Four Scarpetta Novels Read Online Free PDF

very terrible wounds mean something to the killer. And thankfully, these details aren’t known to the public. We’ve managed to keep them away from journalists. So if there is another similar murder, we will know it isn’t a copy.”

Chapter 2
    T he three of them sit in a candlelit corner of Tullio, a popular trattoria with a travertine facade, near the theaters, and an easy walk from the Spanish Steps.
    Candlelit tables are covered in pale gold cloths, and the dark-paneled wall behind them is filled with bottles of wine. Other walls are hung with watercolors of rustic Italian scenes. It’s quiet here except for a table of drunk Americans. They’re oblivious and preoccupied, as is the waiter in his beige jacket and black tie. No one has any idea what Benton, Scarpetta, and Captain Poma are discussing. If anyone comes close enough to hear, they change their conversation to harmless topics and tuck photographs and reports back into folders.
    Scarpetta sips a 1996 Biondi Santi Brunello that is very expensive but not what she would have picked had she been asked, and usually she is asked. She returns her glass to the table without removing her eyes from the photograph beside her simple Parma ham and melon, which she will follow with grilled sea bass, then beans in olive oil. Maybe raspberries for dessert, unless Benton’s deteriorating demeanor takes away her appetite. And it might.
    â€œAt the risk of sounding simple,” she is quietly saying, “I keep thinking there’s something important we’re missing.” Her index finger taps a scene photograph of Drew Martin.
    â€œSo now you don’t complain about going over something again and again,” Captain Poma says, openly flirtatious now. “See? Good food and wine. They make us smarter.” He taps his head, mimicking Scarpetta tapping the photograph.
    She is pensive, the way she gets when she leaves the room without going anywhere.
    â€œSomething so obvious we’re completely blind to it, everyone’s been blind to it,” she continues. “Often we don’t see something because—as they say—it’s in plain view. What is it? What is she saying to us?”
    â€œFine. Let’s look for what’s in plain view,” says Benton, and rarely has she seen him so openly hostile and withdrawn. He doesn’t hide his disdain of Captain Poma, now dressed in perfect pinstripes. His gold cuff links engraved with the crest of the Carabinieri flash when they catch the light of the candle.
    â€œYes, in plain view. Every inch of her exposed flesh—before anybody touched it. We should study it in that condition. Untouched. Exactly as he left it,” Captain Poma says, his eyes on Scarpetta. “How he left it is a story, is it not? But before I forget, to our last time together in Rome. At least for now. We should drink a toast to that.”
    It doesn’t seem right to raise their glasses with the dead young woman watching, her naked, savaged body right there on the table, in a sense.
    â€œAnd a toast to the FBI,” says Captain Poma. “To their determination to turn this into an act of terrorism. The ultimate soft target—an American tennis star.”
    â€œIt’s a waste of time to even allude to such a thing,” Benton says, and he picks up his glass, not to toast but to drink.
    â€œThen tell your government to stop suggesting it,” Captain Poma says. “There, I will say this bluntly since we’re alone. Your government is spreading this propaganda from behind the scenes, and the reason we didn’t discuss this earlier is because the Italians don’t believe anything so ridiculous. No terrorist is responsible. The FBI to say such a thing? It’s stupid.”
    â€œThe FBI isn’t sitting here. We are. And we aren’t the FBI, and I’m weary of your references to the FBI,” Benton replies.
    â€œBut you were FBI most of your