“But it doesn’t appear Terri ever had a reason to recover anything she deleted,” Lucy said, “which is why you’re seeing some fairly large chunks of intact text mixed with fragments of all sizes, many so small they’re nothing but shards. The longer one waits to recover deleted or corrupted data, the more opportunity for newly created data to occupy areas on the hard disk freed up by the deletions. And that makes it harder for the software to locate what was originally there.”

What they were seeing, in summation, were bits and pieces of a thesis that offered, in part, a historical perspective on forensic science and medicine, and psychiatry, which wasn’t necessarily surprising. Records searches and information from Terri Bridges’s parents indicated she was enrolled at Gotham College, where her father was the dean, and was working on a master’s degree in forensic psychology. Berger watched forensic words and phrases stream by as the familiar pain heated up in her temples and crept toward the backs of her eyes.

She noted references to the Body Farm, and to Bellevue and Kirby psychiatric hospitals, and the names of numerous forensic experts well known in their fields, including Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Repeatedly, there were references to her, and that was why Lucy had made the comment earlier that Berger might be tempted to fire her. She was more than tempted. For a number of reasons, that would be the wisest course of action.

For one thing, it appeared that Terri—or whoever had been using this particular laptop—had collected hundreds of articles, video clips, photographs, and other published media pertaining to Scarpetta. That meant a conflict of interest, and a very serious one, which was further compounded by another problem that probably had been there from day one.

Berger remembered being startled by Lucy the first time they’d met eight years ago in Richmond, startled in a way Berger had found as exciting as it was, realistically speaking, unfortunate back then. Foolishly back then—when she was in her late thirties and had almost convinced herself she’d gotten beyond certain temptations, as evidenced by the life she had prescribed for herself. She could answer no. The fact was—and at age forty-six, she was quite clear about this—she wouldn’t have needed to answer anything had there not been a question.

“The laptops are installed with what I call over-the- counter security software, the settings preprogrammed, preloaded.” Lucy had wandered off on that subject. “Not something I’d use because it recognizes only known viruses, spyware, et cetera. And the known ones aren’t the ones I worry about. She’s got anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam, anti-phishing, firewall, and wireless PC protection.”

“Unusual?” Berger rubbed her temples.