I was sorry to interrupt this innocent frolicking when the distinctive chopping noise became audible. The children froze into a tableau of wonderment as the Bell Jetranger lowered itself with a roaring wind to the center of the field. I boarded and waved goodbye as we rose above trees. The sun settled into the horizon like Apollo lying down to sleep, and then the sky was as thick as octopus ink. I saw no stars when we arrived at the Academy. Benton Wesley, who had been kept informed of our progress by radio, was waiting when we landed. The instant I climbed out of the helicopter, he had my arm and was leading me away.
"Come on," he said.
"It's good to see you, Kay," he added under his breath, and the pressure of his fingers on my arm unsettled me more.
"The fingerprint recovered from Ferguson's panties was left by Denesa Steiner."
"What?" He propelled me swiftly through the dark.
"And the ABO grouping of the tissue we found in his freezer is 0-positive. Emily Steiner was 0-positive. We're still waiting for DNA, but it appears Ferguson stole the lingerie from the Steiner home when he broke in to abduct Emily."
"You mean, when someone broke in and abducted Emily."
"That's right. Gault could be playing games."
"Benton, for God's sake, what crisis? Where's Lucy?"
"I imagine she's in her dorm room," he replied as we walked into the lobby of Jefferson.
I squinted in the light and was not cheered by a digital sign behind the information desk announcing WELCOME TO THE FBI ACADEMY. I did not feel Welcome this night.
"What did she do?" I persisted as he used a magnetized card to unlock a set of glass doors with Department of Justice and National Academy seals.
"Wait until we get downstairs," he said.
"How's your hand? And your knee?" I remembered.
"Much better since I went to a doctor."
"Thanks," I said dryly.
"I'm referring to you. You're the only doctor I've been to recently."
"I might as well clean your stitches while I'm here."
"That won't be necessary."
"I need hydrogen peroxide and cotton swabs. Don't worry." I smelled Hoppes as we walked through the gun-cleaning room.
"It shouldn't hurt very much." We took the elevator to the lower level, where the Investigative Support Unit was the fire in the belly of the FBI. Wesley reigned over eleven other profilers, and at this hour, every one of them had left for the day. I had always liked the space where Wesley worked, for he was a man of sentiment and understatement, and one could not possibly know this without knowing him.
While most people in law enforcement filled walls and shelves with commendations and souvenirs from their war against base human nature, Wesley chose paintings, and he had several very fine ones. My favorite was an expansive landscape by Valoy Baton, who I believed was as good as Remington and one day would cost as much. I had several Baton oil paintings in my home, and what was odd was that Wesley and I had discovered the Utahan artist independent of each other. This is not to say that Wesley did not have his occasional exotic trophy, but he displayed only those that held meaning. The Viennese white police cap, the bearskin cap from a Cold Stream Guard, and silver gaucho spurs from Argentina, for example, had nothing to do with serial killers or any other atrocity Wesley worked as a matter of course. They were gifts from well-traveled friends like me. In fact, Wesley had many mementos of our relationship because when words failed I spoke in symbols. So he had an Italian scabbard, a pistol with scrims hawed ivory grips, and a Mont Blanc pen that he kept in a pocket over his heart.
"Talk to me," I said, taking a chair.
"What else is going on? You look awful."
"I feel awful." He loosened his tie and ran his fingers through his hair.
"Kay" -he looked at me"-I don't know how to tell you this. Christ! "
"Just say it," I said very quietly as my blood went cold.
"It appears that Lucy broke into ERF, that she violated security."
"How could she break in?" I asked incredulously.
"She has clearance to be there, Benton."
"She does not have clearance to be there at three o'clock in the morning, which was when her thumbprint was scanned into the biometric lock system."
I stared at him in disbelief.
"And your niece certainly does not have clearance to go into classified files pertaining to classified projects being worked on over there."
"What projects?" I dared to ask.
"It appears she went into files pertaining to electro- optics, thermal imaging, video and audio enhancement. And she apparently printed programs from the electronic version of case management that she's been working on for us."
"You mean from CAIN?"
"Yes, that's right."
"What wasn't gotten into?" I asked, stunned.
"Well, that's really the point. She got into virtually everything, meaning it's difficult for us to know what she was really after and for whom."
"Are the devices the engineers are working on really so secret?"
"Some of them are, and all of the techniques are, from a security standpoint. We don't want it known that we use this device in this situation and use something else in another."
"She couldn't have," I said.
"We know she did. The question is why."
"All right, then, why?" I blinked back tears.
"Money. That would be my guess."
"That's ridiculous. If she needs money she knows she can come to me."
"Kay" -Wesley leaned forward and folded his hands on top of his desk"-do you have any idea how valuable some of this information is?"
I did not reply.
"Imagine, for example, if ERF developed a surveillance device that could filter out background noise so we could be privy to virtually any conversation of interest to us anywhere in the world. Imagine who out there would love to know the details of our rapid prototyping or tactical satellite systems, or for that matter, the artificial intelligence software Lucy is developing…"
I held up my hand to stop him.
"Enough," I said as I took a deep, shaky breath.
"Then you tell me why," Wesley said.
"You know Lucy better than I do."
"I'm no longer so sure I know her at all. And I don't know how she could do such a thing, Benton." He paused, staring off for a moment before meeting my eyes again.
"You've indicated to me that you're worried about her drinking. Can you elaborate on that?"
"My guess is she drinks like she does everything else-in extreme. Lucy is either very good or very bad, and alcohol is just one example. "I knew even as I said the words I was darkening Wesley's suspicions.
"I see," he said.
"Is there alcoholism in her family?"
"I'm beginning to think there's alcoholism in everybody's family," I said bitterly.
"But yes. Her father was an alcoholic."
"This would be your brother-in-law?"
"He was very briefly. As you know, Dorothy's been married four times."
"Are you aware that there have been nights when Lucy didn't return to her dormitory room?"
"I know nothing about that. Was she in her bed the night of the break-in? She has suite mates and a roommate."
"She could have snuck out when everyone was asleep. So we don't know.
Are you and your niece getting along well? " he then asked.
"Not especially."
"Kay, could she have done something like this to punish you?"
"No," I said, and I was getting angry with him.