Predator by Patricia Cornwell Page A

sharply displayed on the smart board. Shotgun pellets look like a storm of tiny white bubbles floating through the ghostly shapes of ribs.
         “The pellets are spread out,” Scarpetta points out, “and to give the radiologist a little credit, the spread of the pellets inside the chest is consistent with a range of three or four feet, but what I think we’re dealing with here is a perfect example of the billiard-ball effect.”
         She clears the x-ray off the smart board and collects several styluses, different ones for different colors.
         “The leading pellets slowed when they entered the body and were then hit by the trailing pellets, causing colliding pellets to ricochet and spread out into a pattern that simulates distant-range fire,” she explains, drawing red ricocheting pellets hitting blue pellets like billiard balls. “Therefore simulating a distant gunshot wound, when in fact, it wasn’t a distant shot at all but a contact wound.”
         “None of the neighbors heard a shotgun blast?”
         “Apparently not.”
         “Maybe a lot of people were out on the beach or out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday.”
         “Maybe.”
         “What kind of shotgun, and whose was it?”
         “All we can tell is it’s a twelve-gauge, based on the pellets,” Scarpetta says. “Apparently, the shotgun disappeared before the police showed up.”

    Chapter 18

         Ev Christian is awake and sitting on a mattress that is black with what she by now believes is old blood.
         Scattered about the filthy floor inside the small, filthy room with its caving ceiling and water-stained wallpaper are magazines. She sees poorly without her glasses and can barely make out the pornographic covers. She barely makes out soda-pop bottles and fast-food wrappers scattered about. Between the mattress and the splintery wall is a small pink Keds tennis shoe, a girl’s size. Ev has picked it up countless times and held it, wondering what it means and who it once belonged to, worried the girl is dead. Sometimes Ev tucks the shoe behind her when he comes in, fearful he will take it from her. It is all she has.
         She never sleeps longer than an hour or two at a stretch and has no idea how much time has passed. There is no such thing as time. Gray light fills the broken window on the other side of the room, and she can’t see the sun. She smells rain.
         She doesn’t know what he has done with Kristin and the boys. She doesn’t know what he has done to them. She dimly remembers the first hours, those awful, unreal hours when he brought her food and water and stared at her from the darkness, and he was as dark as the darkness, dark like a dark spirit, hovering in the doorway.
         How does it feel? he said to her in a soft, cold voice. How does it feel to know you’re going to die?
         It is always dark inside the room. It is so much darker when he is in it.
         I’m not afraid. You can’t touch my soul.
         Say you’re sorry.
         It’s not too late to repent. God will forgive even the most vile sin if you humble yourself and repent.
         God is a woman. I am her Hand. Say you’re sorry.
         Blasphemy. Shame on you. I’ve done nothing to be sorry about.
         I’ll teach you shame. You’ll say you’re sorry just like she did.
         Kristin?
         Then he was gone, and Ev heard voices from another part of the house. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he was talking to Kristin, must have been. He was talking to a woman. Ev really couldn’t hear it, but she heard them talking. She could not make out what they said, and she remembers feet scuffing and voices on the other side of the wall, and then she heard Kristin, knew it was her. When Ev thinks about it now, she wonders if she dreamed it.
         Kristin! Kristin! I’m right here! I’m right here! Don’t you dare hurt her!