“Whatever the reason, you can’t hold yourself responsible.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds,” she said.

They passed shut office doors, no one around. It was just the two of them, and they didn’t disguise their tense tones.

“I hope you’re not hinting it’s possible some obsessed fan pulled a horrific stunt so he could have an audience with me,” she added. “I hope that’s not what you’re implying.”

“A woman’s dead. That’s no stunt,” Benton said.

She couldn’t talk to him about Oscar’s conviction that he was being spied on and that whoever was behind it was Terri Bridges’s killer. Maybe Benton already knew, but she couldn’t ask. She couldn’t reveal that Oscar’s injuries were self-inflicted, that he’d lied to the police and everyone else about how he’d gotten them. The most she could do was speak in generalities.

“I have no information that might justify my discussing him with you,” she said, implying Oscar had confessed to nothing, nor indicated he was a threat to himself or others.

Benton unlocked his office door.

“You spent a long time with him,” he said. “Remember what I always tell you, Kay. Your first cue is your gut. Listen to what your gut tells you about this guy. And I’m sorry if I seem strung out. I’ve had no sleep. Actually, things are rather much a fucking mess.”

The work space the hospital had allotted Benton was small, with books, journals, clutter piled everywhere as neatly as he could manage. They sat, and the desk between them seemed a solid manifestation of an emotional barrier she could not get past. He did not want sex, at least not with her. She didn’t believe he was having it with anybody else, but the benefits of marriage seemed to include shorter and more impersonal conversations, and less time in bed. She believed Benton had been happier before they’d gotten married, and that sad fact she wasn’t going to blame on Marino.

“What did your gut tell you?” Benton asked.

“That I shouldn’t be talking to him,” she replied. “That I shouldn’t be prevented from talking to you. My head tells me otherwise.”

“You’re an associate, a consultant here. We can have a professional discussion about him as a patient.”

“I don’t know anything about him as your patient. I can’t tell you anything about him as mine.”

“Before now you’d never heard of him? Or Terri Bridges?”

“That much I can say. Absolutely not. And I’m going to ask you not to cajole me. You know my limitations. You knew them when you called this morning.”

Benton opened a drawer and pulled out two envelopes. He reached across the desk to hand them to her.