"Lucy, I've been isolated most of my life. You don't even know what discrimination is until you're one of only three women in your medical school class. Or in law school, the men won't share their notes if you're sick and miss class. That's why I don't get sick. That's why I don't get drunk and hide in bed." I sounded hard because I knew I needed to be.

"This is different," she said.

"I think you want to believe it's different so you can make excuses and feel sorry for yourself," I said. "It seems to me that the person doing all of the forgetting and rejecting here is you. It's not the church. It's not society. It's not even Janet's parents, who simply may not understand.

I thought you were stronger than this."

"I am strong."

"Well, I've had enough," I said. "Don't you come to my house and get drunk and pull the covers over your head so that I worry about you all day. And then when I try to help, you push me and everyone else away."

She was silent as she stared at me. Finally she said, "Did you really go to church because of me?"

"I went because of me," I said. "But you were the main topic of conversation."

She threw the covers off.. "A person's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy God forever,' " she said as she got up.

I paused in her doorway.

"Catechism. Using inclusive language, of course. I had a religion course at UVA. Do you want dinner?"

"What would you like?" I said.

"Whatever's easy." She came over and hugged me.

"Aunt Kay, I'm sorry," she said.

In the kitchen I opened the freezer first and was not inspired by anything I saw. Next I looked inside the refrigerator, but my appetite had gone into hiding along with my peace of mind. I ate a banana and made a pot of coffee. At half past eight, the base station on the counter startled me.

"Unit six hundred to base station one," Marino's voice came over the air.

I picked up the microphone and answered him, "Base station one."

"Can you call me at a number"

"Give it to me," I said, and I had a bad feeling.

It was possible the radio frequency used by my office could be monitored, and whenever a case was especially sensitive, the detectives tried to keep all of us off the air.

The number Marino gave me was for a pay phone.

When he answered, he said, "Sorry, I didn't have any change."

"What's going on?" I didn't waste time.

"I'm skipping the M.E. on call because I knew you'd want us to get hold of you first."

"What is it?"

"Shit, Doc, I'm really sorry. But we've got Danny."

"Danny?" I said in confusion.

"Danny Webster. From your Norfolk office."

"What do you mean you've got him?" I was gripped by fear. "What did he do?" I imagined he had gotten arrested driving my car. Or maybe he had wrecked it.

Marino said, "Doc, he's dead."

Then there was silence on his end and mine.

"Oh God." I leaned against the counter and shut my eyes. "Oh my God," I said. "What happened?"

"Look, I think the best thing is for you to get down here.

"Where are you?"

"Sugar Bottom, where the old train tunnel is. Your car's about a block uphill at Libby Hill Park." I asked nothing further but told Lucy I was leaving and probably would not be home until late. I grabbed my medical bag and my pistol, for I was familiar with the skid row part of town where the tunnel was, and I could not imagine what might have lured Danny there. He and his friend were to have driven my car and Lucy's Suburban to my office, where my administrator was to meet them in back and give them a ride to the bus station. Certainly, Church Hill was not far from the OCME, but I could not imagine why Danny would have driven anywhere in my Mercedes other than where he knew he was to be. He did not seem the type to abuse my trust.

I drove swiftly along West Cary Street, passing huge brick homes with roof-, of copper and slate, and entrances barricaded by tall black wrought-iron gates. It seemed surreal to be speeding in the morgue wagon through this elegant part of the city while one of my employees lay dead, and I fretted over leaving Lucy alone again. I could not remember if I had armed the alarm system and turned the motion sensors off on my way out. My hands were shaking and I wished I could smoke.

Libby Hill Park was on one of Richmond's seven hills in an area where real estate was now considered prime.

Century-old row houses and Greek Revival homes had been brilliantly restored by people hold enough to reclaim a historic section of the city from the clutches of decay and crime. For most residents, the chance they took had turned out fine, but I knew I could not live near housing projects and depressed areas where the major industry was drugs. I did not want to work cases in my neighborhood.

Police cruisers with lights throbbing red and blue lined both sides of Franklin Street. The night was very dark, and I could barely make out the octagonal bandstand or bronze soldier on his tall granite pedestal facing the James. My Mercedes was surrounded by officers and a television crew, and people had emerged on wide porches to watch. As I slowly drove past, I could not tell if my car had been damaged, but the driver's door was open, the interior light on.

East past 29th Street, the road sloped down to a section known as Sugar Bottom, named for prostitutes once kept in business by Virginia gentlemen, or maybe it was for moonshine. I wasn't sure of the lore. Restored homes abruptly turned into slumlord apartments and leaning tarpaper shacks, and off the pavement, midway down the steep hill, were woods thick and dense where the C amp;O tunnel had collapsed in the twenties.

I remembered flying over this area in a state police helicopter once, and the tunnel's black opening had peeked out of trees at me, its railroad bed a muddy scar leading to the river. I thought of the train cars and laborers supposedly still sealed inside, and again, I could not imagine why Danny would have come here willingly. If nothing else, he would have worried about his injured knee. Pulling over, I parked as close to Marino's Ford as I could, and instantly was spotted by reporters.

"Dr. Scarpetta, is it true that's your car up the hill?"

asked a woman journalist as she hurried to my side. "I understand the Mercedes is registered to you. What color is it? Is it black?" she persisted when I did not reply.

"Can you explain how it got there?" A man pushed a microphone close to my face.

"Did you drive it there?" asked someone else.

"Was it stolen from you? Did the victim steal it from you'? Do you think this is about drugs?"

Voices folded into each other because no one would wait his turn and I would not speak. When several uniformed officers realized I had arrived, they loudly intervened.

"Hey, get back."

"Now. You heard me."

"Let the lady through."

"Come on. We got a crime scene to work here. I hope that's all right with you."

Marino was suddenly holding on to my arm. "Bunch of squirrels," he said as he glared at them. "Be real careful where you step. We got to go through the woods almost all the way to where the tunnel is. What kind of shoes you got on"

"I'll be all right."

There was a path, and it was long and led steeply down from the street. Lights had been set up to illuminate the way, and they cut a swath like the moon on a dangerous bay. On the margins, woods dissolved into blackness stirred by a subtle wind.

"Be real careful," he said again. "It's muddy and there's shit all over the place."

"What shit?" I asked.

I turned on my flashlight and directed it straight down at the narrow muddy path of broken glass, rotting paper, and discarded shoes that glinted and glowed a washed-out white amid brambles and winter trees.

"The neighbors have been trying to turn this into a landfill," he said.