Predator by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page B

black cargo pants, a bulky black sweater and the pistol into the tiny bathroom that adjoins the bedroom.
         She shuts the door and locks it. She undresses without looking at herself in the mirror, wishing what has happened to her body is imagined or a nightmare. She touches herself in the shower to see if anything has changed and avoids the mirror as she towels herself dry.
         “Look at you,” Stevie says when Lucy emerges from the bathroom, dressed and distracted, her mood much worse than it was moments before. “You look like some kind of secret agent. You’re really something. I want to be just like you.”
         “You don’t know me.”
         “After last night, I know enough,” she says, staring Lucy up and down. “Who wouldn’t want to be just like you? You don’t seem afraid of anything. Are you afraid of anything?”
         Lucy leans over and rearranges the bed linens around Stevie, covering her up to her chin, and Stevie’s face changes. She stiffens, stares down at the bed.
         “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” Stevie says meekly, her cheeks turning red.
         “It’s cold in here. I was just covering you because…”
         “It’s okay. It’s happened before.” She looks up, her eyes bottomless pits filled with fear and sadness. “You think I’m ugly, don’t you. Ugly and fat. You don’t like me. In the daylight, you don’t.”
         “You’re anything but ugly or fat,” Lucy says. “And I do like you. It’s just… Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
         “I’m not surprised. Why would someone like you like someone like me?” Stevie says, pulling the blanket around her and off the bed, covering herself completely as she gets up. “You could have anybody. I’m grateful. Thank you. I won’t tell anyone.”
         Lucy is speechless, watching Stevie retrieve her clothes from the living room, getting dressed, shaking, her mouth contorting in peculiar ways.
         “God, please don’t cry, Stevie.”
         “At least call me the right thing!”
         “What is that supposed to mean?”
         Her eyes huge and dark and scared, Stevie says, “I’d like to go now, please. I won’t tell anyone. Thank you, I’m very grateful.”
         “Why are you talking like this?” Lucy says.
         Stevie retrieves her long, black, hooded coat and puts it on. Through the window, Lucy watches her walk off in a swirl of snow, her long, black coat flapping around her tall, black boots.

    Chapter 9

         Half an hour later, Lucy zips up her ski jacket and tucks the pistol and two extra magazines in a pocket.
         She locks the cottage and climbs down the snow-covered wooden steps to the street as she thinks about Stevie and her inexplicable behavior, feeling guilty. She thinks about Johnny and feels guilty, remembering San Francisco, when he took her to dinner and reassured her that everything would be all right.
         You’re going to be fine, he promised.
         I can’t live like this, she said.
         It was women’s night at Mecca on Market Street, and the restaurant was crowded with women, attractive women who looked happy and confident and pleased with themselves. Lucy felt stared at, and it bothered her in a way it never had before.
         I want to do something about it now, she said.Look at me.
         Lucy, you look great.
         I haven’t been this fat since I was ten.
         You stop taking your medicine and…
         It makes me sick and exhausted.
         I’m not going to let you do anything rash. You have to trust me.
         He held her gaze in the candlelight, and his face will always be in her mind, looking at her the way he did that night. He was handsome, with fine features and unusual eyes the color of tiger eyes, and she could keep nothing from him. He knew all there was to know in every way imaginable.
         Loneliness and