“It may be a relief not being around Quantico right now, too.” She paused, her face very serious when she turned back to me. “Aunt Kay, there’s something I need to tell you. I’m not sure you’re really going to want to hear this.
Or maybe it would be easier if you didn’t hear it. I would have told you yesterday if Marino hadn’t been here.”
“I’m listening.” I was immediately tense.
She paused again. “Especially since you may be seeing Wesley today, I think you ought to know. There’s a rumor in the Bureau that he and Connie have split.”
I did not know what to say.
“Obviously, I can’t verify that this is true,” she went on. “But I’ve heard some of what’s being said. And some of it concerns you.”
“Why would any of it concern me?” I said too quickly.
“Come on.” She met my eyes. “There have been suspicions ever since you started working so many cases with him. Some of the agents think that’s the only reason you agreed to be a consultant. So you could be with him, travel with him, you know.”
“That’s patently untrue,” I angrily said as I sat up. “I agreed to be the consulting forensic pathologist because the director asked Benton, who asked me, not the other way around. I assist in cases as a service to the FBI and. . .”
“Aunt Kay,” she interrupted me. “You don’t have to defend yourself.”
But I would not be soothed. “That is an absolutely outrageous thing for anyone to say.
I have never allowed a friendship with anyone to interfere with my professional integrity.”
Lucy got quiet, then spoke again. “We’re not talking about a mere friendship.”
“Benton and I are very good friends.”
“You are more than friends.”
“At this moment, no, we are not. And it is none of your business.”
She impatiently got up from my bed. “It’s not right for you to get mad at me.”
She stared at me but I could not speak, for I was very close to tears.
“All I’m doing is reporting to you what I’ve heard so you don’t end up hearing it from someone else,” she said.
Still, I said nothing, and she started to leave.
I reached for her hand. “I’m not angry with you. Please try to understand. It’s inevitable I’m going to react when I hear something like this. I feel certain you would, too.”
She pulled away from me. “What makes you think I didn’t react when I heard it?”
I watched in frustration as she stalked out of my room, and I thought she was the most difficult person I knew. All our lives together we had fought. She never relented until I had suffered as long as she thought I should, when she knew how much I cared. It was so unfair, I told myself as I planted my feet on the floor.
I ran my fingers through my hair as I contemplated getting up and coping with the day.
My spirit felt heavy, shadowed by dreams that were now unclear but I sensed had been strange. It seemed there had been water and people who were cruel, and I had been ineffective and afraid. In the bathroom I showered, then got a robe off a hook on the back of the door and found my slippers. Marino and my niece were dressed and in the kitchen when I finally appeared.
“Good morning,” I announced as if Lucy and I had not seen each other this day.
“Yo. It’s good all right.” Marino looked as if he had been awake all night and was feeling hateful.
I pulled out a chair and joined them at the small breakfast table. By now the sun was up, the snow on fire.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as my nerves tightened more.
“You remember those footprints out by the wall last night?” His face was boiled red.
“Of course.”
“Well, now we’ve got more of them.” He set down his coffee mug. “Only this time they’re out by our cars and were left by regular boots with a Vibram tread. And guess what, Doc?” he asked as I already feared what he was about to say. “The three of us ain’t going anywhere today until a tow truck gets here first.”