Fatal Voyage (45 page)

 “Esse Quam Videri.”

 The Coke-bottle eyes held mine.

 “”To be rather than to seem.“”

 Winding down Schoolhouse Hill, I couldn’t help but notice a bumper
sticker on the car ahead.

 Where will you spend eternity?

 Though placed in a broader time frame than I’d been considering, the
decal posed the same question that was on my mind. Where would I spend the time ahead? More
pointedly, with whom?

 During my convalescence, Pete had been caring and helpful, bringing
flowers, feeding Birdie, heating soup in the microwave. We’d watched old movies, engaged in long
conversations. When he was away, I spent hours recalling our life together. I remembered the good
times. I remembered the fights, the minor irritations that simmered, then eventually escalated
into full-scale battle.

 I had resolved one thing: I loved my estranged husband, and we would
always be bound in our hearts. But we could no longer be bound in our beds. While handsome, and
loving, and funny, and smart, Pete shared something with Sir Francis and his Hell Fire mates: His
hat would always be off to Venus.

 Pete was a wall I could beat myself against forever. We made much
better friends than spouses, and henceforth, I would keep us that way.

 I turned onto Main at the bottom of the hill.

 I’d also considered Andrew Ryan.

 Ryan the colleague. Ryan the cop. Ryan the uncle.

 Danielle was not a paramour. She was a niece. That was good.

 I considered Ryan the man.

 The man who wanted to suck my toes.

 That was very good.

 Because of the wound Pete had inflicted, I’d been hovering on the edge
of a relationship with Ryan, wanting to get close but keeping my distance, like a moth drawn to a
flame. Attracted but afraid.

 Did I need a man in my life?

 No.

 Did I want one?

 Yes.

 What were the words of the song? I’d rather be sorry for something I
did, than for something that I didn’t do.

 I’d decided to give Ryan a try and see how it went.

 I had one more stop in Bryson City. A stop I couldn’t wait to make.

 I parked outside a redbrick building at the corner of Slope and the
Bryson Walk. When I entered the glass door, a woman in surgical scrubs looked up and smiled.

 “Is he ready?”

 “Very. Have a seat.”

 She disappeared, and I settled into a plastic chair in the waiting
area.

 Five minutes later she led Boyd out. His chest was taped, and one
foreleg had been shaved. Seeing me, he gave a little hop, then limped over and placed his head on
my lap.

 “Is he in pain?” I asked the vet.

 “Only when he laughs.”

 Boyd rolled his eyes upward at me, and the purple tongue dropped
out.

 “How are you doing, big guy?” I nuzzled his ears and touched my
forehead to his.

 Boyd sighed.

 I straightened and looked at him.

 “Are you ready to go home?”

 He yipped and his eyebrows danced.

 “Let’s do it.”

 I could hear a laugh in his bark.

 Kathy Reichs is forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief
Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de
Medecine Legale for the province of Quebec.

 She is one of only fifty forensic-anthropologists certified by the
American Board of Forensic Anthropology and is on the Board of Directors of the American Academy
of Forensic Sciences. A professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte, Dr. Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph. D. at Northwestern.
She now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal and is a frequent expert witness in
criminal trials.

 Kathy Reichs’s first novel, Deja Dead, shot straight to number one on
the Sunday Times bestseller list and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel.. It became an
international bestseller, as did its successors Death did Join- and Deadly Decisions. Fatal
Voyage is her fourth novel featuring Temperance Brennan.

 ISBN 0 434 00830 3