Benton accidentally poked his fingertip with the twisted paper clip and watched a bead of blood form. He sucked the blood away.

She said, “No first-aid kit in my crime scene case, which probably isn’t very smart, now that I think of it. We should clean that up, find a Band-Aid… .”

“Kay, I don’t want you in the middle of this.”

“You’re the one who put me in the middle of it. Or at least permitted it.” She stared at his finger. “It would be good if you let it bleed as much as possible. I don’t like puncture wounds. They’re worse than cuts.”

“I didn’t mean to put you in the middle of it, wasn’t my choice.”

He started to say he didn’t make choices for her, but that would be another lie. She reached across the desk and handed him several tissues.

“I hate it,” he said. “Always hate it when you’re in my world, not yours. A dead body doesn’t get attached to you, have feelings for you. You don’t have a relationship with someone dead. We’re not robots. A guy tortures someone to death, and I sit across a table from him. He’s a person, a human being. He’s my patient. He thinks I’m his best friend until he hears me testify in court that he knew the difference between right and wrong. He ends up in prison for the rest of his life or, depending on the jurisdiction, on death row. Doesn’t matter what I think or believe in. I’m doing my job. I’ve done what’s right in the eyes of the law. Knowing that doesn’t make me feel any less haunted.”

“We don’t know what it is not to feel haunted,” she said.

He squeezed his finger, staining the tissue brilliant red. He looked at her on the other side of his desk, at the squareness of her shoulders, at her strong, capable hands, and the lovely contour of her body beneath her suit, and he wanted her. He felt aroused just doors away from a prison, and yet when they were alone at home, he scarcely touched her. What had happened to him? It was as if he’d been in an accident and had been pieced back together wrong.

He said, “You should go back to Massachusetts, Kay. If he gets indicted and you’re subpoenaed, then you’ll come back and we’ll deal with it.”

“I’m not going to run from Marino,” she said. “I’m not going to avoid him.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” But it was exactly what he was saying. “It’s Oscar Bane I’m worried about. He could walk out of Bellevue right now. I’d like you as far away from him as possible.”

“What you want is for me to be as far away from Marino as possible.”