“I’m not. I understand how threatened you might feel and how reason might dictate that you should try to remove me from this case, from everything. But the fact is, you don’t have the capabilities to stop me from what I’m doing. You really don’t. Information about my aunt was inside an apartment where a woman was just murdered. A thesis that Terri or someone was constantly working on and revising. I’d use the word obsessively. That should be what you and I are worried about. Not what other people think or whether they’re going to accuse us.”

“Accuse us of what?”

“Of having a conflict of interest. Because of my aunt. Because of anything.”

“I care what people think far less than you imagine,” Berger said. “Because I learned it’s better to make them think what I want them to think than to care about it. I’m pretty good at that. I’ve had to be. I’ve got to be certain Kay isn’t even remotely aware of what’s going on. I need to talk to her.”

“She would have told Benton,” Lucy said. “She would have told you. She never would have agreed to examine Oscar Bane if she was somehow acquainted with him or with Terri Bridges.”

“When I requested that she examine him, she was given virtually no information about the case. Including the name of the victim. So maybe she was acquainted with Terri but didn’t realize it until she got in that room with Oscar.”

“I’m telling you, by now she would have said something.”

“I don’t know about you,” Berger said, “but I find it unusual that a student didn’t make at least some effort to contact sources for a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. Terri Bridges was writing about Kay and never contacted her or tried? Are we sure? Maybe she did, and Kay just doesn’t remember because she wasn’t interested.”

“She would remember and at the very least would have politely declined. Aunt Kay didn’t know this lady.”

“Do you really think you can be objective? That you can handle this? Or that you want to?”

“I can. And I want to,” Lucy said, her attention suddenly distracted by what was on a video screen.

SCARPETTA by Terri Bridges streamed by, the same words repeatedly, in different fonts and different sizes.

“It’s begun sorting by title page,” Lucy said. “Was she fucking crazy?”

19

Kay Scarpetta 16 - Scarpetta

19

The morgue was located at the lowest level, where it was convenient for vans and rescue vehicles to park in the bay as they brought in the dead and took them away.