Predator by Patricia Cornwell

guilt follow her as she follows the snowy sidewalk west along the Cape Cod Bay. She ran away. She remembers when she heard about his death. She heard about it the way no one should, on the radio.
         A prominent doctor was found shot to death in a Hollywood apartment in what sources close to the investigation say is a possible suicide…
         She had no one to ask. She wasn’t supposed to know Johnny and had never met his brother, Laurel, or any of their friends, so who could she ask?
         Her cell phone vibrates, and she tucks the earpiece in her ear and answers.
         “Where are you?” Benton says.
         “Walking through a blizzard in P town. Well, not literally a blizzard. It’s starting to taper off.” She is dazed, a little hung-over.
         “Anything interesting come up?”
         She thinks of last night and feels bewildered and ashamed.
         What she says is, “Only that he wasn’t alone when he was here last, the week before he died. Apparently, he came here right after his surgery, then went down to Florida.”
         “Laurel with him?”
         “No.”
         “How did he manage alone?”
         “As I said, it appears he wasn’t alone.”
         “Who told you?”
         “A bartender. Apparently, he met someone.”
         “We know who?”
         “A woman. Someone a lot younger.”
         “A name?”
         “Jan, don’t know the rest of it. Johnny was upset about the surgery, which wasn’t all that successful, as you know. People do a lot of things when they’re scared and don’t feel good about themselves.”

     “How are you feeling?”
         “Okay,” she lies.
         She was a coward. She was selfish.
         “You don’t sound okay,” Benton says to her. “What happened to Johnny isn’t your fault.”
         “I ran away from it. I didn’t do a damn thing.”
         “Why don’t you spend some time with us. Kay’s going to be up here for a week. We’d love to see you. You and I will find some private time to talk,” Benton the psychologist says.
         “I don’t want to see her. Somehow make her understand.”
         “Lucy, you can’t keep doing this to her.”
         “I’m not trying to hurt anyone,” she says, thinking of Stevie again.
         “Then tell her the truth. It’s that simple.”
         “You called me.” She abruptly changes the subject.
         “I need you to do something for me as soon as possible,” he replies. “I’m on a secured phone.”
         “Unless there’s anyone around here with an intercept system, I am too. Go ahead.”
         He tells her about a murder that supposedly occurred at some sort of Christmas shop, supposedly in the Las Olas area about two and a half years ago. He tells her everything Basil Jenrette told him. He says Scarpetta is unfamiliar with any case that sounds similar, but she wasn’t working in South Florida back then.
         “The information came from a sociopath,” he reminds her, “so I’m not holding my breath that there’s anything to it.”
         “The alleged victim in the Christmas shop have her eyes gouged out?”
         “He didn’t tell me that. I didn’t want to ask him too many questions until I check out his story. Can you run it in HIT, see what you can find?”
         “I’ll get started on the plane,” she says.

    Chapter 10

         The clock on the wall above the bookcase reads half past noon, and the attorney representing a kid who probably murdered his baby brother is taking his time going through paperwork on the other side of Kay Scarpetta’s desk.
         Dave is young, dark, nicely built, one of those men whose irregular features somehow fit together in a very appealing way. He is known for his flamboyance in the malpractice arena, and whenever he comes to the Academy, the secretaries and female students suddenly find reasons to