Carrie tucks the envelope into the Army green backpack as a door closes in the background, and the camera picks up Lucy walking into the dorm room. It appears she has showered since the last video I watched, and this reinforces my growing conviction that the recordings were knitted together to convey a message. I need to pay close attention no matter how manipulative and uncomfortable. It’s crucial I remember everything I’m hearing and seeing because the video likely will self-destruct when it’s finished playing.
Lucy’s hair is damp. She has on faded jeans, a green FBI polo shirt and flip-flops. Carrying an armful of folded underwear, shorts, shirts, and socks tucked into balls, she drops everything on the foot of the bed as Mister Pickle’s amber eyes watch glassily.
“Yours is on top,” she says coldly to Carrie without looking at her. “Pretty much everything that’s white is yours. Funny but I usually don’t associate all white with bad guys. I thought I asked you to leave. Why the fuck are you still here?”
“It’s subjective who’s bad and who’s good. And you don’t really want me to leave.”
“It’s not subjective and you need to get the hell out.”
“I wear white for the same reason you should. Chronic exposure to chemical dyes is toxic.” Carrie tucks her white clothes into the backpack. “I know you don’t pay attention to such mundane minutiae because you think you’ll never have to worry about anything aging you. Or God forbid giving you a neurological disorder or cancer or destroying your immune system so your own body is chronically attacking itself. Not a good way to die.”
“There’s no good way to die.”
“There are plenty of bad ones though,” Carrie says. “Better to be shot. Better to be killed in a plane crash. You don’t want to be sick or poisoned. You don’t want to linger and lose your functionality. Imagine brain damage. Or being old and that’s the worst offender and biggest enemy and what I intend to defeat.”
“You mean with your stupid creams that have copper in them?”
“Someday you’ll think back on this moment and wish you’d done everything differently. I mean absolutely everything.” Her stare is unwavering. She doesn’t blink. “Very nice of you to do the laundry. Was it busy?”
“I had to wait forever for a dryer. I hate sharing.” Lucy is in a withdrawn leaden mood, and she won’t look at her.
“My, my how entitled we are. You should hear yourself. Have we forgotten that you’re the only elitist on this floor who doesn’t have a roommate or share a bathroom?”
“Shut up, Carrie.”
“You’re nineteen, Lucy.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“You’re a child. You shouldn’t even be here.”
“I want the MP5K back. Where is it?”
“It’s safe.”
“It’s not yours.”
“It’s not yours either. We’re so much alike. Are you aware of that?”
“We aren’t anything alike.” Lucy puts away clothes, yanking open drawers and slamming them shut.
“But we’re exactly alike,” Carrie says. “We’re different sides of the same ice cube.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
Carrie pulls her tank top, her sports bra off over her head, and half-naked she faces Lucy. “I don’t believe what you said. You didn’t mean it. You love me. You can’t live without me. I know you didn’t mean it.”
Lucy stares at her, then shoves shut another drawer while Carrie leaves her sweaty clothing on the floor where it fell. I notice there’s no visible line of demarcation on her exposed flesh, no variations in pigmentation. Her breasts, belly, her back and neck, all of her is the same opaque milky white.
“It’s not like Benton won’t eventually figure out it’s missing,” Lucy says. “Where the hell is it? This isn’t funny. Just give it back and leave me alone.”
“I can’t wait to restore it to its proper condition and do some test fires when it’s all packed up in its fancy briefcase. Just imagine it? You’re standing on a busy sidewalk holding your briefcase as the motorcade goes by.”
“Whose motorcade?” Lucy stares at her.
“There are so many choices.”
“You’re sicker than I ever imagined.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Carrie retrieves the St. Pauli Girl from the desk and takes a swallow of it inches from Lucy’s face. “I know you didn’t mean what you said earlier.” She leans against her drinking the beer, sliding a hand under Lucy’s shirt.
“Don’t.” She pulls Carrie’s hand away. “And water doesn’t have sides, and an ice cube is water so as usual you’re full of shit.”
“Am I?” Carrie kisses her, and their faces disconcertingly mirror each other.
“Don’t,” Lucy says.
Both of them have sharp features, keen eyes, strong jaws, straight white teeth and extreme agility and gracefulness. It’s not surprising. Benton says Carrie is the classic narcissist who falls in love with herself, moving from one image of herself to the next. The world is a mirrored room filled with her own projections, and she met her match with Lucy. Benton describes Carrie as Lucy’s doppelgänger, her evil double.
“Don’t, Carrie. No.”
They’re both exquisitely toned like Olympic runners, five-foot-eight with ample breasts, narrow hips, six-pack abs, and chiseled arms, quads and calves. They easily could pass for sisters.
“No!” Lucy pulls back from her. “Stop!”
“Why did you say it?” Carrie doesn’t take her eyes off her. “You know you can’t possibly leave me.”
“I’m going to dinner and when I come back you’d better not be here.” Lucy’s voice trembles, and she sits on the edge of the desk and starts putting on socks and black leather trainers.
“Tell Marino happy birthday.” Carrie stands aggressively close to her. “I hope you have fun at the Globe and Laurel. Be sure to tell him why I’m not there.”
“You’re not invited. You never were and shouldn’t have expected otherwise. And you wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it but I understand. He should be surrounded by his favorite people at his favorite hangout.” Carrie’s eyes are cold blue steel. “I’ll give you money to buy him a round of drinks or a special dessert with a candle on it.”
“He doesn’t want you there and he doesn’t want your money.”
“It’s not nice though. Not inviting me to the big birthday party,” Carrie says. “Watch out. A poison apple may follow.”
“You know damn well you can’t have dinner with us.”
“Let me guess whose idea it was to exclude me tonight. Not Marino’s. It was your precious Auntie Kay.”
“It’s true she has the lowest opinion of you that she could possibly have of any human being I’ve ever been with, will ever be with.”
“Don’t be so boring.”
“You’re really pathologically controlling and competitive.” Lucy is pacing the room, getting increasingly agitated.
“And you’re immature and tedious, and when you’re like that you’re boring.” Carrie says it in a dead voice as she stands perfectly still, perfectly calm near the desk. “I hate being bored. I might just hate it more than anything. Except I wouldn’t want to lose my freedom. Which would you hate more, Lucy Boo? Being dead or being in prison?”
LUCY WALKS INTO THE BATHROOM. She fills a glass with water from the sink and returns to the bedroom where Carrie is near the desk, playing with the Swiss Army knife.
“Why did you say it? You haven’t before,” Carrie perseverates with no inflection in her voice.
Lucy clears her throat and averts her eyes. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“You’re being petulant.” Carrie watches her with reptilian steadiness.
“I’m not.” Lucy clears her throat again as she drinks water.
“Of course this is you acting out,” Carrie is saying. “Because you couldn’t possibly leave me. You can’t really act on yo
ur threat and never have been able to. Just look at you. You’re about to cry. You’re about to completely disintegrate at the mere thought of not being with me. You love me more than you’ve ever loved anyone in your life. You loved me first. I’m your first love. And you know how that works? Actually you don’t. You’re a child compared to me. But file this away.” Carrie’s index finger tap-tap-taps her temple.
“You never forget your first,” she says slowly and with emphasis. “You never get over it because it will always be the most intense thing you ever felt, your most unbearable desire and lust. The crush. The blushing. The thumping in the chest. The rushing and roaring of blood up your neck to your brain that lifts the top of your skull. You can’t think. You can’t talk. All you want to do is touch. You want to touch the person so badly you would kill to do it. Is there anything better than lust?”
“You’re fucking around with the beauty queen. So I guess you should know all about lust.
“We’re done.”
“You sure?” Carrie stares at the bulky red Swiss Army knife in the palm of her hand. “Because you’d better mean it. Words can change everything. Be careful what you mean or don’t.”
“I should have known from the first time we met.” Lucy paces faster, gesturing furiously. “When they escorted me into the ERF and turned me over to you, my supervisor, my mentor, my personal plague.”
“That wasn’t the first time I met you, Lucy. It was just the first time you met me.” Carrie rubs the knife with her thumb, testing its sharpness. “Come here. You need to take it easy.”
“You’re a cheat and a fake, a fraud, an intellectual thief, and that’s the worst kind because you’re stealing someone’s soul. I created CAIN and that’s what you can’t stand. All along you’ve taken the credit for what I in fact did. You trick people out of whatever it is you decide you want.”
“Oh my God we’re back to that.” Carrie laughs.
“The Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network and who should get all the thanks? Who would get it if you’re truthful?” Lucy’s eyes blaze and she gets in Carrie’s face. “Who invented the name, the acronym CAIN? Who wrote all of the code that really matters? I can’t believe how much I’ve allowed you to use me. You’ll probably hurt me worse before it’s over.”
“Before what’s over?”
“Everything.”
“If I plan to hurt you? You won’t know about it until I decide,” Carrie says as gunshots sound like faraway fireworks from a celebration about to end.
She grabs Lucy, kissing her hard, and Lucy cries out in shocked pain. I see the Swiss Army knife in Carrie’s hand, the small shiny steel blade. I watch blood darkening Lucy’s green shirt, staining her fingers bright red as she clutches her abdomen, staring at Carrie dazed, enraged, disbelieving and devastated.
“What did you do?” Lucy screams at her. “What the hell did you just do you fucking lunatic!”
“The mark of the beast.” Carrie grabs a towel and lifts Lucy’s shirt, dabbing blood flowing from a horizontal incision in the lower left quadrant of her belly. “In case you forget who you really belong to.”
“Jesus Christ. Holy fucking shit! What have you done?” Lucy jerks the towel away from her, and then nothingness.
The display on my phone goes black.
CHAPTER 20
THE FRONT PORCH IS ARRANGED WITH TEAKWOOD lounge chairs that have bright green cushions and matching ottomans.
Water laps against the pilings, the river a quarter of a mile wide here with uninhabited forests on the other side. I watch a pair of bald eagles soar high over the leafy canopy of hardwoods and evergreens. I’m reminded that there are a lot of nests around here, and I’m annoyed all over again about the FBI helicopter thundering over this quiet conservation land, unsettling the wildlife, upsetting everything imaginable.
Under different circumstances the boathouse would be a perfect spot to sit and have a drink at the end of an awful day like this, and I wonder why Lucy hasn’t stepped outside to meet us. She should have noticed our approach. She probably has fifty security cameras on her property, and as we’ve made our way here we’re being monitored. It’s strange she hasn’t walked out to greet us, and I knock on the front door. I hear laughter, music, people speaking Japanese. A television playing.
The sound of the lock and Lucy opens up, and my eyes involuntarily drop down to her gray T-shirt as if I expect to see blood, as if Carrie just cut her with the small blade of a Swiss Army knife that Marino gave to her. I remember it was after he’d begun taking her to deserted parking lots, teaching her to ride his Harley, and he told her she should never be without tools. Always have money in your pocket and some sort of blade handy, I remember him advising her in the early years.
Carrie picked that knife, Marino’s knife. She used it to mark Lucy, to hurt her, and I envision the delicate colorful dragonfly tattoo on the left lower quadrant of Lucy’s abdomen. The first time I saw it she explained that dragonflies are the helicopters of the insect world and that was the inspiration. It wasn’t. The inspiration was a scar she’d never want anybody to know about. It would shame her. She especially didn’t want me to learn the truth.
“Hi.” Lucy holds the door.
“You didn’t see us?” I ask.
“I’m not watching who’s on my property because I already know,” Lucy replies as Donoghue and I walk in. “And more importantly I know what they don’t.”
“Which is?” Donoghue asks her.
“What I know as opposed to what they know? It’s a very long list. I’m about to tell you some of what’s on it.”
“Only if it’s safe to talk,” Donoghue says.
“I’m going to get into that too.” Lucy shuts the door.
“This stinks.” Marino is seated on the couch and careful with his language.
What he really wants to say is this is fucked-up or it sucks. But he has a seven-year-old sitting next to him.
“Can’t you do something?” he asks Donoghue. “This is ridiculous. What about unlawful search and seizure? What about malicious prosecution?”
“Legally I can’t do anything. Not yet.”
“What damn judge would sign a court order allowing all this?” Marino reaches for a mug on the end table, and I spot the Keurig in the kitchen.
“One who probably knows Erin Loria’s federal judge husband,” I suggest. “Does anybody need coffee?”
“Well it’s not right. It’s like where the hell are we? Russia? North Korea?” Marino complains.
“I don’t disagree that this seems pretty extreme and outrageous. A coffee would be nice,” Donoghue says to me.
“Yeah. It’s totally f-ed up, that’s what it is,” Marino adds from his end of the couch.
In the middle is Desi, and next to him is Janet, and I hear Jet Ranger before I spot him under the breakfast table snoring. I bend down to pet his head and silky ears, and he licks my hand and wags his stump of a tail as I walk to the kitchen counter. I make coffees as I take an inventory of my surroundings, starting with the sixty-inch flat screen on the wall.
It’s been switched from security to TV mode, and a Japanese sitcom is playing softly on the Tokyo Broadcasting System. No one is remotely interested. That’s not why the show is on. The flat screen is more than a TV or a monitor I decide as coffee streams loudly into a mug. What Lucy has in here is a device such as a base station that scrambles mobile phone communications, and whoever intercepts the encrypted data stream will hear nothing but static.
I look around at built-in speakers, at the thick cypress walls and triple-glazed glass that’s reflective from the outside so people can’t see in. I’ve been in here before, not often but on occasion and this is the first time it’s occurred to me that the boathouse isn’t merely a boathouse. Lucy has set up a sound-masking system, and I wonder if it’s a new addition like her rock garden. She’s anticipated for a while that she was going to be visited by the Feds. Since mid-June at least. Since I was shot. That’s my guess.
/>
“They’ve not been in here?” I ask Lucy as I hand a coffee to Donoghue.
“They did a sweep. I told them they had to do it first and get out because we needed a quiet place for Desi and Jet Ranger.”
“How nice of them to accommodate,” Donoghue says wryly.
“I demanded a quiet safe place for them.”
“Yes how very kind and sensitive of the FBI to comply with your wishes,” I say pointedly because the FBI isn’t kind or sensitive and they don’t care about Lucy’s wishes. “Rather unusual, don’t you think?” I look around at the built-in speakers and up at the ceiling tiles. “They didn’t fight you on it or insist on having an agent in here with you?”
“No.”
“You’re saying they have no concern about your home improvements.” I speak euphemistically, still unconvinced that our conversation is safe.
“There’s nothing they can do about how I’ve chosen to construct my house and any associated outbuildings. A search warrant doesn’t grant them permission to destroy someone’s property,” Lucy says and she’s right but in theory only.
FBI agents aren’t supposed to damage belongings or disable someone’s residential infrastructure or deliberately create a security liability. But that doesn’t mean they won’t. It doesn’t mean they’ll have any problem trumping up a justification for their actions. I wonder if they recognized the sound-masking system in here, and if so why they didn’t insist that the boathouse is off-limits.
Why really?
What is the actual reason they’re permitting us to hole up in here and is there any way at all they could have us under surveillance despite Lucy’s protestations that it’s not possible? She swears we’re safe when I ask about it again just now. She swears everything we’re discussing is private. But I continue to have my doubts no matter what she swears. I don’t trust a damn thing.
“I hope you’re right and we’re okay.” I hold Lucy’s gaze. “How about everybody else? Is everyone okay?” I direct this at Janet as I walk to the couch. “How are you and Desi doing?”