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, rememberingSan 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 atMeccaonMarket 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 guilt follow her as she follows the snowy sidewalk west along theCape CodBay. She ran away. She remembers when she heard about his death. She heard about it the way no one should, on the radio.

A prominent doctor was found shot to death in aHollywoodapartment in what sources close to the investigation say is a possible suicide…

She had no one to ask. She wasn’t supposed to know Johnny and had never met his brother, Laurel, or any of their friends, so who could she ask?

Her cell phone vibrates, and she tucks the earpiece in her ear and answers.

“Where are you?”Bentonsays.

“Walking through a blizzard in Ptown. Well, not literally a blizzard. It’s starting to taper off.” She is dazed, a little hung-over.

“Anything interesting come up?”

She thinks of last night and feels bewildered and ashamed.

What she says is, “Only that he wasn’t alone when he was here last, the week before he died. Apparently, he came here right after his surgery, then went down toFlorida.”

“Laurel with him?”

“No.”

“How did he manage alone?”

“As I said, it appears he wasn’t alone.”

“Who told you?”

“A bartender. Apparently, he met someone.”

“We know who?”

“A woman. Someone a lot younger.”

“A name?”

“Jan, don’t know the rest of it. Johnny was upset about the surgery, which wasn’t all that successful, as you know. People do a lot of things when they’re scared and don’t feel good about themselves.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” she lies.

She was a coward. She was selfish.

“You don’t sound okay,”Bentonsays to her. “What happened to Johnny isn’t your fault.”

“I ran away from it. I didn’t do a damn thing.”

“Why don’t you spend some time with us. Kay’s going to be up here for a week. We’d love to see you. You and I will find some private time to talk,” Benton the psychologist says.

“I don’t want to see her. Somehow make her understand.”

“Lucy, you can’t keep doing this to her.”

“I’m not trying to hurt anyone,” she says, thinking of Stevie again.

“Then tell her the truth. It’s that simple.”

“You called me.” She abruptly changes the subject.

“I need you to do something for me as soon as possible,” he replies. “I’m on a secured phone.”

“Unless there’s anyone around here with an intercept system, I am too. Go ahead.”

He tells her about a murder that supposedly occurred at some sort of Christmas shop, supposedly in the Las Olas area about two and a half years ago. He tells her everything Basil Jenrette told him. He says Scarpetta is unfamiliar with any case that sounds similar, but she wasn’t working inSouth Floridaback then.

“The information came from a sociopath,” he reminds her, “so I’m not holding my breath that there’s anything to it.”

“The alleged victim in the Christmas shop have her eyes gouged out?”

“He didn’t tell me that. I didn’t want to ask him too many questions until I check out his story. Can you run it in HIT, see what you can find?”

“I’ll get started on the plane,” she says.