“A finch,” Scarpetta says.

Lucy sits next to her and says, “So it appears Benton’s not coming for the weekend. When he is, you always have a long grocery list on the counter.”

“Can’t get away from the hospital.” The small, shallow pond in the middle of the garden has Chinese jasmine and camellia petals floating in it like confetti.

Lucy picks up a loquat leaf knocked down from a recent rain, twirls it by the stem. “I hope that’s the only reason. You come back from Rome with your big news and what’s different? Nothing that I can tell. He’s there, you’re here. No plans to change that, right?”

“Suddenly you’re the relationship expert?”

“An expert on ones that go wrong.”

“You’re making me sorry I told anyone,” Scarpetta says.

“I’ve been there. It’s what happened with Janet. We started talking about commitment, about getting married when it finally became legal for perverts to have more rights than a dog. Suddenly, she couldn’t deal with being gay. And it was over before it began. And not in a nice way.”

“Not nice? How about unforgivable?”

“I should be the unforgiving one, not you,” Lucy says. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what it’s like to be there. I don’t want to talk about it.”

A small statue of an angel that watches over the pond. What it protects, Scarpetta has yet to discover. Certainly not birds. Maybe not anything. She gets up and brushes off the back of her skirt.

“Is this why you wanted to talk to me,” she says, “or did it just happen to pop into your mind while I was sitting here feeling awful because I had to euthanize another bird?”

“It’s not why I called you last night and said I need to see you,” Lucy says, still playing with the leaf.

Her hair, cherrywood-red with highlights of rose-gold, is clean and shiny and tucked behind her ears. She wears a black T-shirt that shows off a beautiful body earned by punishing workouts and good genetics. She’s going somewhere, Scarpetta has a suspicion, but she’s not going to ask. She sits down again.

“Dr. Self.” Lucy stares at the garden, the way people stare when they aren’t looking at anything except what’s bothering them.

It’s not what Scarpetta expected her to say. “What about her?”

“I told you to keep her close, always keep your enemies close,” Lucy says. “You didn’t pay attention. Haven’t cared that she disparages you every chance she gets because of that court case. Says you’re a liar and a professional sham. Just Google yourself on the Internet. I track her, forwarded her bullshit to you, and you barely look at it.”

“How could you possibly know whether I barely look at something?”

“I’m your system administrator. Your faithful IT. I know damn well how long you keep a file open. You could defend yourself,” Lucy says.

“From what?”

“Accusations that you manipulated the jury.”

“What court’s about. Manipulating the jury.”