“He wants to marry me,” I said.

I flew home to Richmond and days became weeks with the weather getting cold. Mornings were glazed with frost and evenings I spent in front of the fire, thinking and fretting. So much was unresolved and silent, and I coped the way I always did, working my way deeper into the labyrinth of my profession until I could not find a way out. It was making my secretary crazy.

“Dr. Scarpetta?” She called out my name, her footsteps loud and brisk along the tile floor in the autopsy suite.

“In here,” I answered over running water.

It was October 30. I was in the morgue locker room, washing up with antibacterial soap.

“Where have you been?” Rose asked as she walked in.

“Working on a brain. The sudden death from the other day.”

She was holding my calendar and flipping pages. Her gray hair was neatly pinned back, and she was dressed in a dark red suit that seemed appropriate for her mood. Rose was deeply angry with me and had been since I’d left for Dublin without saying good-bye. Then I forgot her birthday when I got back. I turned off the water and dried my hands.

“Swelling, with widening of the gyri, narrowing of the sulci, all good for ischemic encephalopathy brought on by his profound systemic hypotension,” I cited.

“I’ve been trying to find you,” she said with strained patience.

“What did I do this time?” I threw up my hands.

“You were supposed to have lunch at the Skull and Bones with Jon.”

“Oh, God,” I groaned as I thought of him and other medical school advisees I had so little time to see.

“I reminded you this morning. You forgot him last week, too. He really needs to talk to you about his residency, about the Cleveland Clinic.”

“I know, I know.” I felt awful about it as I looked at my watch. “It’s one-thirty. Maybe he can come by my office for coffee?”

“You have a deposition at two, a conference call at three about the Norfolk-Southern case. A gunshot wound lecture to the Forensic Science Academy at four, and a meeting at five with Investigator Ring from the state police.” Rose went down the list.

I did not like Ring or his aggressive way of taking over cases. When the second torso had been found, he had inserted himself into the investigation and seemed to think he knew more than the FBI.

“Ring I can do without,” I said, shortly.

My secretary looked at me for a long moment, water and sponges slapping in the autopsy suite next door.

“I’ll cancel him and you can see Jon instead.” She eyed me over her glasses like a stern headmistress. “Then rest, and that’s an order. Tomorrow, Dr. Scarpetta. Don’t come in. Don’t you dare let me see you darken the door.”

I started to protest and she cut me off.

“Don’t even think of arguing,” she firmly went on. “You need a mental health day, a long weekend. I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it.”