But he was asking that, and I answered him.
I touched his cheek and he touched mine, then we kissed the places our fingers had been until we found each other's lips. And we said nothing more. We stopped thinking entirely until the windshield suddenly lit up and the night beyond was throbbing red. We frantically rearranged ourselves as a patrol car pulled up and a deputy climbed out, flashlight and portable radio in hand.
Mark was already opening his door.
"Everything all right?" the deputy asked, bending over to peer inside. His eyes wandered disconcertingly over the scene of our passion, his face stern, an unseemly bulge in his right cheek.
"Everything's fine," I said, horrified as I not so subtly probed the floor with my stocking foot. Somehow I had lost a shoe.
He stepped back and spat out a stream of tobacco juice.
"We were having a conversation," Mark offered, and he had the presence of mind not to display his badge. The deputy knew damn well we had been doing a lot of things when he pulled up. Conversing was not one of them.
"Well, now, if y'all intend to continue your conversation," he said, "I'd 'preciate it if you'd go someplace else. You know, it ain't safe to be sitting out here late at night in a car, been some problems. And if you're not from around here, maybe you hadn't heard about the couples disappearing. " He went on with his lecture, my blood running cold.
"You're right, and thank you," Mark finally said. "We're leaving now."
Nodding, the deputy spat again, and we watched him climb into his car. He pulled out onto the road and slowly drove away.
"Jesus," Mark muttered under his breath.
"Don't say it," I replied. "Let's not even get into how stupid we are. Lord."
"Do you see how damn easy it is?"
He said it anyway. "Two people out at night and someone pulls up. Hell, my damn gun's in the glove compartment. I never even thought about it until he was right in my face, and then it would have been too late - " "Stop it, Mark. Please."
He startled me by laughing.
"It's not funny!"
"Your blouse is buttoned crooked," he gasped.
Shit! "You better hope like hell he didn't recognize you, Chief Scarpetta."
"Thank you for the reassuring thought, Mr. FBI. And now I'm going home."
I opened the door. "You've gotten me into enough trouble for one night."
"Hey. You started it."
"I most certainly did not."
"Kay?" He got serious. "What do we do now? I mean, I'm going back to Denver tomorrow. I don't know what's going to happen, what I can make happen or if I should try to make anything happen."
There were no easy answers. There never had been with us.
"If you don't try to make anything happen, nothing will."
"What about you?" he asked.
"There's a lot of talking we need to do, Mark."
He turned on the headlights and fastened his seat belt. "What about you?" he asked again. "It takes two to try."
"Funny you should say that."
"Kay, don't. Please don't start in."
"I need to think."
I got out my keys. I was suddenly exhausted.
"Don't jerk me around."
"I'm not jerking you around, Mark," I said, touching his cheek.
We kissed one last time. I wanted the kiss to go on for hours, and yet I wanted to get away. Our passion had always been reckless. We had always lived for moments that never seemed to add up to any sort of future.
"I'll call you," he said.
I opened my car door.
"Listen to Benton," he added. "You can trust him. What you're involved in is very bad stuff."
I started the engine.
"I wish you'd stay out of it."
"You always wish that," I said.
Mark did call late the following night and again two nights after that. When he called a third time, on February tenth, what he said sent me out in search of the most recent issue of Newsweek.
Pat Harvey's lusterless eyes stared out at America from the magazine's cover. A headline in bold, black letters read THE MURDER OF THE DRUG CZAR'S DAUGHTER, the "exclusive" inside a rehashing of her press conference, her charges of conspiracy, and the cases of the other teenagers who had vanished and been found decomposed in Virginia woods. Though I had declined to be interviewed for the story, the magazine had found a file photograph of me climbing the steps of Richmond's John Marshall Court House.
The caption read, "Chief Medical Examiner releases findings under threat of court order."
"It just goes with the turf. I'm fine," I reassured Mark when I called him back.
Even when my mother rang me up later that same night, I remained calm until she said, "There's someone here who's dying to talk to you, Kay " My niece, Lucy, had always had a special talent for doing me in.
"How come you got in trouble?" she asked.
"I didn't get in trouble."
"The story says you did, that someone threatened you."
"It's too complicated to explain, Lucy."
"It's really awesome," she said, unfazed. "I'm going to take the magazine to school tomorrow and show it to everybody."
Great, I thought.
"Mrs. Barrows," she went on, referring to her homeroom teacher, "has already asked if you can come for career day in April… " I had not seen Lucy in a year. It did not seem possible she was already a sophomore in high school, and though I knew she had contact lenses and a driver's license, I still envisioned her as a pudgy, needy child wanting to be tucked into bed, an enfant terrible who, for some strange reason, had bonded to me before she could crawl. I would never forget flying to Miami the Christmas after she was born and staying with my sister for a week. Lucy's every conscious minute, it seemed, was spent watching me, eyes following my every move like two luminous moons. She would smile when I changed her diapers and howl the instant I walked out of the room.
"Would you like to spend a week with me this summer?"
I asked.
Lucy hesitated, then said disappointedly, "I guess that means you can't come for career day."
"We'll see, all right?"
"I don't know if I can come this summer."
Her tone had turned petulant. "I've got a job and might not be able to get away."
"It's wonderful you have a job."
"Yeah. In a computer store. I'm going to save enough to get a car. I want a sports car, a convertible, and you can find some of the old ones pretty cheap."
"Those are death traps," I said before I could stop myself. "Please don't get something like that, Lucy. Why don't you come see me in Richmond? We'll go around and shop for cars, something nice and safe."
She had dug a hole, and as usual, I had fallen in it. She was an expert at manipulation, and it didn't require a psychiatrist to figure out why. Lucy was the victim of chronic neglect by her mother, my sister.
"You are a bright young lady with a mind of your own," I said, changing tactics. "I know you'll make a good decision about what to do with your time and money, Lucy. But if you can fit me in this summer, maybe we can go somewhere. The beach or mountains, wherever you'd like. You've never been to England, have you?"
"No. "
"Well, then, that's a thought."
"Really?" she asked suspiciously.
"Really. I haven't been in years," I said, warming up to the idea. "I think it's time for you to see Oxford and Cambridge, the museums in London. I'll arrange a tour of Scotland Yard, if you'd like, and if we could manage to get away as early as June, we might be able to get tickets for Wimbledon."
Silence.
Then she said cheerfully, "I was just teasing. I don't really want a sports car, Aunt Kay."