A female EMT is kneeling over me, reading from a blood pressure cuff strapped to my arm. The deflating cuff awakened me. Sean Regan and Special Agent Kaiser are standing over the EMT, looking worried.

“A little low,” says the tech. “I think she fainted. Her EKG is normal. Sugar’s a little low, but she’s not hypoglycemic.” The tech notices that my eyes are open. “When was the last time you ate, Dr. Ferry?”

“I don’t remember.”

“We should get some orange juice into you. Fix you right up.”

I look to my left. The stockinged feet of Arthur LeGendre’s corpse lie beside my head. Its legs and torso extend away from me at a right angle, down a different side of the kitchen island. I glance in that direction and see the bloody message again: MY WORK IS NEVER DONE.

“Any OJ in that fridge?” asks the EMT.

“Crime scene,” says Agent Kaiser. “Can’t disturb that. Anybody got a candy bar?”

A reluctant male voice says, “I got a Snickers. It’s my supper.”

“You on Atkins again?” Sean quips, and nervous laughter follows. “Cough it up.”

Everybody laughs now, grateful for the release of tension.

As I get to my feet, Sean reaches out to steady me. A paunchy detective steps forward and hands me his Snickers bar. I make a show of gratitude and accept it, though I know I have no blood sugar problem. This charade is witnessed by a rapt audience that includes Carmen Piazza, commander of the Homicide Division.

“I’m sorry,” I say in her direction. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Same thing as last time, looks like,” Piazza observes.

“I guess so. I’m okay now, though. I’m ready.”

Captain Piazza leans toward me and speaks softly. “Step out here with me for a moment, Dr. Ferry. You, too, Detective Regan.”

Piazza walks into the hallway. Sean gives me a warning glance, then turns and follows her.

The captain leads us into a study off the central hall, where she leans back against a desk and faces us, arms folded, jaw set tight. I can easily imagine this olive-skinned woman facing down armed street punks during her years in uniform.

“This isn’t the place to talk about complications,” she says, “so I’m not going to. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, and I don’t want to know. What I do know is that it’s jeopardizing this investigation. So here’s what we’re going to do. Dr. Ferry is going to go home. The FBI will handle the bite marks tonight. And unless the Bureau objects, I’m going to request that a new forensic odontologist be assigned to the task force.”

I want to argue, but Piazza has said nothing about my episode in the kitchen. She’s talking about something for which I have no defense. Something about which Sean told me not to worry. But why am I angry? Adulterers think they’re discreet, but people always find out.

A patrolman steps into the study and sets my tripod and dental cases on the floor. When did Piazza tell him to pack them? While I was unconscious? After he leaves, Piazza says, “Sean, walk Dr. Ferry back to her car. Be back here in two minutes. And be in my office tomorrow morning at eight sharp. Clear?”

Sean’s eyes lock with his superior’s. “Yes, ma’am.”

Captain Piazza looks at me, her face not without compassion. “Dr. Ferry, you’ve done some remarkable work for us in the past. I hope you get to the bottom of whatever this problem is. I suggest you see a doctor, if you haven’t already. I don’t think a vacation’s going to do it for you.”

She walks out, leaving me alone with my married lover and the latest mess I seem to have made of my life. Sean picks up my cases and starts for the front door. We can’t risk talking here.

Warm water drips from the oak leaves as we walk down the block in silence. It rained while I was inside, a typical New Orleans shower that did nothing to cool or cleanse the city, only added more water vapor to the smothering humidity and washed more filth into Lake Pontchartrain. The air smells of banana trees, though, and in the darkness the street has a deceptively romantic look.

“What happened in there?” Sean asks, not looking at me. “Another panic attack?”

My hands are shaking, but whether from my episode inside, alcohol withdrawal, or the confrontation with Captain Piazza, I don’t know. “I guess. I don’t know.”

“Is it these particular murders? It started with the third victim, Nolan.”

I can tell by Sean’s voice that he’s worried. “I don’t think so.”

He looks over at me. “Is it us, Cat?”

Of course it’s us. “I don’t know.”

“I told you Karen and I are talking about seeing a lawyer now. It’s just the kids, you know? We-”

“Don’t start, okay? Not tonight.” My throat tightens, and a sour taste fills my mouth. “I’m in this situation because I put myself in it.”

“I know, but-”

“Please.” I make a fist to stop my right hand from shaking. “Okay?”

This time Sean heeds the hysteria in my voice. When we reach the Audi, he takes my keys, unlocks the door, and loads my cases into the backseat. Then he looks back up the block, toward the LeGendre house, probably to make sure Piazza isn’t watching us. That he has to do this, even now, is like a knife in my belly.

“Tell me what’s really going on,” he says, turning back to me. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Yes. But I’m not going to play that particular scene here. Not now. Not like this. Even I cling to some fairy-tale dreams, and this wet street after a murder isn’t part of them. “I can’t do this,” I tell him. It’s all I can manage.

His green eyes widen in a silent plea. They have a remarkable intensity sometimes. “We have to talk, Cat. Tonight.”

I don’t reply.

“I’ll get away as soon as I can,” he promises.

“All right,” I say, knowing it’s the only way to get out of here. “There’s Captain Piazza.”

Sean’s head whips to the left. “Where?”

Another knife thrust. “I thought I saw her. You’d better get back in there.”

He squeezes my upper arms, then opens the door of the Audi and helps me inside. “Be careful driving home.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Instead of leaving, he kneels in the open door, clasps my left wrist, and speaks with genuine urgency. “I am worried about you. What is it? I know you, damn it. Tell me!”

I crank the engine and pull slowly away from the curb, leaving Sean no choice but to let go of my wrist.

“Cat!” he yells, but I close the door and drive on, leaving him standing in the wet street staring after my taillights.

“I’m pregnant,” I tell him, far too late.

Two miles from my house on Lake Pontchartrain, I realize I can’t go home. If I do, the walls will close around me like suffocating pillows, and I’ll pace the shrinking rooms like a madwoman until Sean pulls into the garage and lets down the door with his remote control. Every word he says after that I will hear against a ticking clock that marks the time remaining before he has to go home to his wife and kids. And I absolutely cannot endure that tonight.

Normally, after working a crime scene, I stop at a liquor store and buy a bottle of vodka. But not tonight. The little agglomeration of cells growing inside me is the only pure thing in my life right now, and I will not do it injury. Even if it means the screaming heebie-jeebies and a rubber room. That’s the only thing I’m sure of this minute.

I tried to go cold turkey in the beginning, thinking it was best for the baby. Twenty hours into that particular mistake, I got the shakes so bad I couldn’t unzip my jeans to pee. A couple of hours later, I started seeing snakes in the house. A small rattler in a corner of the kitchen, curled into a deadly spiral. A fat cottonmouth moccasin hanging from a fern planter in the living room. A brilliantly hued coral snake sunning itself in the painful glare by the glass doors in the den. All lethal, all planning to slither up to me, bury their fangs in my flesh, and not let go until every drop of poison in their venom sacs had been injected into me.