"At first. Then I knew you wouldn't be happy."

He says nothing, his face hard as he drives, careful not to speed or commit any other traffic infraction that could get him pulled over.

"She didn't look like her. She had black hair. I don't know if she went to college."

Bev had been unable to resist the impulse. She had time on her hands, time enough to find that pretty lady she had fixed on at the Wal-Mart. Following her all night, she had learned that the lamb didn't live in the house in the Garden District but had a small place in Zachary. Her neighborhood was dark, and Bev started getting nervous that her lamb might get suspicious. Bev had turned off on a side street before getting a good fix on the address.

This morning, she cruised, looking for the green Ford Explorer, figuring just because it wasn't parked in the driveway didn't mean it wasn't in the garage. Obviously, she picked the wrong house. Once she was inside, she was committed.

What she never anticipated was that this particular lamb was going to fight like a wolf. The instant the black-haired woman answered the door, Bev reached inside her canvas bag and pulled out the gun and was shoved so hard it flew out of her hand. Bev rolled on the floor and slipped a buck tool out of the sheath on her belt. She managed to open what she thought was a blade, and the chase began. It seemed to go on and on for miles, with the woman running and yelling, and falling against a wall, which gave Bev the opportunity to grab her by her hair and slam her head against plaster, then kick her when she slid to the floor.

Damn if she didn't get back up and punch Bev in the shoulder, hard. It seems Bev was yelling, too, but she can't remember. There was a roaring in her head, like a freight train, and she stabbed and chased, blood flying in her face, on and on forever. It couldn't have lasted more than a minute or two. Bev pinned the woman to the bedroom floor and stabbed and stabbed, and now she isn't sure if any of it really happened.

Until she keeps hearing it on the radio. Until she remembers the buck knifes bloody bottle opener. She stabbed the woman with a bottle opener. How could that have happened?

She looks at Jay, passing by pawnshops and car dealers, and aTaco Bell that makes her want to stop.

Nachos with sour cream, cheese, chili and jalapeсos.

Pizza places, auto shops and car dealers, and then the road narrows and is lined with mailboxes as they move along back to Jack's, then the bayou.

"Maybe we could stop and get us some peanut brittle," Bev says.

Jay won't speak to her.

"Well, have it your way. You and your fucking Baton Rouge. Going back there because of your mangy brother. Well, wait 'til dark when its easier."

"Shut up."

"What if he's not there?"

A stony silence.

"Well, if he is, he's probably in that damn creepy cellar, hiding, maybe getting the money stashed down there. We could use some more money, baby. All that beer I've been buying…"

"I told you to shut up!"

The colder he gets, the prouder she is of the red bruises and deep scratches on her arms, legs, chest and other parts of her body where she must have been injured during what she refers to as a tussle.

"They'll swab under her fingernails." Jay finally speaks to her. "They'll get your DNA."

"They don't have my DNA in any of their fancy databases," Bev replies. "No one ever took my DNA before you and me got the hell out of Dodge. I was just a nice lady running a campsite near Williamsburg, remember that?"

"Nice my ass."

Bev smiles. Her injuries are badges of courage and power. She didn't know she had it in her to fight like that. Why, one of these days, she might just go after Jay. Her bravado deflates. She could never overcome Jay. He could kill her with one punch to her temple. He's told her that. One punch and he'd fracture her skull, because women don't have very thick skulls. "Even stupid ones" like Bev, he says.

"What did you do to her? You know what I mean," he says. "You're blood-soaked down the front of your clothes. You get on top of her like a man?"

"No." It's none of his business.

"Then how did your clothes get bloody from the neck to your crotch, huh? You climb on top of some girl who's bleeding to death and jerk off?"

"It doesn't matter. They don't think it's related to the other ones," Bev says.

"What word did she say?"

"What do you mean, what word?" Bev's beginning to think he's getting loony.

"When she was begging. She must have begged for you to stop. What word did she say to describe it?"

"Describe what?"

"What it felt like to be so fucking afraid of pain and death! What word did she say!"

"I don't know." Bev tries hard to remember. "It seems like she said, Why?"

117

THE ROOM WAS COOL, and there were no odors.

Nic has read that line at least five times. Her mother might have been murdered just minutes before her husband-Nic's father-got home. Nic wonders if the killer heard her fathers car and fled, or if it was just fate that the son of a bitch left when he did.

It is ten p.m. Nic, Rudy, Scarpetta, Marino and Lucy sit inside Dr. Lanier s guest house, drinking Community Coffee, the local favorite.

"Multiple abrasions and lacerations to the face," Scarpetta reviews the autopsy report.

She said right off that she did not intend to gloss over any detail in order to spare Nic's feelings. She would not be helping Nic if she did that.

"Abrasion and laceration of the forehead, periocular ecchymoses, fracture of the nasal bones, frontal teeth are loosened."

"So he beat her face up pretty good," Marino says, sipping his coffee, which is just the way he likes it, white with Cremora and heavily laced with sugar. "Any possibility this was someone she knew?" he asks Nic.

"She opened the door for him. She was found right near the door."

"Was she careful about keeping the doors locked?" Lucy looks at her intensely, leaning into the conversation.

Nic stares back at her. "Yes and no. At night, we locked up. But she knew Papa and I would be coming home soon, so she may not have had the door locked."

"That doesn't mean the person didn't ring the bell or knock," Rudy points out. "It doesn't mean your mom was afraid of whoever it was."

"No, it doesn't mean that," Nic says.

"Blunt-force trauma to the back of the head. Stellate laceration of vertex, three by four inches. Massive hematoma of vertex and back of the head. Fifty milliliters of liquid subscalpular blood…"

Marino and Lucy trade scene photographs back and forth. So far, Nic has not looked at them.

"Blood on the wall just left of the door," Marino observes. "Hair swipes. How long was your mother's hair?"

Nic swallows hard. "Shoulder length. She had blond hair, pretty much like mine."

"Something happened the minute he walked in. Blitz attack," Lucy says. "Not so different from what happened to Rebecca Milton. Not so different from what happens in any blitz attack, when a victim really enrages the perp."

"Would injuries like this be consistent with her head being slammed against the wall?" Rudy asks.

Nic is stoical. She reminds herself she is a cop.

Scarpetta meets Nic's eyes. "I know this is hard, Nic. We're trying to be honest. Maybe you won't have so many questions if we're honest."

"I'll always have questions, because we're never going to know who did this."

"Never say never," Marino replies.

"Right." Lucy nods.

"Comminuted non-depressed fracture of the biparietal and occipital bones, fractures of the orbital roofs, bilateral subdural hematomas, thirty mls free blood over each… okay, okay, okay…" Scarpetta turns a page. It is typed, not computer-printed. "She has stab wounds," she adds.