Point of Origin

'Poor Lucy,' I muttered.

'Yeah, well, poor everybody,' Marino said.

7

RAIN WAS SLANTED and flying down like nails as I made my way home, scarcely able to see. I had turned the radio off because I did not want to hear any more news this day, and I was certain this would be one night when I was too keyed up to sleep. Twice I slowed to thirty miles an hour as my heavy Mercedes sedan splashed through water like a cigarette boat. On West Cary Street, dips and potholes were filled like tubs, and emergency lights streaking red and blue through the downpour reminded me to take my time.

It was almost ten o'clock when I finally pulled into my driveway and a note of fear was plucked in my heart when motion sensor lights did not come on near the garage door. The darkness was complete, with only the rumble of my car engine and drumming of rain to orient my senses as to what world I was in. For a moment, I deliberated about opening the garage door or speeding away.

'This is ridiculous,' I said to myself as I pressed a button on the visor.

But the door did not respond.

'Damn!'

I shifted the car into reverse and backed up without being able to see the driveway or brick border or even the shrubbery, for that matter. The tree I swiped was small and did no harm, but I felt sure I had churned up part of the lawn as I maneuvered to the front of my house, where timers inside had at least turned lamps on and the light in the foyer. As for motion sensor lights on either side of the front steps, they were out, too. I reasonably told myself that the weather had caused a power outage earlier in the evening, causing a circuit breaker to be thrown.

Rain swept into my car as I opened the door. I grabbed my pocketbook and briefcase and bolted up the front steps. I was soaked to the skin by the time I unlocked the front door, and the silence that greeted me thrilled me with fear. Lights dancing across the keypad by the door meant the burglar alarm had gone off, or perhaps an electrical surge had screwed that up, too. But it did not matter. By now I was terrified and afraid to move. So I stood in the foyer, water dripping on the hardwood floor as my brain raced to the nearest gun.

I could not remember if I had returned the Glock to a drawer of the kitchen desk. That certainly would be closer than my office or bedroom, which were on the other side of the house. Stone walls and windows were buffeted by the wind and lashed by rain, and I strained to hear any other sounds, such as the creaking of an upstairs floor or feet on carpet. In a burst of panic, I suddenly dropped my briefcase and pocketbook from my hands and ran through the dining room and into the kitchen, my wet feet almost going out from under me. I yanked open the bottom right drawer in the desk and almost cried out in relief when I grabbed my Glock.

For a while I searched my house again, flipping on lights in every room. Satisfied that I had no unwanted guests, I checked the fuse box in the garbage and flipped on the breakers that had tripped. Order was restored, the alarm reset, and I poured a tumbler of Black Bush Irish whiskey on the rocks and waited for my nerves to tuck themselves back inside their sheaths. Then I called Johnson's Motel in Warrenton, but Lucy was not there. So I tried her apartment in D.C. and Janet answered the phone.

'Hi, it's Kay,' I said. 'I hope I didn't wake anyone.'

'Oh, hello, Dr Scarpetta,' said Janet, who could not call me by my first name no matter how many times I had told her to. 'No, I'm just sitting here having a beer and waiting for Lucy.'

'I see,' I said, very disappointed. 'She's on her way home from Warrenton?'

'Not for long. You ought to see this place. Boxes everywhere. It's a wreck.'

'How are you holding up through all this, Janet?'

'I don't know yet,' she said, and I detected a quiver in her voice. 'It will be an adjustment. God knows, we've been through adjustments before.'

'And I'm sure you'll get through this one with flying colors.'

I sipped my whiskey and had no faith in what I'd just said, but at the moment I was grateful to hear a warm human voice.

'When I was married - ancient years ago - Tony and I were on two totally different planes,' I said. 'But we managed to find time for each other, quality time. In some ways, it was better like that.'

'And you also got divorced,' she politely pointed out.

'Not at first.'

'Lucy won't be here for at least another hour, Dr Scarpetta. Is there a message I can give her?'

I hesitated, not sure what to do.

'Is everything all right?' Janet then asked.

'Actually, no,' I said. 'I guess you haven't heard. I guess she hasn't heard either, for that matter.'

I gave her a quick summary of Carrie's letter to the press, and after I had finished, Janet was as silent as a cathedral.

'I'm telling you because you'd better be prepared,' I added. 'You could wake up tomorrow and see this in the paper. You might hear it on the late news tonight.'

'It's best you told me,' Janet said so quietly I could barely hear her. 'And I'll let Lucy know when she gets in.'

'Tell her to call me, if she's not too tired.'

'I'll tell her.'

'Good night, Janet.'

'No, it isn't. It isn't a good night at all,' she said. 'That bitch has been ruining our lives for years. One way or another. And I've fucking had enough of it! And I'm sorry to use that word.'

'I've said it before.'

'I was there, for God's sake!' She began to cry. 'Carrie was all over her, the manipulative psycho bitch. Lucy never stood a chance. My God, she was just a kid, this genius kid who probably should have stayed in college where she belonged instead of doing an internship with the Fucking Bureau of Investigation. Look, I'm still FBI, okay? But I see the shit. And they haven't done right by her, which just makes her all the more vulnerable to what Carrie is doing.'

My whiskey was half gone, and there wasn't enough of it in the world to make me feel better right now.

'She doesn't need to get upset, either,' Janet went on in a gush of frankness about her lover that I had never before heard. 'I don't know if she's told you. In fact, I don't think she ever intended to, but Lucy's been seeing a psychiatrist for two years, Dr Scarpetta.'

'Good. I'm glad to hear it,' I said, disguising my hurt. 'No, she hasn't told me, but I wouldn't necessarily expect her to,' I added with the perfect voice of objectivity as the ache in my heart got more intense.

'She's been suicidal,' Janet said. 'More than once.'

'I'm glad she s seeing someone,' was all I could think to say as tears welled.

I was devastated. Why had Lucy not reached out to me?

'Most of the great achievers have their very dark passages,' I said. 'I'm just glad she's doing something about it. Is she taking anything?'

'Wellbutrin. Prozac weirded her out. One minute a zombie and bar-hopping the next.'

'Oh.' I could barely speak.

'She doesn't need any more stress or upheavals or rejections,' Janet went on. 'You don't know what it's like. Something knocks her off balance, and she's down for weeks, up and down, up and down, morbid and miserable one minute and Mighty Mouse the next.'

She placed her hand over the receiver and blew her nose. I wanted to know the name of Lucy's psychiatrist but was afraid to ask. I wondered if my niece were bipolar and undiagnosed.

'Dr Scarpetta, I don't want her…' She struggled, choking. 'I don't want her to die.'

'She won't,' I said. 'I can promise you that.'

We hung up and I sat for a while on my bed, still dressed and afraid to sleep because of the chaos inside my head. For a while I wept in fury and in pain. Lucy could hurt me more than anyone, and she knew it. She could bruise me to the bone and crush my heart, and what Janet had told me was, by far, the most devastating blow. I could not help but think of Teun McGovern's inquisitive mind when we had talked in my office, and she had seemed to know so much about Lucy's difficulties. Had Lucy told her and not me?