Unnatural Exposure (Kay Scarpetta, #8)

by Patricia Cornwell

It just goes to show that what we do is unrelated to what we know, and our feelings don’t have a brain.”

“I haven’t given up whiskey yet.” “Don’t, for God’s sake. You’d be no fun.” She paused, adding pointedly, “Course, feelings can be directed, educated, so they don’t conspire against us.”

Logging on to America Online, or AOL, I was greeted by a mechanical male voice announcing that I had mail.

I feared that my failure to feel what I thought I should revealed a trait that I could not bear to see.

“As for the crab, honey, listen up. One egg slightly beaten, one-half teaspoon dry mustard, a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce, four unsalted soda crackers, crushed. Chop up an onion, a Vidalia if you’re still hoarding any from summer. One green pepper, chop that. A teaspoon or two of parsley, salt and pepper to taste.”

“Now you gently mix all that together and shape it into patties.” She made the motion with her hands. “Sauté in oil over medium heat until lightly browned.

“Bloody meetings,” she complained as she got off the phone. “There’s nothing I hate more. People sitting around talking instead of doing.”

New viruses were discovered all the time, and I often wondered if they would one day rule, at last winning a war with us that began with time.

“How the hell can they land some big military plane on such a little field?” “Some of it I can tell you,” said Lucy, who was never at a loss for technical explanation. “Apparently, the C-17’s designed to land with cargo on unusually small, unapproved runways like this. Or a dry lake bed. In Korea, they’ve even used interstates.” “Here we go,” Marino said with his usual sarcasm. “Only other thing that could squeeze into a tight place like this is a C-130,” she went on. “The C-17 can back up, isn’t that cool?” “No way a cargo plane can do all that,” Marino said. “Well, this baby can,” she said as if she wanted to adopt it.

She had a voracious curiosity about anything that could be put together, taken apart, programmed and, in general, made to do something she wanted. People were about the only thing she couldn’t figure out.