Four Scarpetta Novels by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page B

says.
    â€œWhat’s really the matter?” she says. “God, these steps.”
    â€œI guess we can’t seem to change it. As you say about livor and rigor. Set. Fixed. Let’s face it.”
    â€œI won’t face whatever it is. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no it . And livor and rigor are about people who are dead. We’re not dead. You just said you never were.”
    Both of them are breathless. Her heart is pounding.
    â€œI’m sorry. Really,” he says, referring to what happened in the past, his faked death and her ruined life.
    She says, “He’s been too attentive. Forward. So what?”
    Benton is used to the attention other men pay to her, has always been rather unperturbed by it, even amused, because he knows who she is, knows who he is, knows his enormous power and that she has to deal with the same thing—women who stare at him, brush against him, want him shamelessly.
    â€œYou’ve made a new life for yourself in Charleston,” he says. “I can’t see your undoing it. Can’t believe you did it.”
    â€œCan’t believe…?” And the steps go up and up forever.
    â€œKnowing I’m in Boston and can’t move south. Where does that leave us.”
    â€œIt leaves you jealous. Saying ‘fuck,’ and you never say ‘fuck.’ God! I hate steps!” Unable to catch her breath. “You have no reason to be threatened. It’s not like you to feel threatened by anyone. What’s wrong with you?”
    â€œI was expecting too much.”
    â€œExpecting what, Benton?”
    â€œDoesn’t matter.”
    â€œIt certainly does.”
    They climb the endless flight of steps and stop talking, because their relationship is too much to talk about when they can’t breathe. She knows Benton is angry because he’s scared. He feels powerless in Rome. He feels powerless in their relationship because he’s in Massachusetts, where he moved with her blessing, the chance to work as a forensic psychologist at the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital too good to ignore.
    â€œWhat were we thinking?” she says, no more steps, and she reaches for his hand. “Idealistic as ever, I suppose. And you could return a little energy with that hand of yours, as if you want to hold mine, too. For seventeen years we’ve never lived in the same city, much less the same house.”
    â€œAnd you don’t think it can change.” He laces his fingers through hers, taking a deep breath.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œI suppose I’ve entertained this secret fantasy you’d move. With Harvard, MIT, Tufts. I guess I thought you might teach. Perhaps at a medical school or be content to be a part-time consultant at McLean. Or maybe Boston, the ME’s office. Maybe end up chief.”
    â€œI could never go back to a life like that,” Scarpetta says, and they are walking into the hotel’s lobby that she calls Belle Époque because it is from a beautiful era. But they are oblivious to the marble, the antique Murano glass and silk and sculptures, to everything and everyone, including Romeo—that really is his name—who during the day is a gold-painted mime, most nights a doorman, and of late, a somewhat attractive and sullen young Italian who doesn’t want any further interrogations about Drew Martin’s murder.
    Romeo is polite but avoids their eyes and, like a mime, is completely silent.
    â€œI want what’s best for you,” Benton says. “Which is why, obviously, I didn’t get in your way when you decided to start your own practice in Charleston, but I was upset about it.”
    â€œYou never told me.”
    â€œI shouldn’t tell you now. What you’ve done is right and I know it. For years you’ve felt you really don’t belong anywhere. In a sense, homeless, and in some ways unhappy ever since you left Richmond—worse, sorry to remind