Logistical and legal technicalities aren’t going to stop Lucy if she’s made a decision, and by her way of thinking the end justifies the means. Always. Without fail. It doesn’t matter how she gets to that point, and I can imagine what she did these past few months when Natalie was dying. Lucy has never told me. I’ve never asked. She flew her private jet to Colorado. She flew it and her helicopter in and out of Virginia but she didn’t tell and I didn’t ask, and ordinarily I could call her and we could talk about it.

I would ask her about Cannachoice and if she knows where it came from. Because she might and it’s important information since there are bottles of it here at a murder scene possibly masterminded by Carrie Grethen. Ordinarily I would be on the phone with Lucy asking a lot of questions. But things aren’t exactly ordinary, and if a trap has been set then I intend to make sure it isn’t my niece who’s caught in it. I don’t know if the FBI is still on her property. I don’t know if Erin Loria is right there trying to question or Mirandize her or who knows what. I don’t want to make matters worse.

Besides, I tell myself, pretty soon we’ll have an embarrassment of riches when it comes time for chatting while she’s staying at my house. Lucy, Janet, Desi and Jet Ranger will be with Benton and me, and we’ll have Sock, our rescued greyhound, with us too. All of us will be together for quite a while, and I’m comforted by the thought with no substantiating evidence whatsoever that it will come to pass.

I’m not obtuse. I’m not naïve. But it’s as if I’m hovering over my destiny, looking down at the awful dark shape of something I can’t bear to get close to or identify, and I know I’m fooling myself. I’m in denial about what matters most, and that’s Lucy and Benton. It’s Marino. It’s everyone I care about.

“Let’s take all of this in to the lab,” I decide about the contents of the antique apothecary chest. “We’ll have it analyzed and see exactly what’s in it.”

I move closer to the bed and smell the same spicy floral scent over here but something has been added.

Peppermint.

Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

BOTH PILLOWS LOOK SLEPT ON. UNDER THE left one closest to the bathroom is a drawstring black satin pouch.