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
“Yes, ma’am, Chief.” He gets up from his desk and steps out into the corridor, and I can tell from the look on his face he knows what’s happened, and maybe he’s been aware of the same behavior that Lucy has discovered.
“Toby’s no longer with the CFC,” I let Ron know. “If you could make sure he turns in any equipment and meets with Bryce for an exit interview. He’ll take care of the usual details. You know the routine.”
I give him the key card and ask him to accompany Toby into the waste disposal room so he can leave biohazard bags at the autoclave, and I walk away, texting Bryce, letting him know what just occurred, as I wonder the same thing I always do when someone behaves this way: What might I have done to inspire such massive disloyalty, such disrespect?
Toby was a physician’s assistant with no training in medicolegal death investigation, which was his dream, as he described it to me when I interviewed him for the job several years ago. I took a chance on him. I sent him to basic and advanced forensic training academies in New York and Baltimore, and I personally instructed him at death scenes and spent time explaining autopsies and teaching him to assist.
“Money and myopia,” Lucy says, when I walk into the anteroom, where she’s swathed in white and senses my mood. “People are assholes.”
“It always seems like it’s more than just being assholes.” I collect clothing from shelves. “It feels like it’s something I didn’t do right.”
“It’s not personal, Aunt Kay.”
“Then why does it feel like it?”
“To you, everything that happens with everyone here feels personal.” Lucy isn’t gifted at cushioning her convictions. “But what you feel is never reciprocated, never has been.”
“Well, that’s damn depressing if what you’re suggesting is everybody who works for me now or in the past doesn’t care about anything other than their own ambitions, their own selves.”
“It’s never as personal to them as it is to you, because most people are out for what they want and don’t give a shit about anybody else.”
“I don’t believe everybody is like that.”
“I didn’t say everybody. I’m not.”
“You’re certainly not. I don’t even pay you.” I find gloves, a mask.
“You couldn’t afford me.”
“No one could.”