‘Lord, I don’t want to get grounded here,’ I said over my mike as sure enough, a cluster of Georgian brick buildings came into view.
‘I don’t know about this.’ Lucy was looking around. ‘If she’s here. Where, Aunt Kay?’
‘Wherever she thinks we are.’ I sounded so sure.
Lucy took over.
‘I’ve got the controls,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if I hope you’re right or not.’
‘You hope it,’ I answered her. ‘In fact, you hope it so much it scares me, Lucy.’
‘I’m not the one who brought us here.’
Carrie had tried to ruin Lucy. Carrie had murdered Benton.
‘I know who brought us here,’ I said. ‘It was her.’
The university was close below us, and we found the athletic field where McGovern was waiting. Men and women were playing soccer, but there was a clearing near the tennis courts, and this was where Lucy was to land. She circled the area twice, once high, once low, and neither of us spotted any obstructions, except for an odd tree here and there. Several cars were on the sidelines, and as we settled to the grass, I noted that one of them was a dark blue Explorer with a driver inside. Then I realized that the intramural soccer game was coached by Teun McGovern in P.E. gym shorts and shirt. She had a whistle around her neck, and her teams were co-ed and very fit.
I looked around as if Carrie were observing all this, but skies were empty, and nothing offered even the scent of her. The instant we were on the ground and in flight idle, the Explorer drove across the grass and stopped a safe distance from our blades. It was driven by an unfamiliar woman, and I was stunned to see Marino in the passenger’s seat.
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said to Lucy.
‘How the hell did he get here?’ She was amazed, too.
Marino stared at us through the windshield as we waited out our two minutes and shut down. He didn’t smile and wasn’t the least bit friendly when I climbed into the back of the car while Lucy tied down the main rotor blades. McGovern and her soccer players went on with their staged game, paying no attention to us at all. But I noticed the gym bags beneath benches on the sidelines, and I had no doubt what was inside them. It was as if we were expecting an approaching army, an ambush by enemy troops, and I could not help but wonder if Carrie had made a mockery of us once again.
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you,’ I commented to Marino.
‘You think it’s possible US Airways could fly somewhere without dumping your ass out in Charlotte first?’ he complained. ‘Took me as long to get here as it probably did you.
‘I’m Ginny Correll.’ Our driver turned around and shook my hand.
She was at least forty, a very attractive blond dressed primly in a pale green suit, and had I not known the truth, I might have assumed she was on the university’s faculty. But there was a scanner and a two-way radio inside the car, and I caught a flicker of the pistol in the shoulder holster beneath her jacket. She waited until Lucy was inside the Explorer, and then began turning around in the grass as the soccer game went on.
‘Here’s what’s going on,’ Correll began to explain. ‘We didn’t know whether the suspect or suspects might be waiting for you, following you, whatever, so we prepared for that.’
‘I can see that you did,’ I said.
‘They’ll be heading off the field in about two minutes, and the important point is we got guys all over the place. Some dressed as students, others hanging out in town, checking out the hotels and bars, things like that. Where we’re heading now is the student counseling center, where the assistant director’s going to meet us. She was Claire Rawley’s counselor and has all her records.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘Just so you know, Doc,’ Marino said, ‘we got a campus police officer who thinks he may have spotted Carrie yesterday in the student union.’