“I wouldn’t believe anything you said, Mark,” I answered coldly.
“Fair enough. I’m paid to live a lie. I’ve gotten unbelievably good at it.”
“Yes,” I echoed, “you’ve gotten unbelievably good at it. How did you find me? I don’t believe Benton told you. He doesn’t know where I’m staying, and there must be fifty hotels on this island and just as many guesthouses.”
“You’re right. I’m sure there are, and it took me exactly one phone call to find you,” he said.
Defeated, I sat down on the bed.
Reaching inside his suit jacket, he pulled out a folded brochure and handed it to me. “Look familiar?”
It was the same visitor’s information guide Marino had found inside Beryl Madison’s bedroom, a photocopy of which was included in her case file. It was the same guide I had studied countless times and then recalled two nights before when I had decided to flee to Key West. One side of it listed restaurants and places to sightsee and shop, the other was a street map bordered by advertisements, including one for this hotel, which was where I had gotten the idea to stay here.
“Benton finally got hold of me yesterday after repeated attempts,” he went on. “He was pretty upset, said you’d taken off, headed here, and then we went about the business of trying to track you down. Apparently there’s a photocopy of Beryl’s brochure in the file he has. He assumed you would have seen it, too, and possibly even made a copy for your own record. We decided it might occur to you to use it as a guide.”
“Where did you get this?” I returned the brochure to him.
“At the airport. It just so happens this hotel is the only one listed. It was the first place I called. They had a reservation in your name.”
“All right. So I wouldn’t make a very good fugitive.”
“A damn poor one.”
“It is where I got the idea, if you must know,” I admitted angrily. “I’ve been through Beryl’s paperwork so many times, I remembered the brochure, remembered seeing the ad for a Holiday Inn on Duval. I suppose it stood out to me because I wondered if she might have stayed here when she first arrived in Key West.”
“Had she?” He lifted his glass.
“No.”
As he got up to refresh our drinks, there was a knock on the door and my heart jumped as Mark casually reached around and withdrew a 9-millimeter pistol from under the back of his suit jacket. Holding it up, he looked through the peephole and returned the gun to the back of his trousers as he opened the door. Our dinner had arrived, and when Mark paid the young woman in cash, she smiled brightly and said, “Thank you, Mr. Scarpetta. I hope you enjoy your steaks.”
“Why did you check in as my husband?” I demanded.
“I’ll sleep on the floor. But you’re not staying alone,” he answered, setting covered dishes on the table near the window and uncorking the bottle of wine. Slipping out of his suit jacket and tossing it on the bed, he set the pistol on top of the dresser not far from my knapsack and within easy reach.
I waited until he had sat down to eat before asking him about the gun.
“An ugly little monster, but maybe my only friend,” he replied, cutting into his steak. “And for that matter, I presume you have your thirty-eight with you, probably in your knapsack.”
He glanced at the knapsack on the dresser.
“It’s in my pocketbook, for your information,” I blurted out ridiculously. “And how in God’s name did you know I have a thirty-eight?”
“Benton told me. He also said you’d recently gotten a license to carry it concealed, and he figured you weren’t going many places without your piece these days.”
He sipped his wine, adding, “Not bad.”
“Has Benton told you my dress size, too?” I asked, forcing myself to eat as my stomach begged me not to. “Now, that he doesn’t need to tell me. You still wear an eight, look just as good as you did when we were in Georgetown. Better, in fact.”