“But instead he found her daughter.”

“He probably spotted Josephine’s photo in the newspaper. She’s the spitting image of Medea, and she’s the right age to be her daughter. She’s even in the same profession. It wouldn’t take much digging to learn that Josephine wasn’t who she claimed to be. So he watched her, waiting to see if her mother would turn up.”

Frost shook his head. “That was some crazy obsession he had with Medea. After all these years, you’d think he’d move on.”

“Remember Cleopatra? Helen of Troy? Men were obsessed with them, too.”

“Helen of Troy?” He laughed. “Man, this archaeology thing is rubbing off on you. You sound like Dr. Robinson.”

“The point is, men get obsessed. A guy will cling to a particular woman for years.” She added, quietly: “Even a woman who doesn’t love him.”

His face reddened and he looked away.

“Some people just can’t move on,” she said, “and they waste their lives waiting for someone they can’t have.” She thought of Maura Isles, another person who wanted someone she couldn’t have, who was trapped by her own desires, her own poor choice of a lover. On the night Maura had needed him, Father Daniel Brophy was not there for her. Instead, it was Anthony Sansone who had taken her into his house. It was Sansone who had called Jane to confirm it was safe to let Maura return home. Sometimes, thought Jane, the person who could make you happiest is the one you overlook, the one who waits patiently in the wings.

They heard a knock on the door, and Alice stepped in. Dressed in a sleek skirt suit, she looked blonder and more stunning than Jane remembered, but her beauty had no warmth. She held herself like marble, perfectly chiseled, meant only for looking but not touching. The women exchanged tense but polite greetings, like two rivals for the same man’s attention. For years they had shared Frost, Jane as his partner, Alice as his wife, yet Jane felt no connection with this woman.

She stood to leave, but as she reached the door, she couldn’t resist a parting remark. “Be nice to him. He’s a hero.”

Frost saved me, now I’m going to have to save him, Jane thought as she walked out of the hospital and climbed into her car. Alice was going to shatter his heart, the way you shatter flesh with liquid nitrogen and a sharp whack with a hammer. Jane had seen it in Alice’s eyes, the grim resolve of a wife who’s already left the marriage and was only there to wrap up the final details.

He’d need a friend tonight. She would come back later, to pick up the pieces.

She started her car and her cell phone rang. The number was unfamiliar.

So was the voice of the man who greeted her on the line. “I think you’ve made a big mistake, Detective,” he said.

“Excuse me? Who am I speaking to?”

“Detective Potrero, San Diego PD. I just got off the phone with Detective Crowe, and I heard how it all went down there. You claim you took out Jimmy Otto.”

“I didn’t. My partner did.”

“Yeah, well, whoever you shot, it wasn’t Jimmy Otto. Because he died here twelve years ago. I ran that investigation, so I know. And I need to question the woman who killed him. Is she in custody?”

“Medea Sommer isn’t going anywhere. She’ll be right here in Boston, anytime you want to come out and talk to her. I can assure you, the shooting in San Diego was absolutely justified. It was self-defense. And the man she shot wasn’t Jimmy Otto. It was a guy named Bradley Rose.”

“No, it wasn’t. Jimmy’s own sister ID’d him.”

“Carrie Otto lied to you. That wasn’t her brother.”

“We have DNA to prove it.”

Jane paused. “What DNA?”

“The report wasn’t included in that file we sent you, because the test was completed months after we closed our case. You see, Jimmy was a murder suspect in another jurisdiction. They contacted us because they wanted to be absolutely sure their suspect was dead. They asked Jimmy’s sister to provide a DNA sample.”

“Carrie’s DNA?”

Potrero gave an impatient sigh, as though speaking to a moron.

“Yes, Detective Rizzoli. Her DNA. They wanted to prove the dead man really was her brother. Carrie Otto mailed in a cheek swab, and we ran it against the victim’s. It was a family match.”

“That can’t be right.”

“Hey, you know what they say about DNA. It doesn’t lie. According to our lab, Carrie Otto was definitely a female relative of the man we dug up from that backyard. Either Carrie had another brother who got killed here in San Diego, or Medea Sommer lied to you. And she didn’t shoot the man she claims she shot.”

“Carrie Otto didn’t have another brother.”

“Exactly. Ergo, Medea Sommer lied to you. So is she in custody?”

Jane didn’t answer. A dozen frantic thoughts were fluttering in her head like moths and she couldn’t catch and hold a single one.

“Jesus,” said Detective Potrero. “Don’t tell me she’s free.”

“I’ll call you back,” said Jane, and disconnected. She sat in her car, staring out the windshield. She saw a pair of doctors walk out of the hospital, moving with princely strides, white coats flapping. Sure of themselves, that was the way they walked, like two men with no doubts while she herself was trapped in them. Jimmy Otto or Bradley Rose? Which man had Medea shot and killed in her home twelve years ago, and why would she lie about it?

Who did Frost really kill?

She thought of what she had witnessed in Maine that night. The death of Carrie Otto. The shooting of a man she’d assumed was Carrie’s brother. Medea had called him Jimmy, and he had answered to that name. So he must have been Jimmy Otto, just as Medea claimed.

But the DNA was the obstacle she kept banging into, the bulletproof piece of evidence that contradicted everything. According to the DNA, it wasn’t Bradley who’d died in San Diego. It was a male relative of Carrie Otto.

There was only one conclusion. Medea lied to us.

And if they let Medea slip free, they were going to look like total incompetents. Hell, she thought, we are incompetents, and the proof is in the DNA. Because, as Detective Potrero had said, DNA doesn’t lie.

She punched in Crowe’s number on her cell phone, and suddenly went still.

Or does it?

THIRTY-SEVEN

Her daughter slept. Josephine’s hair would grow in again, and her bruises had already faded, but as Medea gazed down at her daughter in the soft light of the bedroom, she thought that Josephine looked as young and as vulnerable as a child. In some ways she had become a child again. She insisted that a light stay on all night in her room. She did not like to be left alone for more than a few hours. Medea knew this fear was temporary, that in time Josephine would once again find her courage. For now, the warrior woman inside her was in hibernation and healing, but she would be back. Medea knew her daughter, just as she knew herself, and inside that fragile-looking shell beat the heart of a lioness.

Medea turned to look at Nicholas Robinson, who stood watching them from the bedroom doorway. He had welcomed Josephine into his house, and Medea knew her daughter would be safe there. In the past week, she’d come to know this man and to trust him. He was unexciting, perhaps, and a touch too exacting and cerebral, yet in so many ways he was a good match for Josephine. And he was devoted. That’s all Medea asked of a man. She’d trusted few people over the years, and she saw in his eyes the same steadfast loyalty that she once saw in Gemma Hamerton’s eyes. Gemma died for Josephine.

She believed that Nicholas would, too.

As she walked out of his house, she heard him close the dead bolt behind her, and she felt assured that no matter what happened to her, Josephine would be in good hands. That was the one thing she could count on, and it gave her the courage to climb into her car and drive south, toward the town of Milton.