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
The boat I’m in has a metal hull with carpet. It is moving fast on a heavy surf. It is cold and claustrophobic, and I’m groggy and in pain. I want to sleep.
Don’t sleep.
I’m going to be sick, motion sick, vertigo. My stomach lurches as if it wants to climb up my throat, and I wonder if I was hit on the head, if that’s how they got me here, dumped me in the cargo area of an old boat. On my back, a fishnet wound around me, I’m nauseated, about to gag. My stomach has nothing in it, and I don’t want dry heaves, mustn’t start retching uncontrollably. They can’t know I’m conscious, and I focus on every part of me, not sure if I’m injured. I don’t feel pain, just my pounding head.
“Are you awake?” a man asks loudly.
I’ve heard his voice before.
I don’t answer, and my head clears some. I’m in a car. In the cargo area in back, lights from oncoming traffic illuminating him intermittently. Surrounded by boxy shapes behind the front seats, I do the best I can to gather the darkness around me. To hide in it.
Make him think you’re dead.
“You should be awake,” says the man driving what I thought was a good idea for the CFC, a small crossover SUV.
I struggle to remember his name and envision his complete lack of empathy when he sat across from me. Soulless. Empty. Emoting nothing.
“Don’t fake it,” he says.
Play dead.
“Your fakery can’t save you anymore.”
I recognize the textures of the clothes I put on this morning, I think it was this morning. The corduroys, the cable-knit sweater, and a down jacket I wore because the temperature was freezing.
I rub my feet together, and they are bare and very cold, and I push them against the net and they find the resistance of something hard and square. It is completely dark, and I hear traffic. While I don’t remember what happened, I am beginning to be certain I know. Then I think I’m dreaming.
This is a bad dream. I need to wake up. It’s a terrible dream, and you’re fine.
I take a deep breath and choke back bile as my head throbs, and I take more deep breaths and realize I’m awake. I really am, and this really is happening. I mustn’t panic. I push the hard square shape with my netted bare feet, and whatever it is moves very slightly and feels like plastic.
A scene case.
He speaks loudly from the driver’s seat, asking if I’m awake, and again I don’t answer, and I know who he is.