“Yes. But think about this. Whether he’s dismembered one person or twenty, he’s going to do something else bad. People like him don’t just stop. And we have no idea, not one clue, as to where the hell he is.”

“It’s not that I’m scared for myself,” I started to say.

“It’s all right if you are.”

“I just don’t want to do anything to make it worse,” I repeated.

That, of course, was always the risk when one was creative or aggressive in an investigation. The perpetrator was never completely predictable. Maybe it was simply something I sensed, an intuitive vibration I was picking up deep inside. But I felt that this killer was different and motivated by something beyond our ken. I feared he knew exactly what we were doing and was enjoying himself.

“Now, tell me about you,” I said. “Janet was here.”

“I don’t want to get into it.” Cold fury crept into her tone. “I have better ways to spend my time.”

“I’m with you, Lucy, whatever you want to do.”

“That much I’ve always been sure of. And this much everybody else can be sure of. No matter what it takes, Carrie’s going to rot in jail and hell after that.”

The nurse had returned to my room to whisk the telephone away again.

“I don’t understand this,” I complained as I hung up. “I have a calling card, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She smiled. “Colonel’s orders. He wants you to rest and knows you won’t if you can be on the phone all day.”

“I am resting,” I said, but she was gone.

I wondered why he allowed me to keep the laptop and was suspicious Lucy or someone had spoken to him. As I logged onto AOL, I felt conspired against. I had barely entered the M.E. chat room when deadoc appeared, this time not as an invisible instant message, but as a member who could be heard and seen by anybody else who decided to walk in.

DEADOC: where have you been

SCARPETTA: Who are you?

DEADOC: I ve already told you that

SCARPETTA: You are not me.

DEADOC: he gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease pathophysiological manifestations viruses like h i v our darwinian struggle against them they are evil or are we

SCARPETTA: Explain what you mean.

DEADOC: there are twelve

But he had no intention of explaining, at least not now. The system alerted me that he had left the room. I waited inside it a while longer to see if he might return, as I wondered what he meant by twelve. Pushing a button on my headboard, I summoned the nurse, who was beginning to cause me guilt. I didn’t know where she waited outside the room, or if she climbed in and out of her blue suit every time she appeared and left. But none of this could have been pleasant, including my disposition.