Patricia Cornwell - Book of the Dead

“I’ll be right back,” she says, leaving the light on.

In the guest bath, she fills a glass with water and shakes four Advil tablets from the bottle. She covers herself with a robe, her wrists aching, her flesh raw and burning, the memory of his hands and mouth and tongue sickening. She bends over the toilet and gags. She leans against the edge of the sink and takes deep breaths and looks at her red face in the mirror and seems as much a stranger to herself as he is. She splashes herself with cold water, washes out her mouth, washes him away from every place he touched. She washes away tears, and it takes a few minutes to get control of herself. She returns to the guest room where he’s snoring.

“Marino. Wake up. Sit up.” She helps him, plumps pillows behind him. “Here, take these and drink the entire glass of water. You need to drink a lot of water. You’re going to feel like hell in the morning, but this will help.”

He drinks the water and takes the Advil, then turns his face to the wall as she brings him another glass. “Turn off the light,” he says to the wall.

“I need you to stay awake.”

He doesn’t answer her.

“You don’t have to look at me. But you must stay awake.”

He doesn’t look at her. He stinks like whisky and cigarettes and sweat, and the smell of him reminds her and she feels her soreness, feels where he has been and is nauseated again.

“Don’t worry,” he says thickly. “I’ll leave and you won’t ever have to see me. I’ll vanish for good.”

“You’re very, very drunk and don’t know what you’re doing,” she says. “But I want you to remember it. You need to stay awake long enough so you’ll remember this tomorrow. So we can get past it.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I almost shot him. I wanted to so bad. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Who did you almost shoot?” she says.

“At the bar,” he says in his drunken gabble. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Tell me what happened at the bar.”

Silence as he stares at the wall, his breathing heavy again.

“Who did you almost shoot?” she asks loudly.

“He said he’d been sent.”

“Sent?”

“Made threats about you. I almost shot him. Then I come over here and acted just like him. I should kill myself.”

“You’re not going to kill yourself.”

“I should.”

“That will be worse than what you just did. Do you understand me?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t look at her.

“If you kill yourself, I won’t feel sorry for you and I won’t forgive you,” she says. “Killing yourself is selfish, and none of us will forgive you.”

“I’m not good enough for you. I never will be. Go on and say it and get it over with once and for all.” He talks as if he has rags in his mouth.

The phone on the bedside table rings, and she picks it up.

“It’s me,” Benton says. “You saw what I sent? How are you?”

“Yes, and you?”

“Kay? Are you all right?”

“Yes, and you?”

“Christ. Is someone there?” he says, alarmed.

“Everything’s fine.”

“Kay? Is someone there?”

“We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ve decided to stay home, work in the garden, ask Bull to come over and help.”

“You’re sure? You sure you’re okay with him?”

“I am now,” she says.

Four o’clock in the morning, Hilton Head. Crashing waves spread white foam on the beach as if the heaving sea is frothing at the mouth.

Will Rambo is quiet on the wooden steps, and he walks the length of the boardwalk and climbs over the locked gate. The faux-Italianate villa is stucco with multiple chimneys and archways, and a sharply pitched red barrel-tile roof. In the back are copper lights, and a stone table with a clutter of filthy ashtrays and empty glasses, and not so long ago, her car key. Since then, she has used the spare, although she drives infrequently. Mostly, she goes nowhere, and he is silent as he moves about, and palmetto trees and pines sway in the wind.

Trees waving like wands, casting their spell over Rome, and flower petals blowing like snow along Via D’Monte Tarpeo. Poppies were blood-red, and wisteria draped over ancient brick walls was purple like bruises. Pigeons bobbed along steps, and women fed feral cats Whiskas and eggs from plastic plates among the ruins.

It was a fine day for walking, and the tourist traffic wasn’t heavy, and she was a little drunk but at ease with him, happy with him. He knew she would be.

“I would like you to meet my father,” he said to her as they sat on a wall and looked at feral cats, and she remarked repeatedly that they were pitiful stray cats, inbred and deformed, and someone should save them.

“Not stray but feral. There’s a difference. These feral cats want to be here and would rip you apart if you tried to rescue them. They aren’t something discarded or hurt with nothing to look forward to but darting from garbage can to garbage can and hiding under houses until someone catches them and puts them to sleep.”

“Why would someone put them to sleep?” she asked.

“Because they would. That’s what would happen once they’re removed from their haven and end up in unsafe places where they are hit by cars and chased by dogs and constantly endangered and wounded beyond repair. Unlike these cats. Look at them, all alone, and no one dares go near them unless they allow it. They want to be exactly where they are, down there in the ruins.”

“You’re weird,” she said, nudging him. “I thought so when we met, but you’re cute.”

“Come on,” he said, and he helped her up.

“I’m too warm,” she complained, because he had draped his long, black coat around her and made her wear a cap and his dark glasses, even though the day wasn’t cold or sunny.

“You’re very famous, and people will stare,” he reminded her. “You know they will, and we can’t have people staring.”

“I need to find my friends before they think I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Come on. You must see the apartment. It’s quite spectacular. I’ll drive you there because I can tell you’re tired, and you can call your friends and invite them to join us, if you like. We’ll have some very fine wine and cheeses.”

Then darkness, as if a light went out in his head, and he woke up to scenes in brilliant broken pieces, like brilliant broken pieces of a shattered stained-glass window that once told a story or a truth.

The stairs on the north side of the house haven’t been swept, and the door leading into the laundry room hasn’t been opened since the housekeeper was here last, almost two months ago. On either side of the stairs are hibiscus bushes, and behind them through a pane of glass he can see the alarm panel and its red light. He opens his tackle box and withdraws a saddle-grip glass cutter with a carbide tip. He cuts out a pane of glass and sets it on the sandy dirt behind the bushes as the puppy inside his crate begins to bay, and Will hesitates, quite calm. He reaches inside and unlocks the deadbolt, then opens the door and the alarm begins to beep, and he enters the code to silence it.

He’s inside a house he has watched for many months. He’s imagined this and planned it at such great length that finally, the act of doing it is easy and perhaps a little disappointing. He squats and wiggles his sandy fingers through the spaces in the wire crate and whispers to the basset hound, “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

The basset hound stops baying, and Will lets the dog lick the back of his hand, where there is no glue and no special sand.