"What? Because she turns up dead?"

Marino asked skeptically.

"More likely because she ends up out of control, irrational."

Wesley's concern over Pat Harvey's psychological wellbeing may have been valid, but it seemed flimsy to me. And I could not help but worry as Marino and I were driving back to Richmond after dinner that the reason Wesley had wanted to see us had nothing to do with the welfare of the missing couple.

"I think I'm feeling handled," I finally confessed as the Richmond skyline came into view.

"Join the club," Marino said irritably.

"Do you have any idea what's really going on here?"

"Oh, yeah," he replied, punching in the cigarette lighter. "I got a suspicion, all right. I think the Friggin' Bureau of Investigation's caught a whiff of something that's going to make someone who counts look bad. I got this funny feeling someone's covering his ass, and Benton's caught in the middle."

"If he is, then so are we."

"You got it, Doc."

It had been three years since Abby Turnbull had appeared in my office doorway, arms laden with fresh cut irises and a bottle of exceptional wine. That had been the day when she had come to say good-bye, having given the Richmond Times notice. She was on her way to work in Washington as a police reporter for the Post. We had promised to keep in touch as people always do. I was ashamed I could not remember the last time I had called or written her a note.

"Do you want me to put her through?"

Rose, my secretary, was asking. "Or should I take a message?"

"I'll talk to her," I said. "Scarpetta," I announced out of habit before I could catch myself.

"You still sound so damn chiefly," the familiar voice said.

"Abby! I'm sorry."

I laughed. "Rose told me it was you. As usual, I'm in the middle of about fifty other things, and I think I've completely lost the art of being friendly on the phone. How are you?"

"Fine. If you don't count the fact that the homicide rate in Washington has tripled since I moved up here."

"A coincidence, I hope."

"Drugs."

She sounded nervous. "Cocaine, crack, and semiautomatics. I always thought a beat in Miami would be the worst or maybe New York. But our lovely nation's capital is the worst."

I glanced up at the clock and jotted the time on a call sheet. Habit again. I was so accustomed to filling out call sheets that I reached for the clipboard even when hairdresser called.

"I was hoping you might be free for dinner tonight," she said.

"In Washington?"

I asked, perplexed.

"Actually, I'm in Richmond."

I suggested dinner at my house, packed up my briefcase, and headed out to the grocery store. After much deliberation as I pushed the cart up and down aisles, I selected two tenderloins and the makings for salad. The afternoon was beautiful. The thought of seeing Abby was improving my mood. I decided that an evening spent with an old friend was a good excuse to brave cooking out again.

When I got home, I began to work quickly, crushing fresh garlic into a bowl of red wine and olive oil. Though my mother had always admonished me about "ruining a good steak," I was spoiled by my own culinary skills. Honestly, I made the best marinade in town, and no cut of meat could resist being improved by it. Rinsing Boston lettuce and draining it on paper towels, I sliced mushrooms, onions, and the last Hanover tomato as I fortified myself to tend to the grill. Unable to put off the task any longer, I stepped out onto the brick patio.

For a moment, I felt like a fugitive on my own property as I surveyed the flower gardens and trees of my backyard. I fetched a bottle of 409 and a sponge and began vigorously to scrub the outdoor furniture before taking a Brillo pad to the grill, which I had not used since the Saturday night in May when Mark and I last had been together. I attacked sooty grease until my elbows hurt. Images and voices invaded my mind. Arguing. Fighting. Then a retreat into angry silence that ended with making frantic love.

I almost did not recognize Abby when she arrived at my front door shortly before six-thirty. When she had worked the police beat in Richmond, her hair had been to her shoulders and streaked with gray, giving her a washed-out, gaunt appearance that made her seem older than her forty-odd years. Now the gray was gone. Her hair was cut short and smartly styled to emphasize the fine bones of her face and her eyes, which were two different shades of green, an irregularity I had always found intriguing. She wore a dark blue silk suit and ivory silk blouse, and carried a sleek black leather briefcase.

"You look very Washingtonian," I said, giving her a hug.

"It's so good to see you, Kay."

She remembered hiked Scotch and had brought a bottle of Glenfiddich, which we wasted no time in uncorking. Then we sipped drinks on the patio and talked nonstop as I lit the grill beneath a dusky late summer sky.

"Yes; I do miss Richmond in some ways," she was explaining. "Washington is exciting, but the pits. I indulged myself and bought a Saab, right? It's already been broken into once, had the hubcaps stolen, the hell beaten out of the doors. I pay a hundred and fifty bucks a month to park the damn thing, and we're talking four blocks from my apartment. Forget parking at the Post. I walk to work and use a staff car. Washington's definitely not Richmond."

She added a little too resolutely, "But I don't regret leaving."

"You're still working evenings?"

Steaks sizzled as I placed them on the grill.

"No. It's somebody else's turn. The young reporters race around after dark and I follow up during the day. I get called after hours only if something really big goes down."

"I've been keeping up with your byline," I told her. "They sell the Post in the cafeteria. I usually pick it up during lunch."

"I don't always know what you're working on," she confessed. "But I'm aware of some things."

"Explaining why you're in Richmond?"

I ventured, as I brushed marinade over the meat.

"Yes. The Harvey case."

I did not reply.

"Marino hasn't changed."

"You've talked to him?"

I asked, glancing up at her.

She replied with a wry smile, "Tried to. And several other investigators. And, of course, Benton Wesley. In other words, forget it."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Abby, nobody's talking much to me, either. And that's off the record."

"This entire conversation is off the record, Kay," she said seriously. "I didn't come to see you because I wanted to pick your brain for my story."

She paused. "I've been aware of what's been going on here in Virginia. I was a lot more concerned about it than my editor was until Deborah Harvey and her boyfriend disappeared. Now it's gotten hot, real hot."

"I'm not surprised."

"I'm not quite sure where to begin."

She looked unsettled. "There are things I've not told anybody, Kay. But I have a sense that I'm walking on ground somebody doesn't want me on."

"I'm not sure I understand," I said, reaching for my drink.

"I'm not sure I do, either. I ask myself if I'm imagining things."

"Abby, you're being cryptic. Please explain."

Taking a deep breath as she got out a cigarette, she replied, "I've been interested in the deaths of these couples for a long time. I've been doing some investigating, and the reactions I've gotten from the beginning are odd. It's gone beyond the usual reluctance I often run into with the police. I bring up the subject and people practically hang up on me. Then this past June, the FBI came to see me."

"I beg your pardon?"

I stopped basting and looked hard at her.

"You remember that triple homicide in Williamsburg? The mother, father, and son shot to death during a robbery?"

"Yes."

"I was working on a feature about it, and had to drive to Williamsburg. As you know, when you get off Sixty four, if you turn right you head toward Colonial Williamsburg, William and Mary. But if you turn left off the exit ramp, in maybe two hundred yards you dead end at the entrance of Camp Peary. I wasn't thinking. I took the wrong, turn."