“Please tell me more about her eyes,” Dr. Maroni says to her.

“Based on this report, the killer didn’t remove the Canadian victim’s eyes. Drew’s eyes were removed, the sockets filled with sand, the eyelids glued shut. Thankfully, based on what I know, it appears this was done postmortem.”

“Not sadism but symbolism,” Benton says.

“The Sandman sprinkles sand in your eyes and makes you go to sleep,” Scarpetta says.

“This is the mythology I point out,” Dr. Maroni says. “Freudian, Jungian, but relevant. We ignore the depth psychology of this case at our own peril.”

“I’m not ignoring anything. I wish you hadn’t ignored what you knew about your patient. You worried he might have something to do with the tourist’s murder and said nothing,” Benton says.

Debating. Hinting of mistakes and blame. The three-way conversation continues as the city of Venice floods. Then Scarpetta says she is in the middle of work at the labs, and if there is nothing more they need from her, she’ll get off the phone. She does, and Dr. Maroni resumes his defense.

“That would have been a violation. I had no proof, no evidence whatsoever,” he says to Benton. “You know the rules. What if we ran to the police every time a patient makes violent allusions or references to violent acts that we have no reason to believe are true? We’d be reporting patients to the police daily.”

“I think your patient should have been reported, and I think you should have asked Dr. Self more about him.”

“I think you’re not an FBI agent who can arrest people anymore, Benton. You’re a forensic psychologist at a psychiatric hospital. You’re on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. Your first loyalty is to the patient.”

“Maybe I’m not capable of that anymore. After two weeks of Dr. Self, I don’t feel the same about anything. Including you, Paulo. You protected your patient, and now at least two other women are dead.”

“If he did it.”

“He did.”

“Tell me what Dr. Self did when you confronted her with these images. The one of Drew in the tub. The room looks Italian and old,” Dr. Maroni says.

“It would be in Rome or near Rome. It would have to be,” Benton says. “We can assume she was murdered in Rome.”

“And then this second image?” He clicks on a second file that was in Dr. Self’s e-mail. A woman in a tub, this one copper. She appears to be in her thirties, with long, dark hair. Her lips are swollen and bloody, her right eye swollen shut. “What did Dr. Self say when you showed her this most recent image that the Sandman sent to her?”