Point of Origin

'Let's go down to six hundred feet,' Lucy said. 'And lower the speed.'

'You want me to do it.' I wanted to make sure.

'Your ship.'

It wasn't pretty, but I managed.

'My guess is, the university's not going to be on the water, and is probably a bunch of brick buildings.'

'Thank you, Sherlock.'

Everywhere I looked I saw water, condominium complexes, and water treatment and other plants. The ocean was to the east, sparkling and ruffled, oblivious to dark, bruised clouds gathering on the horizon. A storm was on its way and did not seem to be in a hurry but threatened to be bad.

'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.'

'The Hawk's Nest, to be specific,' Correll said. 'That's the cafeteria.'

'Short dyed red hair, weird eyes. She was buying a sandwich, and he noticed her because she stared holes in him when she walked past his table, and then when we started passing her photo around, he said it might have been her. Can't swear to it, though.'

'It would be like her to stare at a cop,' Lucy said. 'Jerking people around is her favorite sport.'

'I'll also add that it's not unusual for college kids to look like the homeless,' I said.

'We're checking pawn shops around here to see if anybody fitting Carrie's description might have bought a gun, and we're also checking for stolen cars in the area,' Marino said. 'Assuming if she and her sidekick stole cars in New York or Philadelphia, they aren't going to show up here with those plates.'

The campus was an immaculate collection of modified Georgian buildings tucked amid palms, magnolias, crepe myrtles, and lobolly and long-leaf pines. Gardenias were in bloom and when we got out of the car, their perfume clung to the humid, hot air and went to my head.

I loved the scents of the South, and for a moment, it did not seem possible that anything bad could happen here. It was summer session, and the campus was not heavily populated. Parking lots were half full, with many of the bike racks empty. Some of the cars driving on College Road had surfboards strapped to their roofs.

The counseling center was on the second floor of Westside Hall, and the waiting area for students with health problems was mauve and blue and full of light. Thousand-piece puzzles of rural scenes were in various stages of completion on coffee tables, offering a welcome distraction for those who had appointments. A receptionist was expecting us and showed us down a corridor, past observation and group rooms, and spaces for GRE testing. Dr Chris Booth was energetic with kind, wise eyes, a woman approaching sixty, I guessed, and one who loved the sun. She was weathered in a way that gave her character, her skin deeply tanned and lined, her short hair white, and her body slight but vital.

She was a psychologist with a corner office that overlooked the fine arts building and lush live oak trees. I had always been fascinated by the personality behind offices. Where she worked was soothing and unprovocative but shrewd in its arrangement of chairs that suited very different personalities. There was a papasan chair for the patient who wanted to curl up on deep cushions and be open for help, and a cane-back rocker and a stiff love seat. The color scheme was gentle green, with paintings of sailboats on the walls, and elephant ear in terracotta pots.

'Good afternoon,' Dr Booth said to us with a smile as she invited us in. 'I'm very glad to see you.'

'And I'm very glad to see you,' I replied.

I helped myself to the rocking chair, while Ginny perched on the love seat. Marino looked around with self-conscious eyes and eased his way into the papasan, doing what he could not to be swallowed by it. Dr Booth sat in her office chair, her back to her perfectly clean desk that had nothing on it but a can of Diet Pepsi. Lucy stood by the door.

'I've been hoping that someone would come see me,' Dr Booth began, as if she had called this meeting. 'But I honestly didn't know who to contact or even if I should.'