Point of Origin

When I reached the spot where I had found Wesley when he had been somewhat mad at me, I stood near that same tree, and soon it was too dark to spot an eagle or the river's rocks. For a time, I stood staring at my neighbors' lights in the night, suddenly not having the energy to move as I contemplated that Kenneth Sparkes was either a victim or a killer. Then heavy footsteps sounded on the street behind me. Startled, I whipped around, gripping the canister of red pepper spray attached to my keys.

Marino's voice was quickly followed by his formidable shape.

'Doc, you shouldn't be out here this late,' he said.

I was too drained to resent his having an opinion on how I was spending my evening.

'How did you know I was here?' I asked.

'One of your neighbors.'

I did not care.

'My car's right over there,' he went on. 'I'll drive you home.'

'Marino, can I never have a moment's peace?' I said with no rancor, for I knew he meant no harm to me.

'Not tonight,' he said. 'I got some really bad news and think you might want to sit down.'

I immediately thought of Lucy and felt the strength go out of my knees. I swayed and put my hand on his shoulder as my mind seemed to shatter into a million pieces. I had always known the day might come when someone would deliver her death notice to me, and I could not speak or think. I was miles beyond the moment, sucked down deeper and deeper into a dark and terrible vortex. Marino grabbed my arm to steady me.

'Jesus,' he exclaimed. 'Let me get you to the car and we'll sit down.'

'No,' I barely said, because I had to know. 'How's Lucy?'

He paused for a moment and seemed confused.

'Well, she don't know yet, unless she's heard it on the news,' he replied.

'Know what?' I asked as my blood seemed to move again.

'Carrie Grethen's escaped from Kirby,' he told me. 'Some time late this afternoon. They didn't figure it out until it was time to take the female inmates down for dinner.'

We began walking quickly to his car as fear made him angry.

'And here you are walking around in the dark with nothing but a keychain,' he went on. 'Shit. Goddamn son of a bitch. Don't you do that anymore, you hear me? We got no idea where that bitch is, but one thing I know for a fact, as long as she's out, you ain't safe.'

'No one in the world is safe,' I muttered as I climbed into his car and thought of Benton alone at the beach.

Carrie Grethen hated him almost as much as she hated me, or at least this was my belief. Benton had profiled her and was the quarterback in the game that had eventually resulted in her capture and Temple Gault's death. Benton had used the Bureau's every resource to lock Carrie away, and until now, it had worked.

'Is there any way she might know where Benton is?' I said as Marino drove me to my house. 'He's alone on an island resort. He probably takes walks on the beach without his gun, unmindful that there might be someone looking for him…'

'Like someone else I know,' Marino cut me off.

'Point well taken.'

'I'm sure Benton already knows, but I'll call him,' Marino said. 'And I got no reason to think that Carrie would know about your place in Hilton Head. You didn't have it back then when Lucy was telling her all your secrets.'

'That's not fair,' I said as he pulled into my driveway and came to an abrupt stop. 'Lucy never meant it that way. She never meant to be disloyal, to hurt me.'

I lifted the handle of my door.

'At this point, it don't matter what she meant.'

He blew smoke out his window.

'How did Carrie get out?' I asked. 'Kirby's on an island and not easily accessible.'

'No one knows. About three hours ago, she was supposed to go down to dinner with all the other lovely ladies, and that's when the guards realized she was gone. Boom, no sign of her, and about a mile away there's an old footbridge that goes over the East River into Harlem.'

He tossed the cigarette butt on my driveway.

'All anyone can figure is maybe she got off the island that way. Cops are everywhere, and they got choppers out to make sure she's not still hiding somewhere on the island. But I don't think so. I think she's planned this for a while, and timed it exactly. We'll hear from her, all right. You can bet on that.'

I was deeply unsettled when I went inside my house and checked every door and set the alarm. I then did something that was rare and unnerving for me. I got my Glock nine-millimeter pistol from a drawer in my office, and secured every closet in every room, on each floor. I stepped into each doorway, the pistol firm in both hands as my heart hammered. By now Carrie Grethen had become a monster with supernatural powers. I had begun to imagine that she could evade any security system, and would glide out of the shadows when I was feeling safe and unaware.

There seemed to be no presence in my two-story stone house but me, and I carried a glass of red burgundy into my bedroom and got into my robe. I called Wesley again and felt a chill when he did not pick up the phone. I tried once more at almost midnight, and still he did not answer.

'Dear God,' I said, alone in my room.

Lamplight was soft and cast shadows from antique dressers and tables that had been stripped down to old gray oak, because I liked flaws and the stress marks of time. Pale rose draperies stirred as air flowed out from vents, and every movement unglued me more, no matter the explanation. With each passing moment, my brain was further overruled by fear as I tried to repress images from the past I shared with Carrie Grethen. I hoped Benton would call. I told myself he was okay and that what I needed was sleep. So I tried to read Seamus Heaney's poetry and dozed off somewhere in the middle of The Spoonbait. The phone rang at twenty minutes past two A.M., and my book slid to the floor.

'Scarpetta,' I blurted into the receiver as my heart pounded the way it always did when I was startled awake.

'Kay, it's me,' Benton said. 'Sorry to call you this late, but I was afraid you were trying to reach me. Somehow the answering machine got turned off, and, well, I went out to eat and then walked the beach for more than two hours. To think. I guess you know the news.'

'Yes.' I was suddenly very alert.

'Are you all right?' he said, because he knew me well.

'I searched every inch of my house tonight before going to bed. I had my gun out and checked every closet and behind every shower curtain.'

'I thought you probably would.'

'It's like knowing a bomb is on the way in the mail.'

'No, it's not like that, Kay. Because we don't know one is coming or when or in what form. I wish we did. But that's part of her game. To make us guess.'

'Benton, you know how she feels about you. I don't like you there alone.'

'Do you want me to come home?'

I thought about this and had no good answer.

'I'll get in my car right this minute,' he added. 'If that's what you want.'

Then I told him about the body in the ruins of Kenneth Sparkes's mansion, and I went on and on about that, and about my meeting with the tycoon on Hootowl Farm. I talked and explained while he listened patiently.

'The point is,' I concluded, 'that this is turning out to be terribly complicated, if not bizarre, and there is so much to do. It makes no sense for your vacation to be ruined, too. And Marino's right. There's no reason to suspect that Carrie knows about our place in Hilton Head. You're probably safer there than here, Benton.'

'I wish she'd come here.' His voice turned hard. 'I'd welcome her with my Sig Sauer and we could finally put an end to this.'

I knew he truly wanted to kill her, and this was, in a way, the worst damage she could have done. It was not like Benton to wish for violence, to allow a shadow of the evil he pursued to fall over his conscience and heart, and as I listened, I felt my own culpability, too.

'Do you see how destructive this is?' I said, upset. 'We sit around talking about shooting her, strapping her into the electric chair or giving her a lethal injection. She has succeeded in taking possession of us, Benton. Because I admit that I want her dead about as much as I've ever wanted anything.'