“Don’t bother. I’ll go along with it,” he said. “She was enrolled in my history of psychiatry course. Wanted to be a forensic psychologist. Curious so many women want to be forensic psychologists. This ward’s overrun with pretty young grad students from John Jay. Wouldn’t you expect women, especially pretty ones, to be afraid of the patients up here?”

Scarpetta began examining his broad, hairless chest, measuring more shallow abrasions. She touched his wounds and he rested his manacled wrists over his groin, and his blue-green eyes were like hands trying to explore what was under her lab coat.

“Wouldn’t you think women would be afraid to work in a place like this?” he said. “Are you afraid?”

When Shrew had gotten the cryptic phone call a year and a half ago, she’d had no idea how life-altering it would be.

The Italian-sounding man identified himself as an agent from a British trust company and said he had gotten her name indirectly because of the consulting group where she’d been a database marketing manager. In his bad English, he’d said he wanted to e-mail her a job description. Shrew had printed it out. It was still taped on her refrigerator to remind her of life’s synchronicities:

Webmaster: Must be able to take initiative, work unsupervised out of the home, have people skills and a flair for the dramatic. Limited technical experience required. Confidentiality utmost. Other requirements to be discussed. Great earning potential!

She had replied immediately, saying she was very interested but would like a little more information. In response to certain questions, the agent explained in his limited way that having people skills simply meant Shrew had to be interested in them, period. She wasn’t allowed to talk to them but needed to know what appealed to their “mostly basic instinct,” which she realized soon enough was voyeurism and taking immense pleasure in other people’s humiliation and extreme discomfort.

Shrew’s e-mailed acceptance, formatted exactly like the offer had been, was also taped to her refrigerator:

I agree with all conditions and am honored. Can start this minute and have no problem with working whenever needed, including weekends and holidays.

In a way, Shrew had become an anonymous cyber version by proxy of the comedian she adored, Kathy Griffin, whose shows and stand-up routines Shrew watched obsessively, always picking up a new pointer or two about how to fillet the rich and famous and serve them up to an insatiable audience that grew exponentially as the world got worse. People were desperate to laugh. They were desperate to vent their frustrations, resentments, and fury at the golden scapegoats, as Shrew thought of the privileged untouchables who might be angered and annoyed but never really wounded by the slings and arrows of slights and ridicule.