BLACK NOTICE. PATRICIA CORNWELL

I put the car in gear and drove up to the entrance of the hotel.

“Dorothy,” I said, “you’re the most selfish person I’ve ever known.”

30

It was almost nine o’clock by the time I got home, and I worried that I should have brought Dorothy with me instead of leaving her at the hotel. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she had gone right back across the street to the bar. Maybe there were a few lonely men left she could amuse.

I checked my telephone messages, annoyed by hangups. There were seven of them, and caller-m read unavailable each time. Reporters didn’t like to leave messages, even at my office, because it gave me the option of not calling them back. I heard a car door shut in the driveway and almost wondered if it were Dorothy, but when I checked, a yellow taxi was driving away as Lucy rang the bell.

She was carrying one small suitcase and a tote bag and dropped them in the foyer, shoving the door shut without hugging me. Her left cheek was one dark purple bruise, and several smaller ones were beginning to turn yellow at the edges. I had seen enough injuries like that to know she had been punched.

“I hate her,” she started in, glaring at me as if I were to blame. “Who told her to come here? Was it you?”

“You know I would never do something like that:’ I said.

“Come on. Let’s talk. We have so much talking to do. My God, I was beginning to think I was never going to see you again.”

I sat her in front of the fire and tossed in another log. Lucy looked awful. She had dark circles under her eyes, her jeans and sweater were hanging off her, her reddishbrown hair was falling over her face. She propped a foot up on my coffee table. Velcro ripped as she took off her ankle holster and gun.

“You got anything to drink in this house?” she asked. “Some bourbon or something? There was no damn heat in the back of the taxi and the window wouldn’t close. I’m frozen. Look at my hands.”

She held them out. The nails were blue. I took both of them in mine and held them tight. I moved closer to her on the couch and put my arms around her again. She felt so thin.

“What happened to all that muscle?” I tried to be funny.

“I haven’t had much food . . :” She stared into the fire.

“They don’t have food in Miami?”

She wouldn’t smile.

“Why did Mother have to come? Why can’t she just leave me alone? All my life she doesn’t do a goddamn fucking thing except subject me to all her men, men, men,” she said. “Parade herself around with all these dicks fawning over her while I had nobody. Hell, they had nobody, either, and didn’t even know it.”

“You’ve always had me.”

She shoved her hair out of her eyes and didn’t seem to hear me.

“You know what she did at the hospital?”

“How did she know where to find you?” I had to have that question answered first, and Lucy knew why I asked it.

“Because she’s my birth mother,” she said with singsong sarcasm. “So she’s listed on various forms whether I like it or not, and of course she knows who Jo is. So Mom tracks down Jo’s parents here in Richmond and finds out everything because she’s so manipulative and people always think she’s wonderful. The Sanderses tell her where Jo’s room’is and Mother shows up at the hospital this morning and I didn’t even know she was here until I was sitting there in the waiting area and she walked in like the prima donna she is.”

She clenched and unclenched her fists as if her fingers were stiff.

“Then guess what?” she went on. “Mom puts on this big sympathetic act with the Sanderses. Is bringing them coffee, sandwiches, giving them all her little pearls of philosophy. And they’re talking and talking, and I’m just sitting there like I don’t exist, and then Mom comes over and pats my hand and says, Jo isn’t having any visitors today.

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