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Prologue and Chapter 1

• The novel opens with Dr. Scarpetta, medical examiner, waiting for the body of death row inmate Ronnie Joe Waddell to arrive in the morgue after he is executed that night.

• Dr. Scarpetta does the exam, requesting that her morgue supervisor take fingerprints. She finds strange marks on his arms, and his stomach suggests he hasn't eaten recently. She is told that he had a nose bleed. Otherwise the body looks fine.

• Scarpetta also finds an envelope that Waddell wants buried with his body. Food receipts and toll receipts are inside the envelope.

• Pete Marino, a detective with whom Scarpetta is friendly, is introduced in this chapter.

• The reader also learns that Mark James, Scarpetta's FBI boyfriend, has recently been killed in an explosion.

Chapter 2

• Scarpetta meets a detective at a hospital where she has been called in to look at a boy's wounds. He has...

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