Patricia Cornwell - Trace

His thoughts about her have been long and drawn out, for years they have been, ever since they first met, if he is honest about it. His erotic imaginings are the most skillful, creative, incredible sex he's ever had, and he would never want her to know, he could never let her know, and he has not stopped hoping something might happen with her, but if he starts talking about what he remembers, then she might get an idea of what it would be like to be with him. That would ruin any chance. No matter how remote the chance, it would be killed. To confess in detail what little he does remember would be to show her what it would be like to be with him. That would ruin it. His fantasies wouldn't survive, either, and then he wouldn't even have them, never again. He considers lying.

"Let's go back to when you arrived at the FOP lounge," Scarpetta says, her eyes steady on him. "What time did you go there?"

Good. He can talk abour the FOP lounge, "Around seven," Marino says. "I met Eise there and then Browning got there and we had something to eat."

"Details," she tells him without moving in the chair, her eyes directly on his. "What did you eat and what had you eaten during the day?"

"I thought we were starting with the FOP, not what I ate earlier."

"Did you eat breakfast yesterday?" she persists with the same steadiness and patience she has when she talks to those left behind after someone is annihilated by randomness or by an Act of God or by a murderer.

"Had coffee in my room," he replies.

"Snacks? Lunch?"

"Nope."

"I'll lecture you about that another time," she says. "No food all day, just coffee, and then you went to the FOP lounge at seven. Did you drink on an empty stomach?"

"I started with a couple beers. Then I had a steak and a salad."

"No potato or bread? No carbs? You were on your diet."

"Huh. About the only good habit I stuck to last night, that's for sure."

She doesn't answer, and he senses she is thinking that his low-carb habit isn't exactly a good habit, but she isn't going to lecture him about nutrition right now when he's sitting on a bed, miserable with a hangover and in pain and panicky because he might have committed a felony or is about to be accused of committing one, assuming he hasn't already been accused. He looks at the gray sky out the window and imagines a Richmond police unmarked Crown Victoria prowling the streets, looking for him. Hell, it could be Detective Browning himself out there ready to serve a warrant on him.

"Then what?" Scarpetta asks.

Marino imagines himself in the backseat of the Crown Vic and wonders if Browning would handcuff him. Out of professional respect he could let Marino sit in the back unrestrained, or he could forget respect and snap handcuffs on him. He would have to handcuff him, Marino decides.

"You drank a few beers and ate a steak and a salad starting at seven," Scarpetta prods him in that easygoing but unstoppable way of hers. "How many beers, exactly?"

"Four, I think."

"Not think. How many, exactly."

"Six," he replies.

"Glasses or bottles or cans? Tall ones? Regulars? What size, in other words?"

"Six bottles of Budweiser, regular size. That ain't all that much for me, by the way. I can hold it. Six beers for me is like half a beer for you."

"Unlikely," she replies. "We'll talk about your math later."

"Well, I don't need a lecture," he mutters, glancing at her, then staring steadily at her in sullen silence.

"Six beers, one steak, a salad at the FOP with Junius Eise and Detective Browning, and about when did you hear the rumor that I'm moving back to Richmond? Might this have been while you were eating with Eise and Browning?"

"Now you're really putting two and two together," he says crabbily.

Eise and Browning were sitting across from him in the booth, a candle moving in the red glass globe, all three of them drinking beer. Eise asks Marino what he thinks of Scarpetta, what he really thinks. Is she a big shot doctor-chief, what is she really like? She's a big shot but don't act like one, were Marino's exact words. He does remember that much, and he remembers the way he felt when Eise and Browning started talking about her, about her getting reappointed as chief and moving back to Richmond. She hadn't said a word to Marino about any such thing, not even given him a hint, and he was humiliated and furious. That's when he switched from beer to bourbon.

I always thought she was hot, that idiot Eise had the balls to say, and then he switched to bourbon. Quite a set that one's got, he added a few minutes later, cupping his hands at his chest, grinning. Wouldn't mind getting into the lab coat of that one. Well, you've worked with her forever, haven't you, so maybe when you've been around her enough, you don't notice her looks anymore. Browning said he's never seen her, but he'd heard about her, and he was grinning too.

Marino didn't know what to say, so he drank the first bourbon and ordered another one. The thought of Eise looking at her body put him in a mood to punch him. Of course he didn't. He just sat in the booth and drank and tried not to think about the way she looks when she takes off her lab coat, when she drapes it over her chair or hangs it on the hook behind her door. He did his best to block out images of her taking off her suit jacket at a scene, unbuttoning the sleeves of her blouse, doing and undoing whatever is needed when a dead body is waiting for her. She has always been easy about herself, not showing it, not conscious of what she's got and whether anyone might be looking at it when she's unbuttoning and taking off and reaching and moving, because she has work and because the dead don't care about seeing it. They're dead. It's just Marino who isn't dead. Maybe she thinks he's dead.

"I'll say it again, I have no plans for moving back to Richmond," Scarpetta says from her chair, her legs crossed, the hem of her dark blue pants speckled with mud, her shoes so smeared with mud it's hard to remember they were shiny black earlier today. "Besides, you don't really think I would make plans like that and not tell you, do you?"

"You never know," he replies.

"You do know."

"I ain't moving back here. Especially not now."

Someone knocks on the door and Marino's heart jumps and he thinks of the police and of jail and court. He shuts his eyes in relief when a voice on the other side of the door says, "Room service."

"I'll get it," Scarpetta says.

Marino sits still on the bed, and his eyes follow her as she moves across the small room and opens the door. If she were alone, were he not sitting right here, she would probably ask who is there and look through the peephole. But she isn't worried because Marino is right here and wears a Colt.280 semiautomatic in an ankle holster, not that it would be necessary to shoot anyone. He wouldn't mind beating the hell out of someone, though. Right now he would be happy to slam his big fists into someone's jaw and solar plexus, like he used to do when he boxed.

"How you folks today?" the pimply-faced young man in a uniform asks as he rolls in the cart.

"Fine, just fine," she says, digging in a pocket of her pants and pulling out a ten-dollar bill that is neatly folded. "You can leave it right there. Thank you." She hands him the folded bill.

"Thank you, ma'am. You all have a really nice day now." And he leaves. And the door shuts softly.

Marino doesn't move on the bed, only his eyes do as he watches her. He watches her loosen plastic wrap from the bagel and the oatmeal. He watches her open a pat of butter and mix the butter into the oatmeal, then sprinkle it with salt. She opens another pat of butter and spreads it on the bagel, then she pours two cups of tea. She does not put sugar in the tea. In fact, there is no sugar, none at all, on the cart.