“What about Lucy? She’s obviously into weapons. Do you know how many firearms she stores in her vault? Would it surprise you if I told you almost a hundred? Why does she need so many guns?”

The answer were I inclined to give it is Lucy collects what she calls handcrafted small-batch weapons. She loves intricate technology, the art and science of every fine innovation including those that kill. She’s drawn to symbols of power whether they’re guns or cars or flying machines, and she collects because she can. There isn’t much she can’t afford. If she wants a Zev customized Glock or a 1911 hand-fitted for a lefty and exquisitely beautiful she doesn’t care what it costs.

I don’t answer Erin’s questions but that doesn’t stop her from asking them as I look out at light flickering on the water, at the gentle current and the hundred-foot cypress dock with the teak and glass boathouse at the end. Lucy left to check on Janet, Desi, and Jet Ranger, and I encouraged her not to come back to the main house until Donoghue arrives. I hope it’s soon. I look for Marino but don’t see any sign of him.

“I’m not going to mince words with you, Kay. And I assume you don’t mind my calling you that.”

I say nothing. I do mind.

“All we have to go on is what you claim happened, and what Benton claimed to have observed. You claim Carrie Grethen shot you …”

“It’s not what I claim or what Benton claims. It’s what is factual and true.” I turn around and look at her.

“Your claim that Carrie Grethen shot you is based solely on your visual recognition of her. A woman you’d not seen in what? Thirteen, fourteen years at least? A woman whose death was witnessed.”

“It wasn’t exactly.” I’ll sure as hell tell her this much. “Her death was assumed. We never actually saw her in the helicopter that crashed. Her remains were never found. There’s no proof she died. In fact there’s proof to the contrary, and the FBI knows all this. I don’t need to tell you …”

“Your proof. Your speculative and fanciful proof,” Erin interrupts me again. “You catch a glimpse of a person in a camouflage dive skin and somehow you instantly knew who it was.”

“A camouflage dive skin?” I ask. “That’s an interesting detail.”

“One you gave us.”

I don’t say anything. I offer her an uncomfortable silence to fill.

“Maybe you don’t remember. There’s probably a lot you don’t remember after a trauma like that,” she says. “How’s your memory now by the way? I’ve wondered if you went for a while underwater without breathing.”

I remain silent.

“That can have serious consequences for memory.”

I don’t react.