“Your DNA profile was changed. That required more than view-only privileges.”
“Carrie’s locked out now and I’ve restored the database to what it was.”
“So she found a way in that could have been massively destructive. It sounds like you got so caught up in your cyber war that you underestimated her.”
Lucy meets my eyes. She doesn’t answer because she can’t.
“And where was she when all this started?” I ask. “The mutual spying. The game of tag in cloud computing that let her into our back door.”
“She was in Kiev until last fall.”
“What prompted her after all these years?” I repeat.
“She knew it was time to leave, that Yanukovych would flee Kiev and Ukraine and she wouldn’t want to be around when he did. That’s what Carrie does. She plays whatever side of the net suits her at the moment. She allies herself with powerful males. Powerful patriarchs, powerful predators, powerful politicians.”
“Like Congressman Rosado?” I ask.
“Money laundering, drugs,” she says. “Hundreds of millions out of Russia that he launders mainly through real estate. Carrie didn’t connect with him in the U.S. She connected with him over there three years ago. Rosado’s got quite the crisis manager in her. Someone with a tremendous ability to manipulate the Internet and take care of problems, to do whatever’s required but she has her same flaw. She’s not independent. She’s a parasite. She always has been. She’s weak and eventually breaks her own rules.”
No matter Lucy’s disparagements it sounds like she’s bragging. It sounds like she’s impressed all over again.
“I assume she’s changed her name.” I study Lucy’s face for visible signs of what I suspect.
“No one’s looking for her anymore and hasn’t been. But she has plenty of aliases and I’ve given all of them to Benton.”
“Then he’s aware.”
“Now he is.”
“I wouldn’t know. It’s the first I’ve heard about any of this and that shouldn’t be the case.”
“Before she murdered Jamal Nari and Gracie Smithers it never entered my mind she was the shooter who took out Julie Eastman and Jack Segal,” Lucy explains. “Then you got the tweet on Mother’s Day and I traced it to this hotel.”
TICK TOCK DOC. The same language in the poem Carrie Grethen mailed to me from Kirby thirteen years ago.
“Troy Rosado took Gracie Smithers to his family house in Marblehead Neck after she sneaked out a window.” Lucy goes on to give me details she didn’t get honestly. “He picked her up using a car service he charged to his credit card. It’s in emails Carrie deleted but as you know nothing’s ever really gone.”
“And she knows that too, doesn’t she. Carrie knows all of the same things you do.”
“Gracie had no idea what a little shit Troy really is until things got out of hand when she was alone with him on the deserted estate, and then Carrie stepped in as she always does.” Lucy is much too animated and much too sure of details she can’t know for a fact.
“She killed Gracie. And then she killed Rand Bloom and abducted Joe Henderson.” Carrie’s the monster she’s always been, only I’m deciding that now she’s much worse, and Lucy is more vulnerable to her than ever.
“As you probably know the sailboat was stolen,” she says.
“I didn’t know,” I reply as something else occurs to me.
“Carrie can’t be traced through it and Gracie won’t be talking,” Lucy says and the question looms large.
“Why are we here? Why really?” I ask. “Were you hoping you would find her here?”
“Why would she be here?”
“Because we are. Because you are. You want to see her.”
Lucy takes the bill, covers it with cash and I push back my chair.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing . . . ?” I start to ask but she’s staring at the TV over the bar, transfixed by it.
“Jesus Christ,” she says. “Are you believing this?”
I can’t hear what the news correspondent is saying but I see the aerial footage of a sleek white super yacht before a backdrop of what I recognize as the South Florida shoreline. Then quick clips of Bob Rosado in the Oval Office, the Rose Garden, at his congressional desk in D.C. and the soaring iron gates of his estate in West Palm Beach. He’s a smarmy man, balding and heavyset in handmade suits that are too shiny and a gold watch that’s gaudy.
Congressman Bob Rosado has died, the crawl slowly goes by at the bottom of the screen. He was scuba diving with family in Fort Lauderdale late afternoon. Officials haven’t released cause of death but a source has suggested possible equipment failure.
CHAPTER 44
INSIDE MY ROOM I sit on the bed and call Benton again. He doesn’t answer our home phone and his cell phone goes straight to voice mail. I write an email and decide against it.
Lucy claims Carrie has been locked out of the CFC server but I can’t help it. I don’t trust anything right now. I send an email that simply says call me please, and then I worry that the IP will come back to this hotel. But Carrie could already know we’re here. Emails were exchanged about it. Next I text Benton and there’s no reply. Marino obviously is in a loud bar when I finally try him, and I suspect he’s with Jack Kuster.
“Have you seen the news?” I ask.
“I was going to call you. It happened at around six and we’re just now hearing about it at midnight? Weird right?”
“Considering who it is, no it’s not weird. But his death is too coincidental.”
“He might have had a heart attack.” Marino isn’t in great shape. “It’s the leading cause of scuba deaths.”
It’s not true but I’m not going to argue.
“Sure hit me with another one,” he says to someone else. “Sorry.” He’s back to me. “You should be here with us. They got this karaoke thing going and the prize is up to five hundred dollars.”
“I hope you’re not going to sing.”
“You never heard me in the shower.” He’s drunk. “Another theory? His tank. It may have been accidentally filled with too high a blend of oxygen, which is combustible.”
“Baseless theories are worthless. I’m tired of theories. I’m damn tired of them, Marino.”
“I’m just saying.”
“I can’t get hold of Benton.”
“I haven’t talked to him.”
I start to say why would you. Marino can’t stand Benton and I feel alone.
“You sound upset. You want me to come back to the hotel now?” he says above the din.
“You don’t think this is too coincidental?” I repeat.
“What?” He’s very loud and I turn down the volume on my phone.
“Rosado dying now? In light of everything else? He was probably well on his way to getting arrested as is his son.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Well I do.”
“Someone like him? Politicians like him are bulletproof and freaky timing happens, maybe it’s poetic justice,” he says and I can tell he’s walking outside where it’s quieter. “You don’t sound so good.”
“I’m fine.”
“Like you’re pissed. What a fucking long day sweating our brains out.”
I ask if Lucy has told him about Carrie.
“Shit.” A pause and he says brusquely, impatiently, “Yeah I talked to her earlier before you two went down to the bar. She said she was going to talk to a waitress or something and it went on from there, and I hate to say it but it’s not a hundred percent new. I’ve heard rumblings before that’s made me think Carrie was back inside her head. You know what I mean by that?”
“I’m afraid I do.”
“I remember like it was yesterday. I don’t have the right word for it. Some hypnotic thing like Sengali.”
Svengali but I don’t correct him.
“Yeah this addictive thing. These people who get so deep under your skin you can’t pull them out. Like Doris.”
“I’m sorry about Beth Eastman.” I haven’t really said that to him yet.
“The first girl I went steady with. It’s kind of unbelievable to look at each other now. I kind of wish I hadn’t and the truth is there’s no going back. I remember when she was on the homecoming court, you know, the prom and all that shit,” Marino slurs. “Lucy’s stuff about Carrie is just ridiculous any way you look at it, Doc, and I think she should see a shrink and she’d better get a damn good lawyer.”
When I don’t reply he’s silent for a moment.
Then he says, “You’re not telling me you believe her, that you think we should be chasing a fucking ghost?”
“There’s no physical evidence that Carrie Grethen is dead,” I reply. “Only circumstances and a long silence that could very well be explained if she was living in another country for the last decade or longer.”
“What Lucy needs is a shrink and a lawyer, Doc. The best she can find. I know the friggin’ FBI’s sniffing around her. Some suit called me asking questions but I didn’t give him shit.”
I hear the spurt of a lighter.
“There’s a lot going on at home and maybe she’s not thinking right,” says Marino the de facto big brother, the de facto uncle who taught Lucy how to shoot, how to drive his truck and ride a motorcycle while she taught him how to be tolerant. “You know, the stuff with Janet’s nephew. They’ve already fixed up a room for him and Lucy doesn’t want a kid. Let’s be honest. She’d probably suck at it.”
Tears sting my eyes. He knew before I did, and I hear him smoking. I tell him to be safe and not stay up all night. I sit on the edge of the bed staring down at my phone until my vision is swimming and what I see is the dark road dividing FBI field offices from firing ranges and then a clearing, barbecues and picnic tables beneath the dense shapes of trees. The wind is humid and smells like summer. As the wind moves through leaves it sounds like rain, and their voices drift toward me. I hear the spurt of a match being struck.
I can’t hear what they’re saying as I get closer in the dark and a lit cigarette glows as it’s passed back and forth. The FBI Academy when Lucy was barely more than a child, and her voice was wounded and filled with longing. Carrie’s was soothing and in command as they shared a cigarette and it was then I knew.
Why did it have to be you? Why did it have to be you!
I remember what I sensed and what happened when I said it.
I saw you in the picnic area the other night. I brought it up in normal conversation as if it was nothing.
So now you’re spying on me. Lucy said it as if she hated me. Don’t waste your sermons.
I’m not judging. Help me understand.
The child I had helped raise was gone. I didn’t know this Lucy and I agonized over what I’d done wrong. What had I done to make this happen, to make her choose something so damaging and dangerous?
You can’t possibly make me anything, she said, and it wasn’t what I meant.
What I meant is the same thing I would mean if I were saying those words to her now. Her first taste of solid food shouldn’t have been poison, and all these years and what I’ve felt, and I would eradicate Carrie Grethen from the face of the earth easily. It dismays me how little I’d care if I could make her dead, really dead and forgotten. Maybe I should be ashamed that I loathe anyone that much but it’s true of human nature. People are more alike than they’re not.
“I’M SORRY TO BOTHER YOU. This is Doctor Scarpetta.” I have Benton’s field office on the line.
“How can I help you, ma’am?”
“I’m looking for my husband.”
“Who’s your husband, ma’am?” Some young agent working the desk on midnight shift, the usual wooden demeanor that makes me want to touch him with a cattle prod.
“I’m Doctor Scarpetta. Benton Wesley’s wife.”
“What can I do for you?” he says and my anger burns colder, harder like frostbite.
“I’m trying to reach him. It’s important and please stop saying ma’am.”
“I’m not allowed to give out information . . .”
“I’m the chief medical examiner. I’m his wife and it’s urgent I get hold of him.”
“Have you tried leaving a message?”
“No. I’m too stupid to think of that.”
“No offense intended, ma’am. I’ll pass along the message. I believe he’s tied up right now.”
“You believe?” It’s all I can do not to yell at him.
“When he checks in next I’ll make sure he knows you called.”
“Checks in from where?”
“I’m sorry but . . .”
I hang up on him and throw my phone on the bed and it bounces. I go to the minibar and open the door. I find another gin but put it back. I grab a bottle of water and turn off the lights. I wait for it all to go away like an awful dream but it can’t.
CHAPTER 45
I SNAP ON A LAMP and imagine distant gunfire. Not an explosive noise or a sharp crack but more like the dull snap of a raw carrot, a celery stalk, a green pepper I break in my bare hands. I envision my kitchen and remember I’m not home.
I turn off the alarm on my phone after a poor night’s sleep. It seems I was awake every hour, speculating, working out problems, worrying about Lucy as Carrie Grethen ranged back and forth through my mind like a rabid animal. I saw her eyes and the way she used to pierce me with her stare. I know she wanted to hurt me. I know she wanted me dead. I sit up in bed.
Soft light illuminates antique furniture, cut glass fixtures with ivory shades, the wallpaper creamy damask. I remember where I am. The Madison Hotel. On the fourth floor, a corner room facing the courtyard and my attention finds a space between the floral drawn drapes, complete darkness showing through. I feel a tug of impatience and my awareness kicks up a notch.
Despite my efforts the drapes didn’t stay completely closed even after I propped a chair in front of them, shoving the heavy fabric panels together, pinning them against the glass. At some point they crept open and as I stare at the black vacuum in the gap I’m reminded of what Nietzsche said: When you look into the abyss, it also looks into you. I lower my feet to the floor and rearrange the chair.
I’m not afraid of the dark but have no intention of making it easy for someone to spy on me as I read or work on my laptop with lights off or worse as I sleep. All it would take is a high-resolution night vision scope and then Carrie is there. I feel her inescapable presence. I turn to see her and she steps around me. Whichever way I look she’s behind me like a long shadow when the sun is in my face.
Predators watch their quarry. It starts with the eyes.
Benton penned those words in sepia ink on a sheet of watermarked stationery, his initials BW engraved in an understated script, no address, phone number or personal information. I still have the letter, the first one he wrote to me more than twenty years ago when he was married to someone else. I feel empty from missing him but at least he’s safe, texting me at three A.M. to say he’d call. He hasn’t yet. I point the remote at the TV to catch the news.
The usual economic woes, local crimes and disasters. A small plane crash, four killed. A fire, two hospitalized with smoke inhalation. I remove my bags from the closet and set them on the bed as the anchorwoman begins an update on Bob Rosado.
“ . . . His body was transported to the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office last night but still no details about what might have caused the congressman’s death while he was scuba diving off his yacht late yesterday,” she reports. “Let’s go to Sue Lander and see what she has for us. Sue? Good morning.”
The dark back parking lot of the medical examiner’s office materializes. White scene veh
icles and palm trees are barely visible in the glow of sodium vapor lights, and the correspondent named Sue grips a microphone, a blank look on her face, then recognition that she’s on the air.
She says, “Good morning.”
“Sue? What’s happening at this early hour in South Florida? Have there been any updates?”
“There was quite a media presence here most of the night but now you can see how quiet it is. What we do know is Doctor Raine drove out of this parking lot about two hours ago and hasn’t come back.”
More footage, this time the silhouette of the flat-roofed one-story stucco complex, the bay door loudly cranking open and the sound of a rumbling engine as a white SUV drives out, headlights blazing on hibiscus bushes. A pack of correspondents and a constellation of shoulder-mounted lighted cameras surge forward, and through the driver’s window Abe Raine’s face is resolute. He won’t look at anyone and that’s not like him. Young, energetic, a former quarterback for Notre Dame, he’s not the sort to duck a confrontation with journalists or anyone else.
“Doctor Raine?”
“Doctor Raine!”
“Can you tell us what’s going on with . . .”
“Do you know what killed Congressman Rosado?”
“Any suggestion of foul play?”
Their answer is ruby red taillights as the chief medical examiner drives slowly through the parking lot, past the void of an artificial lake, then gone, and we’re back to the Morristown news desk.
“So he was there all night, Sue? That’s a little unusual?”
“He was inside the building until just two hours ago as I’ve mentioned,” her voice says off camera. “And the most recent statement released by his office confirms that the autopsy will be finished today.”
Finished? I think. That’s a strange way to put it. I take off the loose cotton scrubs I slept in and find clothes I brought for my idea of yoga, which is mostly stretching, staying limber. My personal time as I call it. I do it alone in my room. Spandex shorts, a sleeveless top with a built-in bra.