Page 120 of Sharp Force

“It won’t matter,” he says. “The FBI plans to open a grand jury proceeding against Zain, charging him with Georgine’s murder. And there’s nothing the governor can do about it.”

We’re flying over Fredericksburg on the moving map display. Then Quantico is below our feet, the FBI Academy a cluster of lights surrounded by blackness. I think back to when I got Lucy a coveted internship there the summer of her senior year at UVA. It was a treacherous time of reckless behavior and damaging relationships.

I blame Georgine Duvall. Because of her, Lucy avoided therapy or even conversation that might have prevented some of the choices she would make. She was less trusting and more secretive, rarely sharing anything important with me. It’s a miracle she didn’t die.

CHAPTER 38

It’s now almost six o’clock, the battlefields of Manassas as black as outer space. Then, closer to Dulles, dark forests are veined by bright highways. Minutes later we’re slower and lower as Lucy begins her approach to the airport, the roads, the runways a confusing circuitry of glaring lights.

“I’m not shutting down.” She’s back on the intercom. “Have to get the bird to Quantico and tuck her in bed.”

“Will we see you tonight?” I ask.

“I’m not sure,” she says.

“Tron, you’re welcome to have Christmas supper with us. Tacos,” I offer.

“Depending on what’s going on. But thanks for the offer.” Her voice in my headset as Lucy hover-taxis into the Signature Flight Service ramp.

She cuts the engines to flight idle as Benton and I climb out of the back cabin, the blades thudding. We trot away from the noise and downwash, making our way through the terminal, our car as cold as the outdoors when we climb in.

“Do you think Lucy recalls what she told Georgine Duvall?” I ask Benton now that we can talk without anyone overhearing.

“When does Lucy ever forget anything?” he says. “I know she must feel bad about it.”

“I can’t say that I’m surprised, Benton. I remember how unhappy and defensive she was back then.”

“It’s worse than you think,” he replies as we drive away from the airport.

Much of what Benton read in Georgine Duvall’s notes was truly awful. He begins giving me the details, and Lucy’s comments and complaints from long ago aren’t surprising but painful to hear.

She repeatedly referred to me asthe Big Chief. She sniped thatmy aunt would rather hang out with dead people than the living.

Benton wasa prick who thinks he’s the star ofSilence of the Lambs.

Her mother, Dorothy,cares more about the shallow characters in her stupid books than she does real people.

Marino wasa gunslinging homophobic redneck who has the hots for my aunt. As I’m hearing this I’m thinking about Dorothy, wondering how often Lucy might have made similar comments to her. It might explain why Janet parrots the accusation today, giving it mileage that’s causing trouble.

The real Janet and my niece met after college when they were new agents in training at Quantico. There’s no telling what Lucy may have mentioned back then, and whatever has been said and done in the past is open season for AI. Nothing is forgotten, the past never past.

“Quite the indictment.” I do my best to take it in stride. “But for the most part true, let’s be honest, Benton. I was the big chief. You were the hotshot criminal profiler. Marino was a bigoted bully much of the time. And in those days, Dorothy was writing children’s books and had become very successful. Making a lot of money and a name for herself.”

“And Lucy felt even more lost in the shuffle,” Benton says as we skirt Tysons Corner, the hotels and stores blazing with Christmas lights.

“It’s odd that she’d bring you up,” I reply. “We weren’t openly seeing each other when she was a freshman in college.”

“She’d been around me enough to decide she didn’t like me. Thought I was an elitist empty suit. An expensive one.”

“Quite the opposite,” I decide. “She must have been more threatened by you than I ever imagined. She somehow knew what we were terrified to admit. That we were important to each other. That we were meant to be together.”

“Were?”

“Still are, and I can’t imagine being with anyone else.” I reach for his hand as my smart ring vibrates, alerting me about another text from Marino.

We may get lucky,he writes.

He explains that swabbing under Georgine’s fingernails could pay off this time. The bleach didn’t destroy all the DNA this time. Clark Givens is finding a mixture of profiles. Hers and Zain Willard’s.