“Were you named for the artist?” I’m blandly polite and barely listening as I think of all I’ve got to do quickly, stealthily, without showing my hand.

“No, ma’am. My father was,” Wyeth reminds me how much I hate to be called “ma’am.”

Thirty at most but more likely in his twenties, he must be a wunderkind to be keeping such important company. While I can’t see him very well in the dark backseat I don’t need to. He’s very nice-looking and has a soothing voice that inspires trust I don’t intend to offer. Muscles bulge from the short sleeves of his polo shirt and strain against the khaki fabric of his cargo pants.

Veins rope, and he has so little body fat it’s as if he’s been shrink-wrapped in his own skin. I can’t imagine how much time he must spend in the gym or what he eats. Very little. Protein. Juices. Kale. Healthy things like that, I imagine, and he smells good. A subtle woodsy manly fragrance with a touch of citrus and musk.

Calvin Klein.

“… You’ll be in the very capable hands of Boston’s finest, ASAC Roger Mahant, who you know.” Andrew Wyeth is winding up his pitch about what I’m in for. “I believe you’ve seen him throw back a few at festive gatherings, so you know how entertaining he can be.”

“Hey, I’m sitting right here. I can hear you,” Mahant jokes in the mirror while Benton continues to ignore us as he does something with his phone.

“He’ll be spending some time with you, Doctor Scarpetta, mostly for observational purposes so we can be up to speed on what’s going on in the Vandersteel case,” and Wyeth must be with the Bureau to go on like this as if he runs the place.

“We’ll need accommodations for a few of us,” and it’s Mahant talking now. “A fairly large office with a couple of desks, a table and chairs,” he says impertinently. “We also need private access to at least one restroom, and of course parking,” he adds outrageously as I decide, What a prick.

CHAPTER 38

THE LAST THING I want is federal agents roaming around my headquarters, and Bryce will be even more out of control. He’ll be a hot mess. Everyone will be.

But there’s not much I can do, and it does no good to get incensed. I need to be clearheaded, and then Benton is reaching over the back of the seat, handing me his phone.

“Police photographs taken at the scene,” he says, and I brace myself as I begin to go through them.