Rizzoli goes to the crime scene. She sees the supply closet where the Boston PD police officer who was guarding Peyton’s room had been put after he was shot to death. She goes to the administrative office where Moore is reviewing security tapes. They do their best to identify all of the people in the tapes, but a charge nurse explains that when a Code Blue is come, people from all over the hospital report to the emergency and she does not know all of them. They note an unknown woman with black hair and a lab coat seen arriving on the camera. They also see a man avoiding cameras and not touching doors leaving eight minutes into the code. They conclude that The Surgeon was already on the ward when the code was called. They realize the death of Gwadowski, Cordell’s patient, was intended to distract everyone from the killer’s real objective.

Cordell calls Rizzoli and Moore to tell them she has received another message from the killer. It is a piece of interdepartmental mail with the note, “Birthday greetings from A.C.,” as in Andrew Capra (230). Also in the envelope is a lock of Cordell’s hair. Cordell tells them it was from when Andrew Capra cut her hair during the assault in Savannah.

Later that night, Moore goes to Cordell’s apartment to check on her. She is under a lot of strain and begins to cry. He embraces her. Rizzoli pages him, and he calls her back from Cordell’s apartment. Rizzoli tells him it is possible that Cordell sent the threatening note and lock of hair to herself for attention. Moore disputes this and says they need to do more to help Cordell remember exactly what happened in Savannah.

Moore arranges for a hypnotist, Alex Polochek, to interview Cordell to help her remember more about what happened. Rizzoli is skeptical it will work. Moore and Rizzoli observe the interview through the one-way glass. Under hypnosis, Cordell remembers what happened on the night she was attacked in Savannah. Her memory is patchy, but she recalls that Capra was talking to someone while she was tied up. She hears him say, “See one, do one, teach one” (253). She hears a second person reply, “It’s my turn, Capra” (253). She does not recognize the second voice. Moore and Rizzoli are stunned to learn there was another person in the house at the time of Cordell’s attack.

Later that evening, Rizzoli is preparing dinner with her mother for her brothers while she thinks about how Moore had taken Cordell home after the interview. She thinks he is falling in love with Cordell. She wonders if she is jealous of the attention Cordell is getting. She also feels disappointed in Moore’s lapse of judgment when she thought of him as “Saint Thomas,” someone who acted with integrity.

Rizzoli gets a call from Detective Frost. He tells her that the DNA from Nina Peyton’s rape kit came back with a match to a man, Karl Pacheco, who was previously charged with sexual assault and lives locally. Rizzoli rushes to Pacheco’s house. The police have arrested a Black man they found in the apartment. He says he does not know where Pacheco is. Rizzoli searches the alley outside the apartment. She sees someone moving on the roof of the building and rushes after him. Moore follows her. She corners the suspect and he throws a garden trowel at her face, injuring her. The suspect approaches her again. He has his hands in the air. Rizzoli tells him to “Freeze,” but he keeps moving. Rizzoli shoots the man three times and he dies. Moore sees the shooting. He tells her that the man was surrendering. Rizzoli claims the man was holding something in his hand, but Moore says he was not. Lieutenant Marquette tell Rizzoli she has to give him her gun. Rizzoli realizes that Moore has not backed up her account of the shooting.

Moore searches Pacheco’s house. He realizes Pacheco is not The Surgeon because Pacheco is messy, wears a size 11 shoe, and does not have any surgical equipment in his house. Additionally, Pacheco does not have the “bamboo hair” associated with the killer. Moore tells Rizzoli that Pacheco is not The Surgeon. He tells her he told the lieutenant the truth about what he saw because “[he] won’t lie for another cop. Even if she’s [his] friend” (268).

Moore wonders how the killer is able to identify women who have previously been raped if he is not himself the rapist.

The killer reminisces about his visit to the Aztec temple in Mexico City where the Aztecs did human sacrifices. He learned from a textbook how the Aztecs surgically removed the heart with only a simple flint knife. As he works testing blood, he thinks about how the “ancients considered blood a sacred substance” (274). He thinks about how today people only treat blood as something horrifying or clinical. He thinks that only “you […] ever understood” the quasi-sacred attachment he has to blood (278).

Cordell goes to the morgue. She looks at Pacheco’s body and says she does not recognize him. Moore drives her home. Cordell asks him to come into her apartment for a drink. He agrees. Once inside the apartment, Cordell and Moore kiss and then have sex. It is the first time she has had sex since she was sexually assaulted two years prior. Cordell feels safe with him.

Moore and Marquette meet with Dr. Zucker about Cordell’s statement from her hypnosis session. Zucker suggests that it could be a false memory. He points out that Cordell is “damaged” from her trauma. Moore insists her testimony points to Capra having a partner. Zucker concedes that if Capra had a partner, that partner might have been enraged by the coverage in the Globe depicting Cordell as a strong, confident woman at the top of her profession. That partner would probably resent Cordell for killing Capra, the man he admired. He is targeting Cordell to try and humiliate her.

After the meeting, Marquette tells Moore that he wants Moore to go to Savannah to review their files on the Capra case. He also tells Moore that he knows about Moore’s relationship with Cordell and he wants him to end it. Moore realizes Rizzoli told Marquette about his relationship with Cordell in retaliation for Moore not backing up Rizzoli’s account of the shooting of an unarmed suspect.

The next day, Cordell comes to the police station looking for Moore. She is hurt that he has not returned her calls after they spent the night together. Detective Frost tactfully explains to Cordell that Moore has been told not to have any further romantic relationship with her. Cordell takes the news stoically, but she is sad.