protective surveillance, but she knew who had.

Gabriel Dean.

History echoes with the screams of women.

The pages of textbooks pay scant attention to the lurid details that we hunger to know. Instead we are told dry accounts of military strategies and flank attacks, of the cunning of generals and the massing of armies. We see illustrations of men in armor, swords locked, muscled bodies twisting in the throes of combat. We see paintings of leaders astride noble mounts, gazing at fields where soldiers stand like rows of wheat awaiting the scythe. We see maps with arrows tracing the march of conquering armies, and read the lyrics of war ballads, sung in the name of king and country. The triumphs of men are always writ large, in the blood of soldiers.

No one speaks of the women.

But we all know they were there, soft flesh and smooth skin, their perfume wafting through history’s pages. We all know, though we may not speak of it, that war’s savagery is not confined to the battlefield. That when the last enemy soldier has fallen, and one army stands victorious, it is toward the conquered women that the army next turns its attentions.

So it has always been, though the brutal reality is seldom mentioned in the history books. Instead, I read of wars that are as shiny as brass, with glory for all. Of Greeks battling under the watchful eyes of the Gods, and of the fall of Troy, which the poet Virgil tells us was a war fought by heroes: Achilles and Hector, Ajax and Odysseus, names now enshrined for eternity. He writes of clanging swords and flying arrows and blood-soaked earth.

He leaves out the best parts.

It is the playwright Euripides who tells us of the aftermath for the Trojan women, but even he is circumspect. He does not dwell on the titillating details. He tells us that a terrified Cassandra was dragged from Athena’s temple by a Greek chieftain, but we are left to fantasize about what comes next. The tearing open of her robes, the baring of her skin. His thrusts between her virgin thighs. Her shrieks of pain and despair.

Across the fallen city of Troy, such shrieks would have echoed from other women’s throats, as the victorious Greeks took what was due them, marking their victory in the flesh of conquered women. Were any men of Troy left alive to watch? The ancients do not mention it. But what better way to crow victory than to abuse the body of your enemy’s beloved? What more powerful proof is there that you have defeated him, humiliated him, than force him to watch as you take your pleasure, again and again?

This much I understand: triumph requires an audience.

I am thinking of the Trojan women as our car glides.along Commonwealth Avenue, steady with the flow of traffic. It is a busy road, and even at nine p.m., cars move slowly, giving me time to leisurely study the building.

The windows are dark; neither Catherine Cordell nor her new husband are at home.

That’s all I allow myself, that one look, and then the building slides out of view. I know the block is being watched, yet I could not resist that glimpse of her fortress, as impregnable as the walls of any castle. An empty castle, now, no longer of any interest to those who would storm it.

I look at my driver, whose face is hidden in shadow. I see only a silhouette and the gleam of eyes, like two hungry sparks in the night.

On the Discovery Channel, I have watched videos of lions at night, the green fire of their eyes burning in the darkness. I am reminded of those lions, of how they stared with hungry purpose, waiting for the moment to spring. I now see that hunger in the eyes of my companion.

The same hunger he surely sees in mine.

I roll down my window and inhale deeply as the warm scent of the city wafts in. The lion, sniffing the air over the savanna. Searching for the scent of prey.