I’ve been sent a communication she shouldn’t see, and if what I’m about to find relates to criminal activity then she doesn’t need the exposure. It’s bad enough that I have it, and I watch her walk ahead of me as I stand alone on the pier and put on my earpiece again. I face the river and hold my phone close, protecting any sliver of privacy I might have, calculating the most likely location for Lucy’s cameras and keeping my back to them, tucking myself in, preparing for something else that will be difficult for me to watch.

Like the other two messages this one appears to have been sent from Lucy’s ICE line, and there’s no text, nothing but a link. I click on it and without delay the video starts inside Lucy’s dorm room again. Then the credits begin to roll by, dripping down slowly in bloodred type:

DEPRAVED HEART—VIDEO III

BY CARRIE GRETHEN

JULY 11, 1997

Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

SHE STOPS READING AND HER NIMBLE PALE FINGERS quickly fold the sheets of white unlined paper with their script format.

Carrie tucks the envelope into the Army green backpack as a door closes in the background, and the camera picks up Lucy walking into the dorm room. It appears she has showered since the last video I watched, and this reinforces my growing conviction that the recordings were knitted together to convey a message. I need to pay close attention no matter how manipulative and uncomfortable. It’s crucial I remember everything I’m hearing and seeing because the video likely will self-destruct when it’s finished playing.

Lucy’s hair is damp. She has on faded jeans, a green FBI polo shirt and flip-flops. Carrying an armful of folded underwear, shorts, shirts, and socks tucked into balls, she drops everything on the foot of the bed as Mister Pickle’s amber eyes watch glassily.

“Yours is on top,” she says coldly to Carrie without looking at her. “Pretty much everything that’s white is yours. Funny but I usually don’t associate all white with bad guys. I thought I asked you to leave. Why the fuck are you still here?”

“It’s subjective who’s bad and who’s good. And you don’t really want me to leave.”

“It’s not subjective and you need to get the hell out.”

“I wear white for the same reason you should. Chronic exposure to chemical dyes is toxic.” Carrie tucks her white clothes into the backpack. “I know you don’t pay attention to such mundane minutiae because you think you’ll never have to worry about anything aging you. Or God forbid giving you a neurological disorder or cancer or destroying your immune system so your own body is chronically attacking itself. Not a good way to die.”

“There’s no good way to die.”