Black Notice by Patricia Cornwell

Author:Patricia Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Women Detectives - Virginia, Mystery & Detective, Medical Examiners (Law) - Virginia, Medical, Kay (Fictitious Character), Virginia, Political, Fiction, Medical Novels, France, Mystery Fiction, Scarpetta, Stowaways, Thrillers, Legal Stories, General, Medical Examiners (Law), Women Sleuths
ISBN: 9780552545105
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1998-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

25

Marino decided to stay with Eggleston and Ham, also known as the Breakfast Boys, while they connected the dots with string at a scene where it wasn't necessary. I went home. Trees and grass were glazed with ice, and I thought all I needed now was a power outage, which was exactly what I got.

When I turned into my neighborhood, every house was dark, and Rita, working security, looked as if she were holding a seance in the guardhouse.

"Don't tell me," I said to her.

Candle flames wavered behind glass as she stepped out, pulling her uniform jacket tightly around her.

"Been out since about nine-thirty," she told me, shaking her head. `That's all we ever get in this city is ice."

My neighborhood was in a blackout as if a war were going on, and the sky was too overcast to see even a smudge of the moon. I could barely find my driveway and almost fell going up my front stone steps because of the ice. I clung to the railing and somehow managed to find the right key to unlock the door. My burglar alarm was still armed because it was on a backup battery, but that wouldn't last longer than twelve hours, and outages due to ice had been known to go on for days.

I punched in my code, then reset the alarm. I needed a shower. There was no way in hell I' was going out to my garage to toss my scene clothes in the wash, and the thought of running naked through my pitch-dark house and jumping into a dark shower filled me with horror. Silence was absolute except for the quiet smacking of sleet.

I found every candle I could and began strategically placing them around the house. I located flashlights. I built afire, and the inside of my house was pockets of darkness with shadows pushed back by several small logs with thin fingers of flame. At least the phone was still working, but of course the answering machine was dead.

It was impossible for me to sit still. In my bedroom I finally stripped and. washed myself with a cloth. I put on a robe and slippers as I tried to think what I could d to occupy my tune, because I was not one to allow empty space in my mind. I fantasized there was a message from Lucy but I couldn't access it right now. I wrote letters and end up crumpling them and tossing them into the fire. I watched the paper brown around the edges, ignite and turn black. Sleet smacked, and it began to get colder inside.

The temperature in my house slowly dropped, hours slipping deeper into the still morning. I tried to sleep and couldn't get warm. My mind wouldn't get still. My thoughts bounced from Lucy to Benton —to the awful scene where I'd just been. I saw a hemorrhaging woman dragged across the floor, and small owl eyes staring out of rotting flesh. I shifted positions continually. Lucy did not call.

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