I held her face in my hands until she looked at me.
‘You’re going to let that no-good piece of trash Carrie do that to you?’ I demanded. ‘Where’s that fierce spirit I know?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered with a sigh.
‘Yes you do,’ I said. ‘Don’t you dare ruin my life, Lucy. It’s been damaged enough. Don’t you dare make me spend the rest of my days with the echo of a gunshot sounding on and on in my mind. I didn’t think you were a coward.’
‘I’m not.’
Her eyes focused on mine.
‘Tomorrow we fight back,’ I said.
She nodded, swallowing hard.
‘Go take a shower,’ I said.
I waited until I heard the water in her bathroom running, and then went into the kitchen. We needed to eat, although I doubted either of us felt like it. I thawed chicken breasts and cooked them in stock with whatever fresh vegetables I could find. I was liberal with rosemary, bay leaves, and sherry, but nothing stronger, not even pepper, for we needed to be soothed. Marino called twice while we were eating, to make certain we were all right.
‘You can come over,’ I said to him. ‘I’ve made soup, although it might be kind of thin by your standards.’
‘I’m okay,’ he said, and I knew he did not mean it.
‘I’ve got plenty of room, if you’d like to stay the night. I should have thought to ask you earlier.’
‘No, Doc. I got things to do.’
‘I’m going to the office first thing in the morning,’ I said.
‘I don’t know how you can,’ he replied in a judgmental way, as if my thinking about work meant I wasn’t showing what I should be showing right now.
‘I have a plan. And come hell or high water, I’m going to carry it out,’ I said.
‘I hate it when you start planning things.’
I hung up and collected empty soup bowls from the kitchen table, and the more I thought about what I was going to do, the more manic I got.
‘How hard would it be for you to get a helicopter?’ I said to my niece.
‘What?’ She looked amazed.
‘You heard me.’
‘Do you mind if I ask what for? You know, I can’t just order one like a cab.’
‘Call Teun,’ I said. ‘Tell her I’m taking care of business and need all of the cooperation I can get. Tell her if all goes as I’m hoping, I’m going to need her and a team to meet us in Wilmington, North Carolina. I don’t know when yet. Maybe right away. But I need free rein. They’re going to have to trust me.’
Lucy got up and went to the sink to fill her glass with more water.
‘This is nuts,’ she said.
‘Can you get a helicopter or not?’
‘If I get permission, then yes. Border Patrol has them. That’s usually what we use. I can probably get one in from D.C.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Get it as fast as you can. In the morning I’m hitting the labs to confirm what I think I already know. Then we may be going to New York.’
‘Why?’
She looked interested but skeptical.
‘We’re going to land at Kirby and I intend to get to the bottom of things,’ I answered her.
Marino called again at close to ten, and I reassured him one more time that Lucy and I were as fine as could be expected, and that we felt safe inside my house, with its sophisticated alarm system, lighting, and guns. He sounded bleary and thick, and I could tell he had been drinking, his TV turned up loud.
‘I need you to meet me at the lab at eight,’ I said.
‘I know, I know.’
‘It’s very important, Marino.’
‘It’s not like you need to tell me that, Doc.’
‘Get some sleep,’ I said.
‘Ditto.’
But I couldn’t. I sat at my desk in my study, going through the suspicious fire deaths from ESA. I studied the Venice Beach death, and then the one from Baltimore, struggling to see what, if anything, the cases and victims had in common besides the point of origin and the fact that although arson was suspected, investigators could find no evidence of it. I called the Baltimore police department first, and found someone in the detective division who seemed amenable to talking.