When Dr. Kay Scarpetta, freelancing from South Florida, returns to Richmond, Virginia, at the request of the recently appointed Chief Medical Examiner, who claims that he needs her help to solve a crime, she finds that nothing is as she left it: Her former lab is being demolished; the chief isn't really the one who requested her; her former assistant chief has personal problems that he refuses to reveal; and a glamorous FBI agent meddles with the case. Without the assistance of her colleagues Be