Excerpt from The Last Precinct by Patricia Cornwell, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"You don't got to explain nothing." He sucks on the cigarette, both of us shooting streams of smoke toward our partially open windows. "I know exactly what you feel," he adds.

"You couldn't possibly." Resentment seeps up my throat like bile. "I don't even know."

"I understand a lot more than you give me credit for," he says. "Someday you'll see that, Doc. No way you can see shit right now, and I'm telling you it ain't gonna get no better in days and weeks to come. That's the way it works. The real damage hasn't even hit. I can't tell you how many times I've seen it, seen what happens to people when they're victimized."

I absolutely do not want to hear a single word of this.

"Damn good thing you're going where you are," he says. "Exactly what the doctor ordered, in more ways than one."

"I'm not staying with Anna because it's what the doctor ordered," I reply testily. "I'm staying with her because she's my friend."

"Look, you're a victim and you got to deal with it, and you need help dealing with it. Don't matter you're a doctor-lawyer-Indian chief." Marino will not shut up, in part because he is looking for a fight. He wants a focus for his anger. I can see what is coming, and anger crawls up my neck and heats up the roots of my hair. "Being a victim's the great equalizer," Marino, the world's authority, goes on.

I draw out the words slowly. "I am not a victim." My voice wavers around its edges like fire. "There's a difference between being victimized and being a victim. I'm not a sideshow for character disorders." My tone sears. "I haven't become what he wanted to turn me into"-of course, I mean Chandonne-"even if he'd had his way, I wouldn't be what he tried to project onto me. I would just be dead. Not changed. Not something less than I am. Just dead."

I feel Marino recoil in his dark, loud space on the other side of his huge, manly truck. He doesn't understand what I mean or feel and probably never will. He reacts as if I slapped him across the face or kneed him in the groin.

"I'm talking reality." He strikes back. "One of us has to."

"Reality is, I'm alive."

"Yeah. A fuckin' goddamn miracle."

"I should have known you would do this." I get quiet and cold. "So predictable. People blame the prey not the predator, criticize the injured not the asshole who did it." I tremble in the dark. "Goddamn you. Goddamn you, Marino."

"I still can't believe you opened your door!" he shouts. What happened to me makes him feel powerless.

"And where were you guys?" I again remind him of an unpleasant fact. "It might have been nice if at least one or two of you could have kept an eye on my property. Since you were so concerned that he might come after me."

"I talked to you on the phone, remember?" He attacks from another angle. "You said you was fine. I told you to sit tight, that we'd found where the son of a bitch was hiding, that we knew he was out somewhere, probably looking for another woman to beat and bite the shit out of. And what do you do, Doctor Law Enforcement? You open your fucking door when someone knocks! At fucking midnight!"

I thought the person was the police. He said he was the police.

"Why?" Marino is yelling now, pounding the steering wheel like an out-of-control child. "Huh? Why? Goddamn it, tell me!"

We knew for days who the killer is, that he is the spiritual and physical freak Chandonne. We knew he is French and where his organized crime family lives in Paris. The person outside my door did not have even a hint of a French accent.

Police.

I didn't call the police, I said through the shut door.

Ma'am, we've gotten a call about a suspicious person on your property. Are you all right?

Reprinted The Last Precinct By Patricia Cornwell By Permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, A Member Of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright (C) 2000 Patricia Cornwell. All Rights Reserved. This Excerpt, Or Any Parts Thereof, May Not Be Reproduced in Any Form Without Permission.