“They didn’t need to take the towel off,” he said. “I told them there wasn’t any blood except the scratches on her legs. It’s like he hit her with something. Maybe a board. I don’t know where he got a board. Or where they got one. I didn’t see anything that might have made those scratches on her legs. Her face was dark red. There was a line around her neck. As if he strangled her with a rope or something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t around her neck anymore. The police didn’t need to take the towel off to see that, to take her pulse, to look at her wrists. You could look at her and see she was dead. I’m cold. Is there a blanket in here?”

Unable to find one, Scarpetta took off her lab coat and draped it over his shoulders. He was shivering. His teeth were chattering.

“I sat on the floor next to her, petting her hair, her face, talking to her,” he said. “I called nine-one- one. I remember feet. Black ankle boots and dark pants moving in the doorway. I had the towel over her and was holding her.”

He stared at the wall.

“I heard voices telling me to get away from her. They grabbed me. I started screaming I wasn’t going to leave her. But they made me. They wouldn’t let me see her even one more time. I never saw her again. Her family lives in Arizona, and that’s where she’ll go, and I’ll never see her again.”

“You said your online college is based in Arizona.”

“Her father’s the dean,” he said to the wall. “That’s why she ended up going there. They call it Gotham College as if it’s here in New York, but it’s really nowhere except there’s a building in Scottsdale, probably because it’s a nice place to live, much cheaper to live there. Her parents have a big house near Camelback Mountain. We never went to Scottsdale together because the next meeting isn’t until March. She’s not on the faculty, but she would have gone… . Well, she was supposed to fly there early this morning, to be in Scottsdale for a few days.”

“When you were in her apartment last night, did you see her luggage? Was she packed?”

“Terri doesn’t leave things out unless she’s about to use them. And she knows it upsets me to see her suitcase if I’m not going with her. It would have ruined our night.”

“Were you invited to go to Scottsdale with her?”

“She wanted a chance to tell them about me first.”

“After three months, they didn’t know she was seeing you?”