“The spear skewered my quadriceps muscles,” I explain. “Entering here almost midthigh and exiting just above my patella, my kneecap. The tip protruded about four inches from my skin. Obviously the significant damage was to muscle and bone, which were further injured because of the rope. One end was attached to the spear and the other to a float on the surface. You can imagine the tugging and pulling.”

“An awful thought. Very painful.” Erin pauses for effect. “But it’s within the realm of possibility the wound could have been self-inflicted, prompting you to make up some imaginary story about some phantom in camouflage.”

I hold an imaginary spear gun and try to line up the tip with the entrance wound on my thigh. “Difficult but not impossible. What would be my motivation?”

“You would do anything for your niece, wouldn’t you?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” Donoghue says.

“I wouldn’t,” I reply. “And I didn’t shoot myself. And I don’t know anything about a camo dive skin but that doesn’t mean Carrie wasn’t wearing one.”

“What if it meant saving Lucy’s life? Would you lie?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” Donoghue says.

“Would you lie to cover the shameful fact that you were suicidal?”

“It would be my nature to shoot the source of the threat,” I reply.

“You aren’t required to explain,” Donoghue says to me.

“Shooting myself, which I certainly didn’t do, would make no sense,” I add. “And which is it? Because I’m confused. I’m lying to cover for Lucy? Or I’m lying about attempting to kill myself? Maybe you have another theory to add to the mix?”

“Did you feel you panicked?” Erin is having a harder time keeping her composure. “When you realized you were shot? Did you feel panic?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” Donoghue says.

“Have you ever entertained even the slightest doubt that the person who shot you was Carrie Grethen?” Erin tastes blood.

“You don’t have to answer that.”

“Has it ever occurred to you, Doctor Scarpetta, that in your panic you thought it was her but you were mistaken?”

“You don’t have to answer that.”

“That’s fine because I really didn’t understand the question. I’m confused by yet another theory.” My attention is on the river beyond the window, on the slow eddies and ruffles.

The water is the greenish color of old bottle glass as it languidly bends around the point of land Lucy owns. An image flashes in my mind. I see my face through a fogged-up dive mask in murky muddy water. I see myself dead.

“I’m sorry,” Erin says with a chilliness that’s about to freeze over. “Let me try again. Has it ever entered your mind that the person you saw might have been someone else?”

“You don’t have to answer that.”