Lucy was her usual self. She climbed the shipyard’s fence earlier tonight and looked around because she had a hunch. Where could one hijack the port’s network without being seen? She got her answer inside a banged-up container where she discovered a table and a chair and a wireless router. Scarpetta has thought a lot about Bull, about the night he decided to smoke weed near abandoned containers and got cut up. Was the Sandman there? Did Bull get too close? She wants to ask him but hasn’t seen him since they searched the alley together and found the gun and the gold coin.

“I left everything in place,” Lucy says. “Hoping he wouldn’t know I was there. But he might. I can’t say. He’s not sent any e-mails from the port tonight, but he hasn’t for a while.”

“What about the weather?” Scarpetta asks, mindful of the time.

“Should clear by midnight. I’m stopping by the lab, then heading to the airport,” Lucy says.

She gets up. Then Captain Poma does. Benton stays in his chair, and Scarpetta meets his eyes, and her phobias return.

He says to her, “I need to talk to you a minute.”

Lucy and Captain Poma leave, and Scarpetta shuts her door.

“Maybe I should start. You showed up in Charleston with no announcement,” she says. “You didn’t call. I hadn’t heard from you in days, and then you walk in unexpectedly last night with him…”

“Kay,” he says, reaching for his briefcase and placing it on his lap. “We shouldn’t be doing this right now.”

“You’ve barely talked to me.”

“Can we…?” he starts to say.

“No, we can’t put this off until later. I can scarcely concentrate. I have to get to Rose’s apartment building, have so much to do, too much to do, and everything’s disintegrating and I know what you want to talk to me about. I can’t tell you how I feel. Maybe I really can’t. I don’t blame you if you’ve made a decision. I certainly understand.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest we put this off until later,” Benton says. “I was going to suggest we stop interrupting each other.”

This confuses her. That light in his eyes. She’s always believed what’s in his eyes is only for her, and now she’s afraid it isn’t and never was. He’s looking at her, and she looks away.

“What do you want to talk to me about, Benton?”

“Him.”

“Otto?”

“I don’t trust him. Waiting for the Sandman to show up to send more e-mails? On foot? In the rain? In the dark? Did he tell you he was coming here?”

“I suppose someone informed him of what’s been happening. A connection of the Drew Martin case with Charleston, with Hilton Head.”