“What’s done is done,” he says. “Plain and simple. I promise she’ll never have to be around me again. None of you will. Or you can shoot me just the way you said and get away with it like you always do. Like you have before. You can get away with anything you want. Go ahead. If someone else did to her what I did, I’d kill him. He’d already be dead.”

“Pathetic coward. At least tell her you’re sorry instead of running away or committing suicide by cop.”

“What good would it do to tell her? It’s over. That’s why I find out about everything after the fact. Nobody called me to go to Hilton Head.”

“Don’t be a baby. Aunt Kay asked you to go see Madelisa Dooley. I couldn’t believe it. It makes me sick.”

“She won’t ask me nothing again. Not after you being here. I don’t want either of you asking me nothing,” Marino says. “It’s over.”

“Do you remember what you did?”

He doesn’t answer. He remembers.

“Say you’re sorry,” she says. “Tell her you weren’t so drunk that you don’t remember what you did. Tell her you remember and you’re sorry and you can’t undo it but you’re sorry. See what she does. She won’t shoot you. She won’t even send you away. She’s a better person than I am.” Lucy tightens her grip on the gun. “Why? Just tell me why. You’ve been drunk around her before. You’ve been alone with her a million times, even in hotel rooms. Why? How could you?”

He lights a cigarette, his hands shaking badly. “It’s everything. I know there’s no excuse. I’ve been half crazy. It’s everything, and I know it doesn’t matter. She came back with the ring and I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I should never have e-mailed Dr. Self. She fucked with my head. Then Shandy. Medications. Booze. It’s like this monster moved inside of me,” Marino says. “I don’t know where it came from.”

Disgusted, Lucy gets up, tosses the revolver on the couch. She walks past him toward the door.

“Listen to me,” he says. “Shandy got me this stuff. I’m not the first guy she’s handed it out to. Last one had a hard-on for three days. She thought it was funny.”

“What stuff?” Even though she knows.

“Hormone gel. It’s been making me crazy, like I want to fuck everyone, kill everyone. Nothing’s ever enough for her. I never been with a woman who can’t get enough.”

Lucy leans against the door, crosses her arms. “Testosterone prescribed by a dirtbag proctologist in Charlotte.”

Marino looks baffled. “How did you…” His face darkens. “Oh, I get it. You’ve been in here. That fucking figures.”