Chapters (48)
- also by patricia cornwell
- title page
- copyright
- dedication
- contents
- prologue
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- two nights later
- credits
“He was touching you,” Benton says, as he touches me. “He thought you would. That you wanted it.”
“I told him I wouldn’t, and that’s the end of it,” I reply, and he moves me back to the bed.
“Is it really all there is? Has there been anything more?”
“There is nothing more than that.” I unbuckle his belt.
“Because if there’s more, I might kill him. I will, in fact, and get away with it.”
“You won’t.” I unzip his pants. “And you can’t get away with it.”
“I wanted to kill him in Vienna because I knew it then.”
“There’s nothing to know. There’s nothing more than you already know,” I reply, and I ask about her. “You’re going to wrinkle your shirt.” I ask about Douglas Burke. “I’m going to wrinkle it. I’m going to ruin it.”
White cotton and dark silk are smooth against my bare skin, and I ask him again, and then I don’t ask him anything else until we are in the kitchen and I’m feeding the dog and the cat.
“Shaw certainly seems to have made herself at home.” I spoon her food on a plate and set it on a mat near the pantry door. “It’s as if she’s always lived here, but I think it’s a good idea to shut her in the guest room, in a confined space, until she’s really familiar with the house. Although I have a feeling Bryce is going to want her. He’ll take one look at her and that will be that.”
“She should be checked by the vet.” Benton pours coffee, and he’s tall and straight in a dark suit, his silver hair damp and combed straight back.
He doesn’t answer me about Douglas Burke.
“I’ll send Bryce to get her at some point today, get her checked from stem to stern.” I open a can of dog food. “Are you coming by my office to see what we find with the car?”
“I have to deal with the Marino problem.”
“You’ll talk to him?”
“Talking to him doesn’t help anything. He’s been talked to enough, and there’s nothing else. And nothing happened, Kay,” Benton then says, and he’s referring to something else entirely. “Nothing happened, but not because of her. But because of me.”
He lets me know that Douglas Burke is attracted to him and has tried to do something about it. She might be in love with him, and when he says that, I know she is. I know she has it bad.