Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen Page A

its pungency swept away, if only for the moment, all the remembered smells of the autopsy lab. A week of bland French meals had left her starved for spices; tonight, she thought, I’ll cook a Thai green curry so hot it will burn my mouth.
    At home she changed into shorts and a T-shirt and threw herself into preparing dinner. Sipped chilled white Bordeaux as she sliced chicken and onions and garlic. The steamy fragrance of jasmine rice filled the kitchen. No time to think of B positive blood and black-haired women; the oil’s smoking in the pot. Time to sauté the chicken, add the curry paste. Pour in the can of coconut milk. She covered the pot to let it simmer. Looked up at the kitchen window and suddenly caught a reflection of herself in the glass.
    I look like her. Exactly like her.
    A chill swept through her, as though the face in the window was not a reflection, but a phantom staring back. The lid on the pot rattled from the rising steam. Ghosts trying to get out. Desperate to get her attention.
    She turned off the burner, crossed to the telephone, and dialed a pager number she knew by heart.
    A moment later, Jane Rizzoli called. In the background, Maura could hear a phone ringing. So Rizzoli was not at home yet, but probably sitting at her desk in Schroeder Plaza.
    “I’m sorry to bother you,” said Maura. “But I need to ask you something.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine. I just want to know one more thing about her.”
    “Anna Jessop?”
    “Yes. You said she had a Massachusetts driver’s license.”
    “That’s right.”
    “What’s the birth date on her license?”
    “What?”
    “Today, in the autopsy lab, you said she was forty years old. What day was she born?”
    “Why?”
    “Please. I just need to know.”
    “Okay. Hold on.”
    Maura heard the shuffling of pages, then Rizzoli came back on the line. “According to that license, her birthday’s November twenty-fifth.”
    For a moment, Maura did not say anything.
    “You still there?” asked Rizzoli.
    “Yes.”
    “What’s the problem, Doc? What’s going on?”
    Maura swallowed. “I need you to do something for me, Jane. It’s going to sound crazy.”
    “Try me.”
    “I want the crime lab to run my DNA against hers.”
    Over the line, Maura heard the other telephone finally stop ringing. Rizzoli said, “Tell me that again. Because I don’t think I heard you right.”
    “I want to know if my DNA matches Anna Jessop’s.”
    “Look, I agree there’s a strong resemblance—”
    “There’s more.”
    “What else are you talking about?”
    “We both have the same blood type. B positive.”
    Rizzoli said, reasonably: “How many other people have B positive? It’s like, what? Ten percent of the population?”
    “And her birthday. You said her birthday’s November twenty-fifth. Jane, so is mine.”
    That news brought dead silence. Rizzoli said softly: “Okay, you just made the hairs on the back of my arms stand up.”
    “You see why I want it, now? Everything about her—from the way she looks, to her blood type, to her date of birth . . .” Maura paused. “She’s
me.
I want to know where she comes from. I want to know who that woman is.”
    A long pause. Then Rizzoli said, “Answering that question is turning out to be a lot harder than we thought.”
    “Why?”
    “We got back a credit report on her this afternoon. Found out that her MasterCard account is only six months old.”
    “So?”
    “Her driver’s license is four months old. The plates on her car were issued only three months ago.”
    “What about her residence? She had an address in Brighton, right? You must have spoken to her neighbors.”
    “We finally got hold of the landlady late last night. She says she rented it out to Anna Jessop three months ago. She let us into the apartment.”
    “And?”
    “It’s empty, Doc. Not a stick of furniture, not a frying pan, not a toothbrush. Someone had paid for cable TV and a phone line, but no one was