Free The Sinner: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen Page A

me in the parking lot?”
    “Is that what it feels like?”
    “You’ve been sitting out here, waiting for me. I’d call that an ambush.”
    “You didn’t leave me much choice. You weren’t returning any of my calls.”
    “I haven’t had the chance.”
    “You never sent me your new phone number.”
    “You never asked.”
    He glanced up at the snow, fluttering down like confetti, and sighed. “Well. This is like old times, isn’t it?”
    “Too much like old times.” She turned to her car and pressed the key remote. The lock snapped open.
    “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”
    “I need to get going.”
    “I fly all the way to Boston, and you don’t even ask why.”
    “All right.” She looked at him. “Why?”
    “Three years, Maura.” He stepped closer, and she caught his scent. Leather and soap. Snow melting on warm skin. Three years, she thought, and he’s hardly changed. The same boyish tilt of his head, the same laugh lines around his eyes. And even in December, his hair looked sun-bleached, not artificial highlights from a bottle, but honest blond streaks from hours spent outdoors. Victor Banks seemed to radiate his own gravitational force, and she was just as susceptible to it as everyone else. She felt the old pull drawing her toward him.
    “Haven’t you wondered, just once, if it was a mistake?” he asked.
    “The divorce? Or the marriage?”
    “Isn’t it obvious which one I’m talking about? Since I’m standing here talking to you.”
    “You waited a long time to tell me.” She turned back to her car.
    “You haven’t remarried.”
    She paused. Looked back at him. “Have you?”
    “No.”
    “Then I guess we’re both equally hard to live with.”
    “You didn’t stay around long enough to find out.”
    She laughed. A bitter, distasteful sound in that white silence. “You were the one who was always heading for the airport. Always running off to save the world.”
    “I’m not the one who ran from the marriage.”
    “I’m not the one who had the affair.” She turned and yanked open the car door.
    “Goddamn it, can you just wait?
Listen
to me.”
    His hand closed around her arm, and she was startled by the anger she felt transmitted in that grasp. She stared at him, a cold look that told him he had gone too far.
    He released her arm. “I’m sorry. Jesus, this isn’t the way I wanted it to go.”
    “What were you expecting?”
    “That there’d be something left between us.”
    And there was, she thought. There was too much, and that’s why she couldn’t let this conversation go on any longer. She was afraid that she’d be sucked in again. She could already feel it happening.
    “Look,” he said. “I’m only in town for a few days. I have a meeting tomorrow at the Harvard School of Public Health, but after that, I have no plans. It’s almost Christmas, Maura. I thought we could spend the holidays together. If you’re free.”
    “And then you’ll just go flying off again.”
    “At least we could catch up on things. Couldn’t you take a few days off?”
    “I have a job, Victor. I can’t just leave it.”
    He glanced at the building, and gave a disbelieving laugh. “I don’t know why you’d even want a job like that.”
    “The dark side, remember? That’s me.”
    He looked at her, and his voice softened. “You haven’t changed. Not a bit.”
    “Neither have you, and that’s the problem.” She slid into her car and pulled the door shut.
    He rapped on the window. She looked at him, gazing in at her, snowflakes glistening on his lashes, and she had no choice but to roll down the glass and continue the conversation.
    “When can we talk again?” he asked.
    “I have to go now.”
    “Later, then. Tonight.”
    “I don’t know when I’ll get home.”
    “Come on, Maura.” He leaned close. Said softly, “Take a chance. I’m staying at the Colonnade. Call me.”
    She sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
    He reached in and squeezed her arm. Again,