Patricia Cornwell – Scarpetta11 – The Last Precinct

Lucy makes notes. “Teun and I have stayed in touch,” she informs me.

“You’re somehow involved in what she’s doing?” I know this is where the conversation is headed.

“You could say that.”

“Crushed garlic. In the refrigerated section, in little jars. I’m going to be lazy.” I pick up a bowl of lean ground beef that I have thoroughly cooked and patted free of grease. “Not a good time for me to crush garlic myself.” I stir the beef into the sauce. “How involved?” I go into the refrigerator and open drawers. Anna doesn’t have fresh herbs, of course.

Lucy sighs. “God, Aunt Kay. I’m not sure you want to hear it.”

Until very recently, my niece and I have talked little and not in depth. We have seen each other seldom over the past year. She moved to Miami, and both of us retreated behind bunkers after Benton’s death. I try to read the stories hiding in Lucy’s eyes and instantly begin to entertain possibilities. I am suspicious about her relationship with McGovern and was last

74 year when all of us were called out to a catastrophic arson scene in Warrenton, Virginia, a homicide disguised by fire that turned out to be the first of several masterminded by Carrie Grethen.

“Fresh oregano, basil and parsley,” I dictate the grocery list. “And a small wedge of Parmesan Reggiano. Lucy, just tell me the truth.” I look for spices. McGovern is about my age and singleor at least she was single last time I saw her. I shut a cupboard door and face my niece. “Are you and Teun involved?”

“We weren’t that way.”

“Weren’t?”

“Actually, you’re one to talk,” Lucy says without rancor. “What about you and Jay?”

“He doesn’t work for me,” I reply. “I certainly don’t work for him. I don’t want to talk about him, either. We’re talking about you.”

“I hate it when you dismiss me, Aunt Kay,” she quietly says.

“I’m not dismissing you,” I offer as an apology. “I just worry when people who work together get too personal. I be­lieve in boundaries.”

“You worked with Benton.” She points out another of my exceptions to my own rules.

I tap the spoon on the side of the pot. “I’ve done a lot of things in life that I tell you not to do. I tell you not to do them because I made the mistake first.”

“Did you ever moonlight?” Lucy stretches her lower back and rolls her shoulders.

I frown. “Moonlight? Not that I recall.”

“Okay. Truth serum time. I’m a felonious moonlighter and Teun’s biggest backerthe major stockholder for The Last Precinct. There. The whole truth. You’re going to hear it.”

“Let’s go sit.” I direct us to the table and we pull out chairs.

“It all began accidentally,” Lucy begins. “A couple years ago, I created a search engine for my own use. Meanwhile, all I was hearing about was the fortunes people were making on Internet technology. So I said what the hell and sold the search engine for three quarters of a million dollars.”

I am not shocked. Lucy’s earning possibilities have been limited only by the profession she chose.

“Then I got another idea when we seized a bunch of com­puters during a raid,” she continues. “I was helping restore deleted e-mail and it got me thinking about how vulnerable all of us are to having the ghosts of our electronic communica­tions conjured up to haunt us. So I figured out a way to scram­ble e-mail. Shred it, figuratively speaking. Now there are a number of software packages for that sort of thing. I made a hell of a lot of money off that brainstorm.”

There is nothing diplomatic about my next question. Does ATF know she invented technology that might foil law en­forcement efforts to restore the e-mail of the bad guys? Lucy replies that someone was going to come up with the technol­ogy, and the privacy of law-abiding people needs to be pro­tected, too. ATF doesn’t know about her entrepreneurial activities or that she has been investing in Internet inventions and stocks. Until this moment, only her financial adviser and Teun McGovern are privy to the fact that Lucy is a multi­millionaire who has her own helicopter on order.

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