They spent a lot of time looking. Rose ended up on the Ashley River in a run-down apartment that Scarpetta, Lucy, and Marino renovated. It didn’t cost Rose a penny, and then Scarpetta gave her a raise. Without it, Rose couldn’t afford the lease, but that fact was never mentioned. All Scarpetta said was that Charleston is an expensive city compared to other places they’ve lived, but even if it wasn’t, Rose deserved a raise.
She makes coffee and watches the news and waits for Marino to call. Another hour passes, and she wonders where he is. Another hour, and not a word, and her frustration grows. She’s left several messages for him saying she can’t come in this morning and could he drop by to help her move her couch? Besides, she needs to talk to him. She told Scarpetta she would. Now’s as good a time as any. It’s almost ten. She’s called his cell phone again, and it goes straight to voicemail. She looks out the open window, and cool air blows in from beyond the seawall, the water choppy and moody, the color of pewter.
She knows better than to move the couch herself but is impatient and irked enough to do it. She coughs as she ponders the folly of a feat that would have been manageable not all that long ago. She wearily sits and loses herself in memories of last night, of talking and holding hands and kissing on this same couch. She felt things she didn’t know she could feel anymore, all the while wondering how long it can last. She can’t give it up, and it can’t last, and she feels a sadness so deep and dark that there’s no point in trying to see what’s in it.
The phone rings, and it’s Lucy.
“How did it go?” Rose asks her.
“Nate says hello.”
“I’m more interested in what he said about you.”
“Nothing new.”
“That’s very good news.” Rose moves to the kitchen counter and picks up the television remote control. She takes a deep breath. “Marino’s supposed to come by to move my couch, but as usual…”
A pause, then Lucy says, “That’s one of the things I’m calling about. I was going to drop by to see Aunt Kay and tell her about my appointment with Nate. She doesn’t know I went. I always tell her after the fact so she doesn’t go crazy worrying. Marino’s bike is parked at her house.”
“Was she expecting you?”
“No.”
“What time was this?”
“Around eight.”
“Impossible,” Rose says. “Marino’s still in a coma at eight. At least these days.”
“I went to Starbucks, then headed back to her house around nine, and guess what? I pass his potato-chip girlfriend in her BMW.”
“You sure it was her?”
“Want her plate number? Her DOB? What’s in her bank account — not much, by the way. Looks like she’s gone through most of her money. Not from her dead rich daddy, either. Tells you something he left her nothing. But she makes a lot of deposits that don’t make sense, spends it as fast as she gets it.”
“This is bad. Did she see you when you were coming back from Starbucks?”
“I was in my Ferrari. So unless she’s blind in addition to being a vapid twat. Sorry…”
“Don’t be. I know what a twat is, and no doubt she fits the bill. Marino has a special homing device that leads him directly to twats.”
“You don’t sound good. Like you can hardly breathe,” Lucy says. “How about I come over a little later and move the couch?”
“I’ll be right here,” Rose says, coughing as she hangs up.
She turns on the television in time to see a tennis ball kick up a puff of red dust off the line, Drew Martin’s serve so fast and out of reach, her opponent doesn’t even try. CNN plays footage from last year’s French Open, the news about Drew going on and on. Replays of tennis and her life and death. Over and over again. More footage. Rome. The ancient city, then the small cordoned-off construction site surrounded by police and yellow tape. Emergency lights pulsing.
“What else do we know at this time? Are there any new developments?”
“Rome officials continue to be tight-lipped. It would appear there are no leads and no suspects, and this terrible crime continues to be shrouded in mystery. People here ask why. You can see them laying flowers at the edge of the construction site where her body was found.”
More replays. Rose tries not to watch. She’s seen all of it so many times, but she continues to be mesmerized by it.
Drew slicing a backhand.
Drew charging the net and slamming a lob so hard it bounces into the stands. The crowd jumping to its feet and wildly cheering.
Drew’s pretty face on Dr. Self’s show. Talking fast, her mind jumping from one subject to the next, excited because she’d just won the U.S. Open, called the Tiger Woods of tennis. Dr. Self leaning into the interview, asking questions she shouldn’t ask.
“Are you a virgin, Drew?”
Laughing, blushing, hiding her face with her hands.
“Come on.” Dr. Self smiling, so damn full of herself. “This is what I’m talking about, everyone.” To her audience. “Shame. Why do we feel shame when we talk about sex?”
“I lost my virginity when I was ten,” Drew says. “To my brother’s bicycle.”
The crowd going crazy.
“Drew Martin dead at sweet sixteen,” an anchor says.
Rose manages to push the couch across the living room and shove it against the wall. She sits on it and cries. She gets up and paces and weeps, and moans that death is wrong and violence is unbearable and she hates it. Hates it all. In the bathroom, she retrieves a prescription bottle. In the kitchen, she pours herself a glass of wine. She takes a tablet and washes it down with wine, and moments later, coughing and barely able to breathe, she washes down a second tablet. The telephone rings and she is unsteady when she reaches for it, dropping the receiver, fumbling to pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Rose?” Scarpetta says.
“I shouldn’t watch the news.”
“Are you crying?”
The room’s spinning. She’s seeing double. “It’s just the flu.”
“I’m coming over,” Scarpetta says.
Marino rests his head against the back of the seat, his eyes masked by dark glasses, his big hands on his thighs.
He’s dressed in the same clothes he had on last night. He slept in them, and it looks like it. His face is a deep red hue, and he has the stale stench of a drunk who hasn’t bathed in a while. The sight and smell of him brings back memories that are too awful to describe, and she feels the rawness, the soreness of flesh he should never have seen or touched. She wears layers of silk and cotton, fabrics gentle to her skin, her shirt buttoned at the collar, her jacket zipped up. To hide her injuries. To hide her humiliation. Around him, she feels powerless and naked.
Another awful silence as she drives. The car is filled with the aromas of garlic and sharp cheese, and he has his window open.
He says, “The light hurts my eyes. I can’t believe how much the light’s killing my eyes.”
He has said this numerous times, offering an answer to an unasked question of why he won’t look at her or take off his dark glasses despite the overcast sky and rain. When she made coffee and dry toast barely an hour ago and brought it to him in bed, he groaned as he sat up and held his head. Unconvincingly, he asked, “Where am I?”
“You were very drunk last night.” She set the coffee and toast on the bedside table. “Do you remember?”
“If I eat anything, I’ll puke.”
“Do you remember last night?”
He says he doesn’t remember anything after riding his motorcycle to her house. His demeanor says he
