“The Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network and who should get all the thanks? Who would get it if you’re truthful?” Lucy’s eyes blaze and she gets in Carrie’s face. “Who invented the name, the acronym CAIN? Who wrote all of the code that really matters? I can’t believe how much I’ve allowed you to use me. You’ll probably hurt me worse before it’s over.”

“Before what’s over?”

“Everything.”

“If I plan to hurt you? You won’t know about it until I decide,” Carrie says as gunshots sound like faraway fireworks from a celebration about to end.

She grabs Lucy, kissing her hard, and Lucy cries out in shocked pain. I see the Swiss Army knife in Carrie’s hand, the small shiny steel blade. I watch blood darkening Lucy’s green shirt, staining her fingers bright red as she clutches her abdomen, staring at Carrie dazed, enraged, disbelieving and devastated.

“What did you do?” Lucy screams at her. “What the hell did you just do you fucking lunatic!”

“The mark of the beast.” Carrie grabs a towel and lifts Lucy’s shirt, dabbing blood flowing from a horizontal incision in the lower left quadrant of her belly. “In case you forget who you really belong to.”

“Jesus Christ. Holy fucking shit! What have you done?” Lucy jerks the towel away from her, and then nothingness.

The display on my phone goes black.

Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

THE FRONT PORCH IS ARRANGED WITH TEAKWOOD lounge chairs that have bright green cushions and matching ottomans.

Water laps against the pilings, the river a quarter of a mile wide here with uninhabited forests on the other side. I watch a pair of bald eagles soar high over the leafy canopy of hardwoods and evergreens. I’m reminded that there are a lot of nests around here, and I’m annoyed all over again about the FBI helicopter thundering over this quiet conservation land, unsettling the wildlife, upsetting everything imaginable.

Under different circumstances the boathouse would be a perfect spot to sit and have a drink at the end of an awful day like this, and I wonder why Lucy hasn’t stepped outside to meet us. She should have noticed our approach. She probably has fifty security cameras on her property, and as we’ve made our way here we’re being monitored. It’s strange she hasn’t walked out to greet us, and I knock on the front door. I hear laughter, music, people speaking Japanese. A television playing.