Read Online Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patricia Cornwell
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politicians strolling the cottage-style campus, designed by the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, whose other famous projects include New York’s Central Park, the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, the Biltmore Estate, and Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair.
It isn’t perfectly normal to spot Dr. Marilyn Self. But she doesn’t intend to be here much longer, and when the public eventually finds out the truth, her reasons will be clear. To be safe and sequestered, and then, as has always been the story of her life, a destiny. What she calls a meant-to-be. She’d forgotten Benton Wesley works here.
Shocking Secret Experiments: Frankenstein.
Let’s see. She continues to script her first show when she returns to the air. While in seclusion to guard my life, I unwittingly and unwillingly became an eyewitness – worse, a guinea pig – to clandestine experiments and abuse. In the name of science. It is as Kurtz said in Heart of Darkness – “The horror! The horror!” I was subjected to a modern form of what was done in asylums during the darkest days of the darkest times when people who didn’t have the proper tools were considered subhuman and treated like…Treated like…? The right analogy will come to her later.
Dr. Self smiles as she imagines Marino’s ecstasy when he discovered she had written back to him. He probably believes that she (the most famous psychiatrist in the world) was happy to hear from him. He still believes she cares! She’s never cared. Even when he was her patient in her less prominent Florida days, she didn’t care. He was little more than a therapeutic amusement, and yes (she admits it), a dash of spice, because his adoration of her was almost as pathetic as his besotted sexual obsession with Scarpetta.
Poor, pathetic Scarpetta. Amazing what a few well-placed calls can do.
Her mind races. Her thoughts are nonstop inside her room at the Pavilion, where meals are catered and a concierge is available, should one wish to go to the theater or a Red Sox game or a health spa. The privileged patient at the Pavilion gets rather much whatever he or she wants, which in Dr. Self’s case is her own e-mail account and a room that happened to be occupied by another patient named Karen when Dr. Self was admitted nine days ago.
The unacceptable room assignment was, of course, remedied easily enough without administrative intervention or delay on Dr. Self’s first day when she entered Karen’s room before dawn and awakened her by gently blowing on her eyes.
“Oh!” Karen exclaimed in relief when she realized it was Dr. Self, not a rapist, hovering over her. “I was having a strange dream.”
“Here. I brought you coffee. You were sleeping like the dead. Perhaps you stared too long at the crystal light fixture last night?” Dr. Self looked up at the shadowy shape of the Victorian crystal light fixture above the bed.
“What!” Karen exclaimed in alarm, setting down her coffee on the antique bedside table.
“One must be most careful about staring at anything crystal. It can have a hypnotic effect and put you into a trancelike state. What was your dream?”
“Dr. Self, it was so real! I felt someone’s breath in my face and I was scared.”
“Do you have any idea who? Perhaps someone in your family? A family friend?”
“My father used to rub his whiskers against my face when I was little. I could feel his breath. How funny! I’m just now remembering that! Or maybe I’m imagining it. Sometimes I have a problem knowing what’s real.” Disappointed.
“Repressed memories, my dear,” Dr. Self said. “Don’t doubt your inner Self [said slowly]. It’s what I tell all my followers. Don’t doubt your what, Karen?”
“Inner Self.”
“That’s right. Your inner Self [said very slowly] knows the truth. Your inner Self
It isn’t perfectly normal to spot Dr. Marilyn Self. But she doesn’t intend to be here much longer, and when the public eventually finds out the truth, her reasons will be clear. To be safe and sequestered, and then, as has always been the story of her life, a destiny. What she calls a meant-to-be. She’d forgotten Benton Wesley works here.
Shocking Secret Experiments: Frankenstein.
Let’s see. She continues to script her first show when she returns to the air. While in seclusion to guard my life, I unwittingly and unwillingly became an eyewitness – worse, a guinea pig – to clandestine experiments and abuse. In the name of science. It is as Kurtz said in Heart of Darkness – “The horror! The horror!” I was subjected to a modern form of what was done in asylums during the darkest days of the darkest times when people who didn’t have the proper tools were considered subhuman and treated like…Treated like…? The right analogy will come to her later.
Dr. Self smiles as she imagines Marino’s ecstasy when he discovered she had written back to him. He probably believes that she (the most famous psychiatrist in the world) was happy to hear from him. He still believes she cares! She’s never cared. Even when he was her patient in her less prominent Florida days, she didn’t care. He was little more than a therapeutic amusement, and yes (she admits it), a dash of spice, because his adoration of her was almost as pathetic as his besotted sexual obsession with Scarpetta.
Poor, pathetic Scarpetta. Amazing what a few well-placed calls can do.
Her mind races. Her thoughts are nonstop inside her room at the Pavilion, where meals are catered and a concierge is available, should one wish to go to the theater or a Red Sox game or a health spa. The privileged patient at the Pavilion gets rather much whatever he or she wants, which in Dr. Self’s case is her own e-mail account and a room that happened to be occupied by another patient named Karen when Dr. Self was admitted nine days ago.
The unacceptable room assignment was, of course, remedied easily enough without administrative intervention or delay on Dr. Self’s first day when she entered Karen’s room before dawn and awakened her by gently blowing on her eyes.
“Oh!” Karen exclaimed in relief when she realized it was Dr. Self, not a rapist, hovering over her. “I was having a strange dream.”
“Here. I brought you coffee. You were sleeping like the dead. Perhaps you stared too long at the crystal light fixture last night?” Dr. Self looked up at the shadowy shape of the Victorian crystal light fixture above the bed.
“What!” Karen exclaimed in alarm, setting down her coffee on the antique bedside table.
“One must be most careful about staring at anything crystal. It can have a hypnotic effect and put you into a trancelike state. What was your dream?”
“Dr. Self, it was so real! I felt someone’s breath in my face and I was scared.”
“Do you have any idea who? Perhaps someone in your family? A family friend?”
“My father used to rub his whiskers against my face when I was little. I could feel his breath. How funny! I’m just now remembering that! Or maybe I’m imagining it. Sometimes I have a problem knowing what’s real.” Disappointed.
“Repressed memories, my dear,” Dr. Self said. “Don’t doubt your inner Self [said slowly]. It’s what I tell all my followers. Don’t doubt your what, Karen?”
“Inner Self.”
“That’s right. Your inner Self [said very slowly] knows the truth. Your inner Self
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