“It’s on the chair,” said Korsak.

“What?”

“Look at the chair.”

She turned to face the corner of the room and saw an antique ladder-back chair. Lying on the seat was a folded nightgown. Moving closer, she saw bright spatters of red staining the cream satin.

The hairs on the back of her neck were suddenly bristling, and for a few seconds she forgot to breathe.

She reached down and lifted one corner of the garment. The underside of the fold was spattered as well.

“We don’t know whose blood it is,” said Korsak. “It could be Dr. Yeager’s; it could be the wife’s.”

“It was already stained before he folded it.”

“But there’s no other blood in this room. Which means it got splattered in the other room. Then he brought it into this bedroom. Folded it nice and neat. Placed it on that chair, like a little parting gift.” Korsak paused. “Does that remind you of someone?”

She swallowed. “You know it does.”

“This killer is copying your boy’s old signature.”

“No, this is different. This is all different. The Surgeon never attacked couples.”

“The folded nightclothes. The duct tape. The victims surprised in bed.”

“Warren Hoyt chose single women. Victims he could quickly subdue.”

“But look at the similarities! I’m telling you, we’ve got a copycat. Some wacko who’s been reading about the Surgeon.”

Rizzoli was still staring at the nightgown, remembering other bedrooms, other scenes of death. It had happened during a summer of unbearable heat, like this one, when women slept with their windows open and a man named Warren Hoyt crept into their homes. He brought with him his dark fantasies and his scalpels, the instruments with which he performed his bloody rituals on victims who were awake and aware of every slice of his blade. She gazed at that nightgown, and a vision of Hoyt’s utterly ordinary face sprang clearly to mind, a face that still surfaced in her nightmares.