She clutches my arm, her grip like iron. Tears flood her bloodshot eyes and spill down her blotchy puffy face.

“Do you have any idea what my attorneys will do to you, to Lucy Farinelli, to the entire fucking lot of you?” she shrieks as she begins to cry uncontrollably.

Chapter 43

CHAPTER 43

I’M AWARE OF MY LEG AS I SIT ALONE INSIDE THE SUV Jen Garate left for me. The ache is as deep as bone. Pain throbs in rhythm with the rain slowly thumping the roof and sliding down the windows.

The Ford Explorer is white with the CFC crest, the scales of justice and caduceus in dark blue symbolizing what I’m supposed to represent and fight for, what I’m sworn to uphold and never violate. Justice and do no harm. Yet nothing is just. I want to harm someone. If I were given a polygraph I would fail if I said I didn’t want Carrie Grethen dead. I do. I want her eliminated for good by any means possible. My eyes don’t stop moving. My nerves, my pulse have been humming all day like high-voltage power lines. I’m constantly checking the mirrors, my Rohrbaugh pistol in my lap. As I wait. As I wonder.

Maybe it’s part of the master plan for me to be driving this next. Maybe it was anticipated like the truck I selected this morning, and I consider that the SUV may have been tampered with too. Maybe it will go haywire on the highway or blow to the moon. Maybe that will be next and the way my time on this planet ends. I’m no longer sure of anything, not the natural course or progression of events or who’s to blame. Is this what’s supposed to happen? Is it preordained? Or does it just feel that way? Is it Carrie or someone else?

Don’t doubt your own mind.

Then I think about Lucy as stress spikes and arcs like electrical glitches and overloads. What can any of us believe? What’s true? Who’s to say? I don’t know what’s been manipulated and schemed with more ugly surprises on the way, and I watch and wait for Marino and Benton. They’re inside the house with a mother made berserk by grief and rage. She has enough power and money to give me as much trouble as she wants. Based on her demeanor she will try, and her accusations replay in my thoughts like a discordant chorus that won’t stop.