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
“We want to make sure nothing comes in contact with the body.” I spit in my mask to prevent it from fogging as he stows the gaff back in its holder. “Whatever damage it has, it won’t be caused by us.”
Kletty attaches a line to the rescue buckle on the back of my suit, between my shoulder blades, to keep me tethered, and I lower the dive mask over my eyes and nose and climb down the ladder, my neoprene booties feeling their way on the metal rungs. When the surf is up to my hips, I push away from the back of the boat, the drysuit suctioned to me as if I’m shrink-wrapped, and I swim toward the yellow fender.
I grab the buoy line in a gloved hand, the life vest keeping me afloat and balanced, and I submerge my masked face into the cold salty water and am startled by the body just below my feet. The dead woman is fully clothed and vertical, her arms and long white hair floating up, fanning and moving like something alive as she slowly tilts and turns in the current. I surface for air and dive again, and the way she’s rigged is grotesque and sinister.
A rope around her neck is tied to the yellow fender on the surface, while a second rope around her ankles drops tautly down and disappears in the darkness, attached to something heavy. A torture device that creates extreme tension by pulling, stretching, and dislocating the neck, the joints, ripping the person apart? Or is the purpose something else? and I suspect it is. She was tied this way for our benefit, and I look up again at the helicopter still hovering, then I hold my breath and drop below the waves.
Sunlight filters through the surface, the water green and clear just below, then turning darker shades of blue that become murkier and as black as coal. I don’t know how deep the bay is here, but whatever the rope around her ankles is attached to most likely isn’t resting on the bottom, which could be thirty feet or more below the surface. The rope runs straight down, as if there is plenty of tension in it, and I lift my face out of the water. I take a deep breath and motion for Marino to get ready with the gaff.
“I can’t do anything with her right here,” I shout. “We’re going to have to somehow get the entire rig to the boat without causing a lot of damage to her.”
“What entire rig?” Marino asks. “Just move her and the buoy line at the same time. Can’t you do that?”
“No,” I reply. “What we’ve got to do is pull her abeam the boat, right up to the side of it, so we can cut her free without losing anything and get her in the basket.”