Living here was an award for academic achievement, yet it might have been considered a dubious honor by some.
Showers and toilets were located in another building in back, the sparsely furnished rooms not necessarily intended for comfort. Yet I had never heard Lucy complain, for she had truly loved her life at UVA.
She was staying on the West Lawn in Pavilion III, with its Corinthian capitals of Carrara marble that had been carved in Italy. Wooden shutters outside room I I were drawn, the morning paper still on the mat, and I wondered, perplexed, if she had not gotten up yet. I rapped on the door several times and heard someone stirring.
"Who is it?" my niece's voice called out.
"It's me," I said.
There was a pause, then a surprised, "Aunt Kay?"
"Are you going to open the door?" My good mood was fading fast for she did not sound pleased.
"Uh, hold on a minute. I'm coming."
The door unlocked and opened.
"Hi," she said as she let me in.
"I hope I didn't wake you up." I handed her the newspaper.
"Oh, T. C. gets that," she said, referring to the friend who really belonged to this room. "She forgot to cancel it before she left for Germany. I never get around to reading it."
I entered an apartment not so different from where I had visited my niece last year. The space was small with bed and sink, and crowded bookcases. Heart of pine floors were bare, with no art on whitewashed walls except a single poster of Anthony Hopkins. Lucy's technical preoccupations had taken over tables, desk and even several chairs. Other equipment, like the fax machine and what looked like a small robot, was out cold on the floor.
Additional telephone lines had been installed, and these were connected to modems winking with green lights. But I did not get the impression that my niece was living here alone, for on the sink were two toothbrushes, and solution for contact lenses that she did not wear. Both sides of the twin bed were unmade, and on top of it was a briefcase I did not recognize, either.
"Here." She lifted a printer off a chair and put me close to the fire. "Sorry everything's such a mess." She wore a bright orange UVA sweatshirt and jeans, and her hair was wet. "I can heat up some water," she said, and she was very distracted.
"If you're offering tea, I accept," I said.
I watched her closely as she filled a pot with water and plugged it in. Nearby, on a dresser top were FBI credentials, a pistol and car keys. I spotted file folders and pieces of paper scribbled with notes, and I spotted unfamiliar clothing hanging inside the closet. -Tell me about T. C.,- I said.
Lucy opened a tea bag. "A German major. She's spending the next six weeks in Munich. So she said I could stay here."
"That was very nice of her. Would you like me to help you pack up her things or at least make room for your%?"
"You don't need to do any work at all right now."
I glanced toward the window, hearing someone.
"You still take your tea black?" Lucy said.
The fire crackled, smoking wood shifted, and I wasn't surprised when the door opened and another woman walked in. But I was not expecting Janet, and she was not expecting me.
"Dr. Scarpetta," he said in surprise as she glanced at Lucy. "How great of you to drop by."
She was carrying shower items, a baseball cap pulled over wet hair that was almost to her shoulders. Dressed in sweats and tennis shoes, she was lovely and healthy, and like Lucy, seemed even younger because she was on a university campus again.
"Please join us," Lucy said to her as she handed me a mug of tea.
"We were out running.- Janet smiled. "Sorry about the hair. So what brings you here?" she asked as she sat on the floor.
"I need some help with a case," was all I said. "Are you taking this virtual reality course too?" I studied both of their faces.
"Right," Janet said. "Lucy and I are here together. As you may or may not know, I was transferred to the Washington Field Office late last year."
"Lucy mentioned it."
"I've been assigned to white-collar crime," she went on.
"Especially anything that might be related to a violation of the 10C."
"Which is?" I asked.
It was Lucy who replied as she sat next to me, "Interception of Communication statute. We've got the only group in the country with experts who can handle these cases."
"Then the Bureau has sent both of you here for training because of this group." I tried to understand. "But I guess I don't see what virtual reality might have to do with hackers breaking into major databases," I added.
Janet was silent as she took off her cap and combed her hair, staring into the fire. I could tell she was very uncomfortable, and I wondered how much of it had to do with what had happened in Aspen over the holidays. My niece moved to the hearth and sat facing me.
"We're not here for a class, Aunt Kay," she said with quiet seriousness. "That's how it's supposed to look to everybody else. Now, I'm going to tell you this when I shouldn't, but it's too late for any more lies."
"You don't have to tell me," I said. "I understand."
"No." Her eyes were intense. "I want you to understand what's going on. And to give you a quick, dirty summary, last fall Commonwealth Power and Light began experiencing problems when what appeared to be a hacker started getting inside their computer system. The attempts were frequent-sometimes four or five times a day. But there was no success in identifying this individual until he left tracks in an audit log after accessing and printing customer billing information. We were called, and remotely we managed to trace the perpetrator to UVA."
"Then you haven't caught whoever it is," I said.
"No." It was Janet who spoke. "We interviewed the graduate student whose I.D. it was, but he definitely isn't the hacker. We have reasons to be very sure of that."
"Point is," said Lucy, "several other I.D.s have been stolen from students here since, and the perpetrator was also trying to access CP amp;L along with the university computer and one in Pittsburgh."
"Was?" I asked.
"Actually, he's been pretty quiet lately, which makes it harder for us," Janet said. "Mostly, we've been chasing him through the university computer."
"Right," Lucy said. "We haven't tracked him in CP amp;L's computer for almost a week. I figure because of the holidays."
"Why might someone be doing this?" I asked. "Do you have a theory?"
"A power trip, no pun intended," Janet simply said ' "Maybe so he can turn lights on and off throughout Virginia and the Carolinas. Who knows?"
"But what we believe is that whoever's doing it is on campus, and is getting in via the Internet and another link called Telnet," Lucy said, adding confidently, "We'll get him."
"You mind if I ask why all the secrecy?" I said to my niece. "Could you not just tell me you were on a case you couldn't discuss?"
She hesitated before responding, "You're on the faculty here, Aunt Kay."
This was true, and I had not even thought of that. Though I was only a visiting professor in pathology and legal medicine, I decided Lucy's point was well taken, and I supposed I did not blame her for keeping this from me for yet another reason. She wanted her independence, especially in this place where for the duration of her undergraduate studies it had been well known that she was related to me.
I looked at her. "Is this why you left Richmond so abruptly the other night?"
"I got paged."
"By me," Janet said. "I was flying in from Aspen, got delayed, et cetera. Lucy picked me up at the airport and we came back here."
"And were there any other attempted break-ins over the holidays?"