“How could they be worse, Marino? The FBI showed up with a warrant. Agents have been walking out the door with her belongings, violating her entire existence.” I turn up the wipers as high as they’ll go and they sound like an angry metronome throwing a tantrum.

“What could be worse is they arrest her and lock her up without bail.” Marino smokes the cigarette down to the filter. “And don’t think they can’t do it. She owns a helicopter and a jet. She’s a pilot. She has a ton of money. They’ll argue she’s a flight risk and the judge will rule in the FBI’s favor. Especially if there’s a judge behind the scenes who has an agenda—a federal judge like Erin Loria’s husband. The first thing we should be asking is the timing for the sting operation. Why strike now?”

Today’s date enters my mind again. August 15. The two-month anniversary of when Carrie shot me.

What I say is “You’re right. Why today? Or is the timing random?”

“I don’t know about random but I also can’t think of anything important.”

“Exactly two months ago Carrie attacked me.” I shouldn’t have to remind him.

“But how would that be important to the FBI? Why would that date motivate them? I don’t see how it would matter.”

“It’s more likely to matter to Carrie.”

“Well we can be sure they’re looking for probable cause to get Lucy indicted for something. I don’t know what but I think we can make an educated guess about who it relates to,” Marino says. “Prison would be the end of Lucy. She wouldn’t survive, and Carrie would love that …”

“Let’s stay out of such a fatalistic airspace.” I don’t want to hear his Doomsday predictions, and I can barely restrain myself from admitting the truth to him.

I want to tell him about the videos even as I continue to entertain the same troubling questions. What if the FBI has seen them? What if the FBI texted them to entrap me and anybody else I might involve? I don’t know who to trust, not even my own attorney Jill Donoghue the more I think about it, and when I’m this unsure of anything I’m careful. I’m deliberate and calculating.

“The problem is once an investigation gets in gear good luck stopping it.” Marino is painting more fear-inducing scenarios. “The Feds don’t let something go unless they got no choice, unless the grand jury comes back with a no bill and that almost never happens. Lucy’s goose would be cooked. No grand jury is going to have any sympathy for a fired federal agent who’s filthy rich and comes across the way she does …”