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Back The Bone Bed Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. also by patricia cornwell
  2. title page
  3. copyright
  4. dedication
  5. contents
  6. prologue
  7. one
  8. two
  9. three
  10. four
  11. five
  12. six
  13. seven
  14. eight
  15. nine
  16. ten
  17. eleven
  18. twelve
  19. thirteen
  20. fourteen
  21. fifteen
  22. sixteen
  23. seventeen
  24. eighteen
  25. nineteen
  26. twenty
  27. twenty-one
  28. twenty-two
  29. twenty-three
  30. twenty-four
  31. twenty-five
  32. twenty-six
  33. twenty-seven
  34. twenty-eight
  35. twenty-nine
  36. thirty
  37. thirty-one
  38. thirty-two
  39. thirty-three
  40. thirty-four
  41. thirty-five
  42. thirty-six
  43. thirty-seven
  44. thirty-eight
  45. thirty-nine
  46. forty
  47. two nights later
  48. credits

The person was speaking in a low, quiet voice I couldn’t make out while Lucy went on to say that Marino finally agreed to stay in the stable, an outbuilding that really isn’t a stable anymore because she’s converted it into a washing and detailing bay with an underground firing range. Upstairs on the second floor is a guest quarters, an efficiency apartment, and she was moving about as she described this, and I couldn’t hear the other person anymore, and that probably was deliberate.

It’s been a while since I’ve been invited to Lucy’s country home, as she calls her sixty-some acres on the Sudbury River west of Boston, a horse farm she’s spent the past year renovating and retrofitting to handle her collection of gravity-defying machines, the barn converted into a monster garage, the paddock now a concrete helipad. Marino is reasonably okay, and I shouldn’t be worried, Lucy informed me, and the last time I knew she was dating anyone was in early summer, a person she rendezvoused with in Provincetown more than once.

Of course Marino’s upset. He’s angry, Lucy explained, and I couldn’t stop thinking of the gold signet ring she had on yesterday. I didn’t question her. I know when not to, but she seemed so uneasy and guarded, and it occurred to me that whatever she and Marino were fighting about may have nothing to do with the mess he’s in. Maybe he moved into the stable because of who she’s with, someone she doesn’t want to talk about, someone Marino doesn’t approve of, and he’s never hesitated to give Lucy his opinion about choices she’s made.

The CFC seems lonely, Marino’s absence a void that is palpable, and I enter my building through the bay. I don’t see Lucy’s car, whatever she’s decided to drive today, but by now she’s on her way here to help me with what I’ve asked. How to track an imposter on Twitter, and is it possible the person who sent me the video clip and image of a severed ear also pretended to be Peggy Stanton and tweeted Marino? It would seem unlikely, were it not for the timing, everything horrid happening all at once.