assume. And use an abandoned container? Like he’s cargo?”
Lucy was her usual self. She climbed the shipyard’s fence earlier tonight and looked around because she had a hunch. Where could one hijack the port’s network without being seen? She got her answer inside a banged-up container where she discovered a table and a chair and a wireless router. Scarpetta has thought a lot about Bull, about the night he decided to smoke weed near abandoned containers and got cut up. Was the Sandman there? Did Bull get too close? She wants to ask him but hasn’t seen him since they searched the alley together and found the gun and the gold coin.
“I left everything in place,” Lucy says. “Hoping he wouldn’t know I was there. But he might. I can’t say. He’s not sent any e-mails from the port tonight, but he hasn’t for a while.”
“What about the weather?” Scarpetta asks, mindful of the time.
“Should clear by midnight. I’m stopping by the lab, then heading to the airport,” Lucy says.
She gets up. Then Captain Poma does. Benton stays in his chair, and Scarpetta meets his eyes, and her phobias return.
He says to her, “I need to talk to you a minute.”
Lucy and Captain Poma leave, and Scarpetta shuts her door.
“Maybe I should start. You showed up in Charleston with no announcement,” she says. “You didn’t call. I hadn’t heard from you in days, and then you walk in unexpectedly last night with him…”
“Kay,” he says, reaching for his briefcase and placing it on his lap. “We shouldn’t be doing this right now.”
“You’ve barely talked to me.”
“Can we…?” he starts to say.
“No, we can’t put this off until later. I can scarcely concentrate. I have to get to Rose’s apartment building, have so much to do, too much to do, and everything’s disintegrating and I know what you want to talk to me about. I can’t tell you how I feel. Maybe I really can’t. I don’t blame you if you’ve made a decision. I certainly understand.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest we put this off until later,” Benton says. “I was going to suggest we stop interrupting each other.”
This confuses her. That light in his eyes. She’s always believed what’s in his eyes is only for her, and now she’s afraid it isn’t and never was. He’s looking at her, and she looks away.
“What do you want to talk to me about, Benton?”
“Him.”
“Otto?”
“I don’t trust him. Waiting for the Sandman to show up to send more e-mails? On foot? In the rain? In the dark? Did he tell you he was coming here?”
“I suppose someone informed him of what’s been happening. A connection of the Drew Martin case with Charleston, with Hilton Head.”
“Maybe Dr. Maroni’s been talking to him,” Benton considers. “I don’t know. He’s like a phantom.” He means the captain. “All over the damn place. I don’t trust him.”
“Maybe I’m the one you don’t trust,” she says. “Maybe you should say it and get it over with.”
“I don’t trust him at all.”
“Then you shouldn’t spend so much time with him.”
“I haven’t. I don’t know what he does or where. Except I think he came to Charleston because of you. It’s obvious what he wants. To be the hero. To impress you. To make love to you. I can’t say I’d blame you. He’s handsome and charming, I’ll give him that.”
“Why are you jealous of him? He’s so small compared to you. I’ve done nothing to warrant it. You’re the one who lives up there and leaves me alone. I understand your not wanting to be in this relationship anymore. Just tell me and get it over with.” Scarpetta looks at her left hand, at the ring. “Should I take it off?” She starts to take it off.
“Don’t,” Benton says. “Please don’t. I don’t believe you want that.”
“It’s not a matter of what I want. It’s what I deserve.”
“I don’t blame men for falling in love with you. Or wanting you in bed. Do you know what happened?”
“I should give you the ring.”
“Let me tell you what happened,” Benton says. “It’s about time you knew. When your father died, he took some of you with him.”
“Please don’t be cruel.”
“Because he adored you,” Benton says. “How could he not? His beautiful little girl. His brilliant little girl. His good little girl.”
“Don’t hurt me like this.”
“I’m telling you a truth, Kay. A very important one.” The light in his eyes again.
She can’t look at him.
“From that day forward, a part of you decided it was too dangerous to notice the way someone looks at you if he adores you or wants you sexually. If he adores you and dies? You believe you can’t endure that again. Sexually wants you? Then how do you work with cops and DAs if you think they’re imagining what’s under your clothes and what they might do with it?”
“Stop it. I don’t deserve this.”
“You never did.”
“Just because I choose not to notice doesn’t mean I deserve what he did.”
“Never in a million years.”
“I don’t want to live here anymore,” she says. “I should give you back the ring. It was your great- grandmother’s.”
“And run away from home? Like you did when you had no one left but your mother and Dorothy? You ran away without going anywhere. Lost in learning and accomplishment. Running fast, too busy to feel. Now you want to run away like Marino just did.”
“I should never have let him into the house.”
“You have for twenty years. Why wouldn’t you have that night? Especially when he was so drunk and dangerous to himself. One thing you are is kind.”
“Rose told you. Maybe Lucy.”
“An e-mail from Dr. Self, indirectly. You and Marino are having an affair. I found out the rest of it from Lucy. The truth. Look at me, Kay. I’m looking at you.”
“Promise me you won’t do anything to him. And make it worse, because then you’ll be like him. This is why you’ve avoided me, didn’t tell me you were coming to Charleston. Have scarcely called me.”
“I haven’t avoided you. Where do I start? There’s so much.”
“What else?”
“We had a patient,” he says. “Dr. Self befriended her — I use the word loosely. She basically called this patient an imbecile, and from Dr. Self, it wasn’t name-calling or a joke. It was a judgment, a diagnosis. It was worse because Dr. Self said it, and the patient was going home where she wasn’t safe. She went to the first liquor store she could find. It appears she drank nearly a fifth of vodka, and she hanged herself. So I’ve been dealing with that. And so much else you don’t know about. That’s why I’ve been distant. Not talked to you much these past several days.”
He snaps open the clasps of his briefcase and lifts out his laptop.
“I’ve been very reluctant to use the hospital’s phones, their wireless Internet, been very careful on every front. Even the home front. One reason I wanted to get out of there. And you’re about to ask me what’s going on, and I’m about to tell you I don’t know. But it’s got to do with Paulo’s electronic files. The ones Lucy got into because he left them surprisingly vulnerable to anyone who might want to get into them.”
“Vulnerable if you knew where to look. Lucy isn’t exactly anyone.”
“She was also limited because she had to get into his computer remotely as opposed to having access to the actual machine.” He turns on his laptop. He inserts a CD into the drive. “Come closer.”
She moves her chair flush against his and looks at what he’s doing. Momentarily, he has a document on his screen.
