Patricia Cornwell - Book of the Dead

“So now you’re depersonalizing me. Unless you’re talking about someone else.”

“She’s someone else. Someone you really don’t know. I think you have a much lower opinion of her than I do. Especially these days.”

“Sorry, I’m not this heroic woman you just described, but let me help what little I can — get you to the best cancer center in the country. Stanford Cancer Center. Where Lucy goes. I’ll take you. We’ll get you any treatment you…”

“No, no, no.” Rose shakes her head again slowly, side to side. “Now be quiet and listen to me. I’ve consulted all sorts of specialists. Do you remember last summer I went on a three-week cruise? A lie. The only cruise I went on was from one specialist to another, and then Lucy took me to Stanford, which is where I got my doctor. The prognosis is the same. My only choice was chemo and radiation, and I refused.”

“We should try anything we possibly can.”

“I’m already in stage three-B.”

“It’s spread to the lymph nodes?”

“Lymph nodes. And bone. Well on its way to being stage four. Surgery’s impossible.”

“Chemotherapy and radiotherapy, or even just radiation therapy by itself. We’ve got to try. We can’t just give up like this.”

“In the first place, there’s no we . It’s me . And no. I won’t put myself through it. I’ll be damned if I’m going to have all my hair fall out and be sick and miserable when I know this disease is going to kill me. Sooner rather than later. Lucy even said she would get me marijuana so the chemo wouldn’t make me as sick. Imagine me smoking pot.”

“Obviously, she’s known about this for as long as you have,” Scarpetta says.

Rose nods.

“You should have told me.”

“I told Lucy, and she’s a master of secrets, has so many I’m not sure any of us know what’s really true. What I didn’t want is this very thing. To make you feel bad.”

“Just tell me what I can do.” As grief tightens its grip.

“Change what you can. Don’t ever think you can’t.”

“Tell me. I’ll do anything you want,” Scarpetta says.

“It’s not until you’re dying that you begin to realize all the things in life you could have changed. This I can’t change.” Rose taps her chest. “You have the power to change almost anything you want.”

Images from last night, and for an instant, Scarpetta imagines she smells him, feels him, and she struggles not to show how devastated she is.

“What is it?” Rose squeezes her hand.

“How can I not feel terrible?”

“You were just thinking about something, and it wasn’t me,” Rose says. “Marino. He looks awful and is acting odd.”

“Because he got shit-face drunk,” Scarpetta says, anger in her voice.

“‘Shit-face.’ Now, that’s a term I haven’t heard you use. But then I’m getting rather vulgar myself these days. I actually used the word twat this morning when I was talking to Lucy on the phone — referring to Marino’s latest. Who Lucy happened to pass in your neighborhood around eight. When Marino’s motorcycle was still parked in front of your house.”

“I have a box of food for you. It’s still in the hall. Let me get it and I’ll put it away.”

A coughing fit, and when Rose removes the tissue from her mouth, it is spotted with bright red blood.

“Please let me take you back to Stanford,” Scarpetta says.

“Tell me what happened last night.”

“We talked.” Scarpetta feels her face turn red. “Until he was too drunk.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you blush.”

“A hot flash.”

“Yes, and I have the flu.”

“Tell me what to do for you.”

“Let me go about my business as usual. I don’t want to be resuscitated. I don’t want to die in a hospital.”

“Why don’t you move in with me?”

“That’s not going about my business as usual,” Rose says.

“Will you at least give me permission to talk to your doctor?”

“There’s nothing else for you to know. You asked what I want, and I’m telling you. No curative treatment. I want palliative care.”

“I have an extra room in my house. Small as it is. Maybe I should get a bigger place,” Scarpetta says.

“Don’t be so selfless it makes you selfish. And it’s selfish if you make me feel guilty and just plain horrible because I’m hurting everyone around me.”

Scarpetta hesitates, then says, “Can I tell Benton?”

“You can tell him. But not Marino. I don’t want you telling him.” Rose sits up, places her feet on the floor. She takes both of Scarpetta’s hands. “I’m no forensic pathologist,” she says. “But why are there fresh bruises on your wrists?”

The basset hound is still right where they left him, sitting in the sand near the No Trespassing sign.

“See, now, this just isn’t normal,” Madelisa exclaims. “Been sitting here for more than an hour, waiting for us to come back. Here, Droopy. You sweet little thing.”

“Honey, that’s not his name. Now, don’t be naming him. Look at his tag,” Ashley says. “See what his real name is and where he lives.”

She stoops down, and the basset hound ambles over to her, presses against her, licks her hands. She squints at the tag, doesn’t have her reading glasses. Ashley doesn’t have his, either.

“I can’t see it,” she says. “What little I can make out. Nope, doesn’t look like there’s a phone number. I didn’t bring my phone, anyhow.”

“I didn’t, either.”

“Now, that’s dumb. What if I twisted my ankle out here or something? Somebody’s barbecuing,” she says, sniffing, looking around, noticing a wisp of smoke rising from the back of the huge white house with the balconies and red roof — one of the few houses she’s seen with a No Trespassing sign. “Now, why aren’t you running off to see what’s cooking?” she says to the basset hound, stroking his floppy ears. “Maybe we could go out and buy us one of those little grills and cook out tonight.”

She tries to read the dog’s tags again, but it’s hopeless without her glasses, and she imagines rich people, imagines some millionaire grilling on the patio of that huge white house set back from the dune, partially hidden by tall pines.

“Say hello to your old-maid sister,” Ashley says, filming. “Tell her how luxurious our town house is here on Millionaire Row in Hilton Head. Tell her next time we’re staying in a mansion like that one where they’re barbecuing.”

Madelisa looks down the beach in the direction of their town house, unable to see it through thick trees. She returns her attention to the dog and says, “I bet he lives in the house right there.” Pointing to the white European-looking mansion where someone is barbecuing. “I’ll just go on over there and ask.”

“Go right on. I’ll wander a little bit, filming. Saw a few porpoises a minute ago.”

“Come on, Droopy. Let’s go find your family,” Madelisa says to the dog.

He sits in the sand and won’t come. She tugs his collar, but he’s not going anywhere. “Okay, then,” she says. “You stay put and I’ll find out if that big house is where you’re from. Maybe you got out and they don’t know it. But one thing’s for sure. Someone’s missing you something awful!”

She hugs and kisses him. She heads off across the hard sand, gets to the soft sand, walks right through sea oats, even though she hears it’s illegal to walk on the dunes. She hesitates at the No Trespassing sign, bravely steps up on the wooden boardwalk, heading to the huge white house where some rich person, maybe a celebrity, is cooking on the grill. Lunch, she supposes, as she keeps looking back, hoping the basset hound doesn’t run off. She can’t see him on the other side of the dune. She doesn’t see him on the beach, either, just Ashley, a small figure, filming several dolphins rolling through the water, their fins cutting through the waves, then dipping out of sight again. At the end of the boardwalk is a wooden gate, and she’s surprised it isn’t locked. It isn’t completely shut.