Page 41 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

Footsteps sound as Marino and Clark Givens carry the stretcher and body bags into the bedroom. Benton and I are coming down the stairs, the hard cases of laser mapping equipment crowding the hallway.

“Thanks, Clark,” I tell the DNA scientist. “I’m so sorry about the inconvenience. Please apologize to your family. I hate to drag you out on Christmas morning.”

“Nobody wanted to be here.” Shrouded in white Tyvek, he stares through the bedroom doorway. “Most of all her.”

I can tell the fumes from the bleach bother him. He has his face shield down and is fogging up the clear plastic, his eyes irritated. I give him the highlights of what we’ve been finding, and he nods, asking questions as we rough out a plan for the laser mapping.

I remove evidence from my scene case, receipting the swabs to Clark so he can carry them to the labs when he returns to my headquarters. Benton and I take off our PPE, and it goes into the red biohazard bag that by now is almost full.

We walk back through the house, stepping around blood and evidence markers.

“Lucy and Tron will be here any minute,” Benton says. “They report that the media is out in droves. All the major networks.”

“It would seem that Zain and his robot are very close,” I observe.

“I could tell that when I’ve been around them. Zain treats him like a pet.”

“And I thought talking to an avatar was mind-scrambling enough,” I reply.

“Until it started feeling normal. Now, a robot dog that I had a bizarre impulse to pet. I’m beginning to question the meaning of consciousness.

And when we feel love for AI, does it feel love back? Or is it just the programming?”

“We’re all programmed, Kay.”

Light streams through the front door’s borehole as we reach the foyer, putting on our coats, collecting our belongings.

It’s getting close to ten o’clock when we step out on the porch to the sound of dripping water.

The sun is bright, the temperature fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit on the brass outdoor thermometer attached to a portico column.

The FBI crime scene unit has reconvened on the driveway, getting ready to invade the house at long last. Fabian is inside our black transport van. He rolls down his window, wishing us a happy holiday.

“I caught Pinky!” he calls out proudly, happily. “Boursin on a Ritz did the trick. I have a little mouse house for him in the on-call room. He’s safe and sound.”

“I’m glad something is,” I answer as Lucy and Tron pull up in a black Tahoe.

They climb out in tactical clothes and flak jackets.

“Did someone call for the dog catcher?” Lucy says drolly, her eyes masked by dark glasses.

She’s lean and fit, her keen face serious, her short rose-gold-streaked hair shining. If she stayed up all night at the FBI Academy, I can’t tell. She looks wide awake, energized.

“Robbie’s battery is dead,” Benton lets them know.

“Sounds about the way I feel,” Tron answers, dark and exotically attractive with a smile that’s hard to resist.

“But before he conked out on us, he said he went into autonomous mode when the Wi-Fi was signal jammed,” I tell them.

I explain there appears to be blood on the bottom of the robot’s feet, and it could be Zain Willard’s. But it might be Georgine Duvall’s. After the attack Robbie must have come downstairs.

“In autonomous mode he would be disconnected from the internet and completely reliant on his sensors,” Lucy informs us. “He would respond to noises and images, also motion, light, possibly odors.”

“Odors such as bleach?” I ask.

“Maybe even blood,” Tron volunteers. “Depending on what he’s programmed to detect and respond to.”

“Screaming, arguing, running, the sound of Zain’s voice, it could be anything he alerted on,” Lucy adds. “But I can’t say for sure until we take a look at how he’s designed and what the parameters are.”

“We’ll be extremely interested in anything the cameras may have recorded,” Benton says. “If Robbie went downstairs while the killer was still inside the house, we might have just won the lottery.”

“I would imagine he has I.R. capabilities,” Lucy adds. “Meaning he can navigate and film in complete darkness.”

“If only we could be so lucky.” I open my briefcase, pulling out the foil-wrapped device Benton removed from the undercarriage of our car.

I give it to Lucy as we tell them we’re off to the hospital on Seminary Road.

Benton intends to question Zain Willard while I look at his injuries.

Lucy stares at the former chapel, sunlight shining on the stucco, illuminating the stained-glass windows on either side of the door that’s now missing its brass handles and lock.

The soggy yard has small ponds of standing water, the brown grass patched with snow in the shade of old trees and boxwoods. I wonder what she’s thinking about Georgine Duvall, but now’s not the time to ask her.

“How’s your mom?” I ask instead.

“Last I talked to her, she was getting ready to head to our place.”

“Our place?” Then I remember.

My sister and Marino were supposed to housesit while Benton and I were overseas.

“Yep,” Lucy says.

“But Benton and I canceled our trip.” I’m dismayed by the thought of Dorothy and Marino under the same roof with us while they’re at war.

“Mom knows you’re not going,” Lucy says. “She has an idea what we’re doing, obviously. This case is all over the news. She’s hoping we’ll be home in time to have a late Christmas dinner together. She said to tell you she’s cooking.”

“Cooking what?” I worry.

Dorothy isn’t known for her culinary talents.

“She said it would be a surprise.” Lucy looks at me, shrugging. “But I know she’s baking cookies, and I’m guessing she’ll whip up tacos. That’s usually what she makes when she’s surprising us.”

“Oh God. Tacos on Christmas,” I reply.

Benton and I climb into the Tesla, and the road running through the hospital grounds is wet. The traffic has gone from a standstill to nonexistent when we drive through the entrance gate, the same FBI police officers there as before. They move sawhorses to let us through.

TV satellite trucks are parked on the roadside, news correspondents and their crews busy filming.

I recognize David Muir and Anderson Cooper.

Helicopters hover over Mercy Island, a lot of people on the roads now.

It takes the better part of a half hour to retrace our steps through Old Town, the restaurants and bars bustling.

We pick up King Street to West Braddock, driving close to my office, and I send a text to Shannon asking for an update.

Doug Schlaefer is up to his elbows in Georgine Duvall’s autopsy.

Once he’s dictated his provisional report, my secretary will transcribe it.

She complains that TV crews are hanging around my headquarters, filming bodies being picked up and delivered.

“More of the same,” I tell Benton the latest. “Apparently one of the local networks is buzzing a drone around.”

Past Episcopal High School’s tennis courts and playing fields are the Virginia Theological Seminary and a synagogue. Then wooded neighborhoods with homes decorated for the holidays as we reach the sprawling modern brick hospital. It’s doing a brisk business on Christmas, and I’m not surprised.

Some of their patients who didn’t fare well have ended up at my office this morning. According to Shannon, we have six cases so far, half of them motor vehicle fatalities involving alcohol. A woman who shot herself in the head died in surgery here and is inside my morgue cooler.

The hospital grounds are messy with slush, the parking lots packed.

It takes a few minutes to find a visitor’s spot, and Benton texts Secret Service agents inside that we’re on location.

We push through the glass front door, the lobby crowded with unhappy people waiting in plastic chairs, some of them injured, others clearly unwell.

Piped-in Christmas music seems incongruous as we walk through. Benton stops at the information desk, the woman working it older with wispy white hair. She’s wearing a green Christmas sweater with Mrs. Claus on it.

“Here to see Zain Willard.” Benton flashes his badge.

“Let me check.” Her face is uneasy as she reaches for the phone.

“You don’t need to check,” he says. “I know what room he’s in.”

“But I’ve been instructed…” she starts to fret.

“Several of our agents should already be there waiting for us,” Benton explains. “And I have the chief medical examiner with me.”

“Has someone died?” She looks at me in alarm.

“If you could just tell us how to get to his room?” Benton keeps pushing.

She tells us that Zain Willard is on the second floor. He’s on the orthopedic wing because there were no other private rooms available. As we walk off, she’s talking on the phone, alerting someone that we’re coming.

“We’re going to need privacy,” I tell Benton. “I don’t want to examine him in front of an audience.”

We’ve stopped by a stainless-steel elevator door, waiting for it to open.

“I don’t want doctors, residents, nurses or whatever watching as I scan him with a UV light,” I continue to explain.

The elevator door slowly opens, a medical aide pushing out a man in a wheelchair, both legs in casts. His face is bruised and he’s wearing a neck brace. We step inside and a moment later are getting out on the second floor.

The ward where Zain Willard has a private room is locked. A Secret Service agent is standing guard, a young blond woman in a dark suit.

“How’s it going?” Benton asks her.

“Nothing eventful,” she answers.

“Has he had visitors?”

“Calvin Willard’s in there with him,” she says to my dismay.

“How long has the senator been here?” Benton asks.

“Several hours.” She pushes an intercom button on the wall.

“May I help you?” The female voice over the speaker sounds familiar.

“You can open up,” the blond agent answers, and the electronic lock clicks free.

Benton pushes through the door, and ahead is the nurses’ station behind windows. The U-shaped desk is decorated with swags of artificial greenery, a small lighted tree in a corner. I’m startled to hear someone call out my name.

“Don’t mean to intrude.” Reba O’Leary appears from behind glass, and it was her voice I heard over the intercom.

She’s in pink scrubs, and I’m reminded that she’s working four a.m. to four p.m. today. I introduce her to Benton, asking why she’s on this floor.

“They’re shorthanded, a lot of car crashes during the night, a lot of broken bones,” she says, her eyes bloodshot and lusterless. “I go where needed. But I started out my shift in the E.R.”

“Did you see Zain Willard when he was brought in?” I ask.

“I’d just gotten here, and he was almost hysterical. Practically out of his mind.” She looks unnerved. “He kept talking about a ghost attacking him with a knife.”

“It wasn’t a ghost,” Benton says.

“The Phantom Slasher again. I know what’s all over the news.” She keeps glancing around as if afraid someone is listening. “I can tell you Zain Willard wasn’t faking anything. He was terrified. He kept worrying that the ghost was going to find him and finish him off.”

“Did he offer details about what happened to him?” I ask her.

“He said one thing that you should know.” She looks nervous, and I can tell she’s mindful of the cameras in the ceiling. “When I heard you were coming up here, I wanted to be sure I told you.”

“How did you hear we were coming up here?” Benton asks.

“One of the Secret Service agents was telling the senator that the medical examiner was on the way,” she says. “I happened to be taking Zain’s vitals. And I was waiting for you.”

“What is it I should know?” I ask her.

“He said that when his neck was cut, he had to dig his necklace out of it.”

“If true, that’s very important,” I reply.

“I guess the blade hit the chain, embedding it into the incision,” Reba explains. “Maybe accounting for why the cuts to his neck aren’t all that deep.”

“The necklace probably saved his life,” I reply. “When it’s examined in the labs, we’ll know if that’s what happened.”

“It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing someone would make up,” Benton adds. “And even if the cuts to his neck were self-inflicted, he might have forgotten he had the necklace on."

“I can see that happening,” I reply. “Either way, he’s lucky to be alive.”

“Thanks again for coming to my house last night.” Reba looks at me. “It was very kind.”

“How are your sons this morning?” I ask.

“My sister’s with them.” Reba’s face turns red as she blinks back tears. “Well, I don’t want to hold the two of you up. And I’d better get back to what I’m doing.”