Desi decides he does, and Marino takes him out. I hear them on the dock. Then I don’t.

Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

I DON’T HAVE THE MASK,” LUCY SAYS. “BUT I’VE got access to the recording.”

“You didn’t recover my mask yourself.” I have to be sure she wasn’t anywhere near me when I lost it and almost died.

“Of course not.”

“You couldn’t have recovered it unless you were there when I was shot.” I’d be devastated if I found out she was.

It would change the history of my life and my entire worldview if I found out she was there. It’s one of those things that I honestly might not want to know because the consequences would be irreversibly awful.

“I wasn’t in Florida. Why would I shoot you?” Lucy is saying. “Why would I hurt you? Why would I allow anybody to hurt you? Why do you ask me? How could you think for even a minute …?”

“It’s not Kay thinking it,” Donoghue interrupts her. “And this may be what they intend to prove. This may be the case they present to a grand jury.” She directs this at me. “That Lucy was in Florida and was present when you were shot because she’s an accomplice to Carrie Grethen. Or worse? Lucy’s the one who did it and there is no Carrie Grethen.”

“Maybe the FBI’s position is that she really did die in a helicopter crash thirteen years ago.” Janet says this and it sounds like more than a suggestion, and she looks at Lucy. “And that you’ve fabricated everything about her.”

“Exactly.” Donoghue is nodding. “It’s the scenario all of us should be worried about. But I’m curious,” she says to me, “what about Benton? He witnessed what happened. He saved your life. He must have looked right at the person who shot you. He must have been very close to this person.”

“He didn’t see her.” I’ve asked Benton this many times and his answer is always the same. “When he realized I was in distress that was it. He was completely preoccupied with me and she must have fled.”

“More likely she hung back out of sight and watched,” Lucy counters.

“So it sounds to me that if asked Benton will say he can’t swear Carrie Grethen shot you and the two police divers,” Donoghue decides. “Specifically I’m anticipating what he’s said to his FBI colleagues because you can rest assured they have questioned him ad nauseam.”

“If Benton says to them what he’s continued to say to me in private,” I reply, “then he wouldn’t swear to anything except that it happened. He knows what happened to me. He knows Lucy wasn’t with us.”

“In my opinion the Bureau wants to pin everything on her,” Janet says, and it’s more than opinion.

She’s stating what she believes.