BLACK NOTICE. PATRICIA CORNWELL

He popped open another beer, angrily pacing the kitchen.

“Now I know why Carson showed up at the scene,” he

said. “He knew this was coming. He knows how bad this shit stinks and maybe he was trying to warn us in his own way, or just signing off. His career’s over. The end. Last crime scene. Last everything.”

“He’s such a good man,” I said. “Goddamn it, Marino. There’s got to be something we can do.”

His phone rang, startling me. The sound of cars on the street out front was a steady rumble of engines. Marino’s continuous tinny Christmas music was playing “Jingle Bells” again.

“Bray wants to talk to me about so-called changes she’s instigating,” I told him.

“Oh, I’m sure she does,” he said, his stocking feet padding across linoleum. “And I guess you’re just supposed to drop everything when she suddenly wants to have you for lunch, which is what she’s gonna do, have you between rye with lots óf mustard.”

He grabbed the phone.

“What?” he yelled at the poor person on the other end.

“Uh huh, uh huh. Yeah;” Marino said, listening.

I rummaged in cabinets and found one smashed box of Lipton tea bags.

“I’m here. Why the hell don’t you talk to me?” Marino indignantly said into the phone.

He listened, pacing about.

“Now that’s a good one,” he said. “Hold on a minute. Let me just ask her.”

He put his hand over the receiver and asked in a hushed voice, “Are you sure you’re Dr. Scarpetta?”

He got back to the person on the phone. “She says she was last time she checked,” and he irritably shoved the receiver my way.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Dr. Scarpetta?” an unfamiliar voice said. Here.

“I’m Ted Francisco, ATF field office in Miami”

I froze as if someone were pointing a. gun at me.

“Lucy told me Captain Marino might know where you are if we couldn’t reach you at home. Can you speak to her?”

“Of course,” I said, alarmed.

“Aunt Kay?” Her voice came over the line.

“Lucy! What is it?” I said. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know if you heard what happened down here…”

“I haven’t heard anything;” I quickly said as Marino stopped what he was doing and stared at me.

“Our takedown. It didn’t go right, too much to go into, but it went really, really bad. I had to kill two of them. Jo got shot.”

“Oh, dear God,” I said. “Please tell me she’s all right.”

“I don’t know,” she said with a steadiness that was completely abnormal. “They have her in Jackson Memorial under some other name and I can’t call her. They’ve got me in isolation because they’re afraid the others will try to find us. Retribution. The cartel. All I know is she was bleeding from her head and leg, unconscious when the ambulance got her.”

Lucy registered no emotion at all. She sounded like one of the robots or artificial intelligence computers she had programmed at earlier times in her career.

“I’ll get. . .” I started to say when Agent.Francisco suddenly was back on the line.

“I know you’re going to hear about this on the news, Dr. Scarpetta, and I wanted to make sure you knew. Especially that Lucy’s not hurt.”

“Maybe not physically;” I said.

“I want to tell you exactly what will happen next.”

“What will happen next,” I interrupted him, “is I’m flying down there immediately. I’ll get a private, plane if I have to.”

“I’d like to ask you not to do that,” he said. “Let me explain. This is a very, very vicious group, and Lucy and Jo know far too much about them, about who some of them are and how they do business. Within hours of the shooting, we sent a Miami-Dade bomb squad to Lucy and Jo’s respective undercover residences and our bomb dog detected pipe bombs wired under each of their cars.”

I pulled a chair out from Marino’s kitchen table and sat down. I felt weak all over. My vision was blurred.

“Are you there?” he said.

“Yes, yes.”

“What’s happening right now, Dr. Scacpetta, is MiamiDade is working the cases, just as you might expect, and normally, we’d have a shooting review team on its way in addition to peer support guys-agents who have been involved in critical incidents and are trained to work with other agents going through things like this. But because of the threat level, we’re sending Lucy north, to D.C., to wherever she’s safe.”

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