Rudy was silent, then said, "They use Hewlett-Packards at that hotel?"

"Easy enough to find out by calling the business office. Yes," she replied.

"Okay. Good job on that one. So even if the drunk or anyone else paid any attention to you, the way we've staged Rocco's crime scene will make it appear he was dead long before you went off to party with the drunk."

"That's right, Rudy. We're fine. We're fine. Rocco's already being infested. Masses of maggots will produce heat and speed up decomposition, and it looks like a suicide, anyway-one committed earlier-much earlier-than anyone will imagine."

She starts the car, laying a hand on his arm. "Now, can we get the hell out of here?"

"We can't make any more mistakes, Lucy," he says in a defeated way. "We just can't."

She pulls away from the sidewalk, angry.

"The fact is, at least two people in that hotel think you might be a drunk conventiongoer or maybe even a prostitute, and you aren't easy to forget, no matter what they think you are. It probably doesn't matter one goddamn bit, but…" He doesn't finish.

"But it could have." Lucy drives carefully, checking her mirrors and the sidewalks, dark with shadows.

"Right. It could have."

She feels his eyes and the shifting of his moods. He is softening toward her, sorry he was so rough.

"Hey, you-Rudy-you." She reaches out and affectionately touches his cheek, his stubble reminding her of a cat's tongue. "We're on the go and we're okay."

She reaches for his hand and holds it tightly.

"This went down bad, Rudy, really bad, but it's going to turn out fine. We're fine," she says again.

When one or the other or both of them are scared, they never admit it, but they know because they need each other. Each becomes desperate for the other's warm flesh. Lucy lifts his hand to her mouth, resting his arm against her.

"Don't," he says. "We're both tired, strung-out. Not a good time to… to not have both hands on the wheel. Lucy, don't," he mutters as she deeply kisses his fingers, his knuckles, his palm.

She makes love to one hand and slides the other inside her black linen blouse.

"Lucy, stop… oh, Jesus… it's not fair." He unfastens his seat belt. "I don't want to feel this way about you, goddamn it."

Lucy drives.

"You do feel it for me. At least sometimes, don't you?"

Lucy pets his hair, his neck, slips her hand into his collar and traces the muscles of his upper back. She doesn't look at him as she drives fast.

47

SEVERAL TIMES, NIC SENT MEMOS ro the Baton Rouge Task Force, reminding the men and women-mostly men-that a Wal-Mart or other huge store like it would be a very good place for a killer to stalk his victims.

No one would pay any attention to a vehicle in the parking lot, no matter the hour, and based on charge-card receipts, every one of the missing women shopped at Wal-Mart, if not the one closest to the Louisiana State University campus, then at others in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Ivy Ford did. The Saturday before she disappeared, she drove from Zachary and shopped at this very Wal-Mart, the one near LSU.

The task force never responded directly to Nic, but someone associated with it must have called her chief because he found her in the break-room before she took off to Knoxville and said, out of nowhere, "Most everybody in the world shops at Wai-Marts, Sam's Clubs, Kmarts, Costcos and so on, Nic."

"Yes, sir," she replied. "Most everybody does."

Baton Rouge isn't her jurisdiction, and the only way she might change that fact would be for the attorney general to say the hell with boundaries. She has no good reason to request this, and he would have no good reason to grant it. Nic has never been the sort to ask permission unless the subject rises before her like a drawbridge, giving her no choice but to put on the brakes or turn around. These days, she works undercover wherever her instincts take her, which frequently is the Wal-Mart near LSU, close to where her father lives in the Old Garden District. It isn't difficult to intuit which area of the store a killer might frequent if he is looking for prey. Women's lingerie would excite him, especially if a potential victim was holding up bras and panties, checking out styles and sizes, as that fleshy woman with short graying hair was doing moments earlier before leaving the store with stolen merchandise tucked up the sleeve of her raincoat. The petty thievery will go unreported because Nic has a much bigger agenda. She leaves her shopping cart in the aisle and walks out of the store, aware of every man she spots, aware of his awareness and activity, and acutely conscious of the pistol in her fanny pack.

Outside, the parking lot is fairly well lit by tall lamps. What few cars there are-less than a hundred-are parked close together, as if to keep one another company. She spots the heavyset petty thief walking swiftly toward a dark blue Chevrolet with Louisiana tags. Nic memorizes the plate number as she heads in the woman's general direction without appearing to notice her. In fact, Nic doesn't notice anyone in the area who might be a potential serial killer. If the woman is being stalked, and of course that was a long shot to begin with, there is no hint of it.

Once again, Nic is prodded by guilt because she is disappointed. The idea that she could possibly feel regret that a woman is not about to become another victim is so abhorrent that Nic will not acknowledge her sinful hopes to anyone and scarcely to herself. She represses that truth so completely that she would probably pass a polygraph test if the examiner asked her, "Do you feel disappointed when you tail a potential victim and the killer doesn't try to abduct her or succeed in abducting her?" Nic wouldn't get tense or hesitate. Her pulse rate would stay the same as she replied, "No." The shorter the answer, the less chance of her nervous system betraying her.

She does not walk anywhere near her own car, a five-year-old forest green Ford Explorer that is clandestinely equipped with a portable dash-mounted flashing beacon, a shotgun, a first-aid kit, jumper cables, flares, a fire extinguisher, a jump-out bag containing Battle Dress Uniforms, boots, extra magazines and other tactical gear, a handheld scanner tucked under the dash and a charger for her international cell phone, which also works as a two-way radio. A lot of her equipment she bought with her own money. In life, she is always overprepared for the worst.

The woman digs inside a dirty canvas beach bag, maybe ten feet from the Chevrolet. Certainly she doesn't fit the victimology, not in the least. But Nic doesn't trust so-called patterns or MOs. She remembers Scarpetta emphasizing that profiles are dangerous, because they're fraught with errors. Not everybody does everything the same way every time, and, if nothing else, the woman is a loner in a dark, relatively deserted parking lot at the edge of a major university campus, and that makes her vulnerable to predators.

The woman fumbles with keys and drops them. Stooping to pick them up, she loses her balance and falls, suddenly crying out and clutching her left knee.

She casts about helplessly, spots Nic and begs, "Help me!"

Nic sprints and squats by the woman.

"Don't move," she tells her. "What hurts?"

She smells insect repellent and body odor. It vaguely brushes against her thoughts that the car keys on the pavement don't look as if they belong to a relatively new Chevrolet.

"I think I pulled something in my knee," the woman says, her eyes fixed on Nic's. "It's my bad knee."

Her accent is Southern with a distinct lilt. She is not native to the area, and her hands are rough and raw as if she is accustomed to hard, physical work such as cleaning or shucking shellfish. Nic notices no jewelry, not even a watch. The woman pulls up her pant leg and looks at an angry purple bruise centered on her kneecap. The bruise isn't fresh. Instinctively, Nic is repulsed by the woman's unpleasant odor, her bad breath and something about her demeanor that she can't pinpoint but finds disturbing. She gets to her feet and steps back.