Page 8 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

Headlights suddenly glare in my back windshield, flaring in the mirrors. Marino’s black Ford Raptor pickup truck halts beside me. He opens his window as I roll down mine, freezing air and snow blowing in.

“I wish you wouldn’t sneak up on me like that!” I tell him, my nerves in an uproar.

“Thought you might want a ride home, Doc,” he says, and it’s not a suggestion.

The expression on his rugged face is uneasy, his eyes everywhere as if we might be in danger.

He’s wearing a ballistic vest, his shaved head covered by a Yankees baseball cap.

Instantly, I’m suspicious Lucy is the reason he’s shown up unannounced.

Marino has been parked nearby, waiting to intercept me per her instructions.

“I’m fine, but thanks,” I reply.

“I need you to get in the truck, Doc.”

“Not necessary. And I have a stop to make,” I remind him as Benton answers my text.

At a standstill near Chain Bridge Forest, he informs me. Can’t wait to see you either but could be quite a while.

“With all due respect, my truck runs rings around that thing.” Marino indicates my Subaru. “I can churn through snow and ice like a hot knife through butter.”

“Did Lucy tell you to babysit?” I reply.

“Neither of us want you running around by yourself in a blizzard and dropping off personal effects to strangers,” Marino answers, his breath smoking out.

“Just because you’ve talked to someone on the phone doesn’t mean you know them.

What if the wife had something to do with her husband ending up in the river? ”

“I don’t see how that could be possible unless she caused him to have a heart attack,” I counter. “And from what I understand, she was home with her two boys at the time.”

“I don’t get why you’re doing this, Doc.”

“Because I feel I should, and it’s also a good way for me to ask a few questions.” I’m not required to give him an explanation, but I seem to do it often enough. “Fabian says the pier where Rowdy O’Leary fished is a place people go for romantic trysts. Maybe the detail is important.”

“Figures he’d be aware of something like that since he fancies himself such a ladies’ man,” Marino snipes.

“Apparently, it’s not an ideal spot to fish,” I explain.

“When I’m out in my boat, I cruise past that pier all the time. It’s not in good shape, hasn’t been repaired in forever, and there’s nothing around it,” he says. “I wouldn’t fish there. And forget it in the winter after dark.”

“Raising questions about why someone would choose that location.” I turn down the defrost fan. “His wife might have information she hasn’t shared with the police. I’m hoping I can put her at ease, and she’ll talk freely.”

“All the more reason you need an experienced investigator with you,” Marino presumes.

“You should head home to Dorothy,” I tell him. “It’s not fair that she’s by herself. I’ll be fine on my own…”

“I consider you at risk, Doc. Maybe all of us are.” Marino isn’t going to take no for an answer. “We got no idea who the Slasher might be spying on besides Dana Diletti and the three women he’s butchered so far. You don’t need to be out here by yourself right now.”

I roll up the window, cutting the engine, knowing when to pick my battles. Collecting my belongings and the evidence envelope, I climb into Marino’s blacked-out monster truck with its run-flat tires, LED strobes and fog lamps.

I notice his Colt .45 in the pistol mount attached to the underside of the steering column. As I buckle up, he launches in about Dana Diletti’s frightening encounter.

“She showed us the window the phantom came through,” he explains over the engine’s loud thrumming, the dashboard’s digital gauges lit up in bright colors. “It’s on the second floor at the rear of the house, which faces nothing but woods.”

“What time did she say this happened?” I ask as his truck growls through the parking lot, the wipers thumping.

“About quarter of four, and by then it was foggy and getting dark.” Marino slows as we reach the security gate, the arm lifting. “Three minutes later, the hologram was gone. That’s according to time stamps on the video Dana took with her phone.”

“Do you think the Slasher or anybody else might have been on her property when this occurred?” I ask as we turn onto the snowy access road, his tire tracks from earlier barely visible. “Or did he send in the hologram remotely as we believe he often does.”

“Yes, he flew it in remotely. I don’t think the Slasher was on her property,” Marino replies. “But that doesn’t mean he won’t pay a follow-up visit that’s a whole lot worse.”

We drive through the state government park not seeing any other cars.

Employees left for the day long before now.

Buildings are modern brick with wreaths on entrance doors, lampposts wrapped like candy canes.

Through the plate glass windows of Veterans Affairs, I glimpse lighted snowflakes suspended from the ceiling.

There are trumpeting angels and Christmas trees inside the Bureau of Vital Records, the Office of Epidemiology and Emergency Medical Services. The Health Department’s oversized silver ornaments on the lawn are emblazoned with Joy to the World, the boxwoods in front a twinkling galaxy of blue LEDs.

In bleak contrast, my tan brick headquarters was built in the 1980s, ugly with tiny windows, the rooftop smokestack an antisocial eyesore when the crematorium oven is belching dirty gray smoke. We never decorate for any occasion. It wouldn’t be appropriate.

“Fruge and I walked through the woods, looking everywhere.” Marino continues giving me the details of what happened at Dana Diletti’s house.

“We also checked the cameras outside. Nothing was picked up by them except the phantomlike figure. It would scare the crap out of me if I saw something like that and thought it was real.”

“It’s real enough to be dangerous, assuming what Lucy says is true,” I reply. “The Slasher uses the holograms to transmit images and sound, to stalk and spy. Most likely that’s what he did in Dana Diletti’s case. As best we know, he’s not physically present until he’s ready to break in and murder.”

“Well, he may not have been there in person, but he sure as hell knows where she lives,” Marino says.

“She needs to get out of there right away. It’s foolish if not suicidal for her to stay.”

“I tried to tell her, Doc,” he replies. “And she’s not listening.”

We’ve stopped to make a left turn onto West Braddock Road. Car lights reflecting off snow are confusing, the traffic bumper to bumper. Nobody wants to let us merge, and Marino does it anyway.

“Hold on, Doc!” He guns his truck to a cacophony of blaring horns.

I look out my window at aggressive drivers lacking in holiday cheer. Several give us the finger while mouthing obscenities.

“I have a feeling it’s no coincidence that the Slasher would do something to create an uproar on Christmas Eve,” I resume, snowflakes melting as they hit the windshield. “So far, he’s struck on almost every major holiday this year. Valentine’s Day. Mother’s Day. Halloween.”

“I know I’m not a big-shot profiler like Benton, but what’s going on is obvious.” Marino can’t resist taking a swipe at my husband. “The Slasher wants to ruin things for people. The holidays mean something to him, probably because they were ruined when he was a kid.”

I feel a pinch of regret as I think about my sister.

She knows what it’s like to have holidays ruined as a child.

I’m more at peace with our past than she is.

I realize it wasn’t our parents’ fault that we had no money and few possibilities.

Papa didn’t choose cancer when I was five and Dorothy was a toddler.

“When’s the last time you talked to her?” I ask Marino. “This is a hard time of year for her, as you know. I’m worried about Dorothy being home alone right now.”

“A bottle of wine in, and she’s not feeling much pain,” he says, the lights of oncoming traffic shining on his strong profile as he drives.

I see the lines in his face from his love of the sun, and the white stubble that reminds me of salt. When we were first getting started, he was Richmond’s bad boy star detective cutting quite the figure with his comic book square jaw and brawn.

“Christmas wasn’t all that happy when we were growing up,” I’m telling him. “I’ll never forget our mother wringing her hands. I can hear her lamenting in Italian about not being able to pay the bills.”

It broke her spirit that she couldn’t give her two daughters much in the way of treats. There was nothing extra for indulgences, barely enough for essentials. I’d catch Mama crying and praying with her rosary beads when she thought no one was looking.

Nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo. Amen.

“Yeah, I know,” Marino says. “Like something out of Dickens is the way Dorothy describes it, the two of you forced to work in the family grocery store when you were little.”

“Not her so much,” I reply. “And I never felt forced.”

By the time I turned ten, Papa was too sick to work at Scarpetta’s, the small market he owned in our Miami neighborhood of mostly Cubans and Italians.

Dorothy was supposed to help or at least watch the door, keeping an eye out for customers.

Typically, she walked off the job, assuming she showed up at all.

She’d leave me working the cash register, stocking shelves and arranging fresh produce in bins.

I can smell the sun-ripened tomatoes, the sweet onions and basil, the braids of garlic and wheels of pungent cheeses.

I remember the displays of candy and gum that we wouldn’t think of helping ourselves to unless Papa offered.

“When we were kids, my sister didn’t face what was going on. And in some ways still doesn’t,” I’m saying to Marino as snow mixed with sleet clicks against the windshield.

“It’s not just the usual holiday blues, Doc,” he replies. “And it’s not because I got called out to deal with Dana Diletti and the fake ghost that showed up. Dorothy was already pissed at me before that. More pissed than I’ve seen her in a while. Maybe ever.”

Past the Safeway grocery store, we turn onto Alexandria’s main thoroughfare of King Street, snow crazed in our headlights. Heavy traffic has heated up the road, creating a watery slush that is treacherous in spots. Marino keeps his distance from the hydroplaning truck in front of us.

“Pissed at you about what? Has something happened that I don’t know about?” As I’m saying this, I’m sending Dorothy a text, checking on how she’s doing.

“She’s all worked up because of Janet again.” His resentment is palpable. “I hate to think how much time Dorothy spends in a day talking to her. You know as well as I do it isn’t healthy, and Janet’s managed to create a shit show.”

The Janet he refers to isn’t a living person, not anymore.

She’s the AI programming running behind an avatar.

Lucy began creating the software in earnest after the real Janet and their adopted son died of COVID five years ago while staying in London.

My niece hasn’t forgiven herself for not being with them.

Her way of coping is relentless improvement of the algorithm, the AI Janet an Alexa or Siri gone quantum.

It’s easy to forget the Janet we now know has been stitched together from recordings made while the real Janet was still among us.

The avatar continues evolving, the emotional impact on us indescribable.

“With all due respect to Lucy, I wish Dorothy didn’t have that new AI app on her damn phone,” Marino is saying. “Things were bad enough before.”