“And run away from home? Like you did when you had no one left but your mother and Dorothy? You ran away without going anywhere. Lost in learning and accomplishment. Running fast, too busy to feel. Now you want to run away like Marino just did.”

“I should never have let him into the house.”

“You have for twenty years. Why wouldn’t you have that night? Especially when he was so drunk and dangerous to himself. One thing you are is kind.”

“Rose told you. Maybe Lucy.”

“An e-mail from Dr. Self, indirectly. You and Marino are having an affair. I found out the rest of it from Lucy. The truth. Look at me, Kay. I’m looking at you.”

“Promise me you won’t do anything to him. And make it worse, because then you’ll be like him. This is why you’ve avoided me, didn’t tell me you were coming to Charleston. Have scarcely called me.”

“I haven’t avoided you. Where do I start? There’s so much.”

“What else?”

“We had a patient,” he says. “Dr. Self befriended her—I use the word loosely. She basically called this patient an imbecile, and from Dr. Self, it wasn’t name-calling or a joke. It was a judgment, a diagnosis. It was worse because Dr. Self said it, and the patient was going home where she wasn’t safe. She went to the first liquor store she could find. It appears she drank nearly a fifth of vodka, and she hanged herself. So I’ve been dealing with that. And so much else you don’t know about. That’s why I’ve been distant. Not talked to you much these past several days.”

He snaps open the clasps of his briefcase and lifts out his laptop.

“I’ve been very reluctant to use the hospital’s phones, their wireless Internet, been very careful on every front. Even the home front. One reason I wanted to get out of there. And you’re about to ask me what’s going on, and I’m about to tell you I don’t know. But it’s got to do with Paulo’s electronic files. The ones Lucy got into because he left them surprisingly vulnerable to anyone who might want to get into them.”

“Vulnerable if you knew where to look. Lucy isn’t exactly anyone.”

“She was also limited because she had to get into his computer remotely as opposed to having access to the actual machine.” He turns on his laptop. He inserts a CD into the drive. “Come closer.”

She moves her chair flush against his and looks at what he’s doing. Momentarily, he has a document on his screen.

“The notes we’ve already looked at,” she says, recognizing the electronic file that Lucy found.