PATRICIA CORNWELL. Unnatural Exposure

I took a nap and woke up a little past four. For a moment, I lay very still, forgetting where I was, then it came back to me with depressing alacrity. I sat up, cramped beneath my tray, the computer still open on top of it. I logged onto AOL again and went back into the chat room. This time I was joined by someone who called himself MEDEX, and we talked about the type of computer database I used in Virginia for capturing case information and doing statistical retrievals.

At exactly five minutes past five, a bell sounded off-key inside my computer, and the Instant Message window suddenly dominated my screen. I stared in disbelief as a communication from deadoc appeared, words that I knew no one else in the chat room could see.

DEADOC:

you think you re so smart

SCARPETTA:

Who are you?

DEADOC:

you know who I am I am what you do

SCARPETTA:

What do I do?

DEADOC:

death doctor death you are me

SCARPETTA:

I am not you.

DEADOC:

you think you re so smart

He abruptly got quiet, and when I clicked on the Available button, it showed that he had logged off. My heart was racing as I sent another message to MEDEX, saying I had been tied up with a visitor. I got no response, finding myself alone in the chat room again.

‘Damn,’ I exclaimed, under my breath.

I tried again as late as ten P.M., but no one appeared except QUINCY again, to tell me we should try another meeting in the morning. All of the other docs, he said, had gone home. The same nurse checked on me, and she was sweet. I felt sorry for her long hours, and her inconvenience of having to wear a blue suit every time she came into my room.

‘Where is the new shift?’ I asked, as she took my temperature.

‘I’m it. We’re all just doing the best we can.’

I nodded as she alluded to the furlough yet one more time this day.

‘There’s hardly a lab worker here,’ she went on. ‘You could wake up tomorrow, the only person in the building.’

‘Now I’m sure to have nightmares,’ I said as she wrapped the BP cuff around my arm.

‘Well, you’re feeling okay, and that’s the important thing. Ever since I started coming down here, I started imagining I was getting one thing or another. The slightest ache or pain or sniffle, and it’s, oh my God. So what kind of doctor are you?’

I told her.

‘I was going to be a pediatrician. Then I got married.’

‘We’d be in a lot of trouble were it not for good nurses like you,’ I smiled and said.

‘Most doctors never bother to notice that. They have these attitudes.’

‘Some of them certainly do,’ I agreed.

I tried to go to sleep, and was restless throughout the night. Street lights from the parking lot beyond my window seeped through the blinds, and no matter which way I turned, I could not relax. It was hard to breathe and my heart would not slow down. At five A.M., I finally sat up and turned on my light. Within minutes, the nurse was back inside my room.

‘You all right?’ She looked exhausted.

‘Can’t sleep.’

‘Want something?’

I turned on the computer as I shook my head. I logged onto AOL and went back to the chat room, which was empty. Clicking on the Available button, I checked to see if deadoc was on line, and if so, where he might be. There was no sign of him, and I began scrolling through the various chat rooms available to subscribers and their families.

There was truly something for everyone, places for flirts, singles, gays, lesbians, Native Americans, African Americans, and for evil. People who preferred bondage, sadomasochism, group sex, bestiality, incest, were welcome to find each other and exchange pornographic art. The FBI could do nothing about it. All of it was legal.

Dejected, I sat up, propped against my pillows and, without intending to, dozed off. When I opened my eyes again an hour later, I was in a chat room called ARTLOVE. A message was quietly waiting for me on my screen. Deadoc had found me.

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