Who planted the idea that Lucy had seduced and murdered her daughter? Why would Amanda Gilbert bring up my niece for any reason? Why would the Hollywood producer have heard of her? Unless Lucy and Chanel really did know each other but that seems strange too. If Chanel was a spy then why would Lucy know her? What business might they have had in Bermuda, and I remember Lucy saying the person she met there was Janet’s friend. Chanel Gilbert may have known Janet first.

I’m not sure what that might mean. But I have no doubt someone gave the mother a reason to worry that I might tamper with evidence. I don’t have to look very hard to know who. Erin Loria is after Lucy. I can imagine the aggressive self-important FBI agent with her southern roots and twang calling Amanda Gilbert and feeding her all sorts of propaganda, miscommunications and outright lies. But why exactly? To ensure we’re sued? To frame Lucy and get me fired? To turn all of us on each other and watch us self-destruct? What is Erin Loria’s real agenda?

I seriously doubt it has anything to do with law enforcement, with her damn job, and all these things float up from my deepest darkest trench of distrust. I can’t be certain who’s telling me the truth, including my own husband, my entire family really, and I adjust the defogger, clearing the glass. I’m grateful that the rain is on its way to stopping and the wind is calmer. Thunder beats a distant retreat. I can scarcely hear it anymore and to the south clouds are breaking up, flattening the way they do when their violent drama is spent.

I keep up my scan as I glance at my e-mails, my messages. When my phone rings I realize how easily I startle right now. I’m hypervigilant and jumpy. I recognize the number calling me but I’m puzzled.

“Scarpetta,” I answer.

“I hate to start out by saying you’re not going to believe this,” Ernie launches in without a hello.

“Why are you calling from the firearms lab?” I reply.

“I’m about to get to that but first on the list?” he says. “The metamaterial you sent in may be from Lucy’s camera system, which I’m guessing is Star Trek high-tech.”

“I asked her that and she said it wasn’t,” I’m quick to answer.

“Not that I’ve ever seen anything quite like this associated with a security system,” he says.

“Lucy told me she’d never seen the metamaterial before but she suspected it might be quartz or calcite.”

“It is,” he verifies. “Specifically a laser-quality calcite that is typically used in high-grade optics like camera lenses, microscopes, telescopes. But again, the hexagonal shape of this is very odd.”

“So we can’t know what the metamaterial might be from unless we locate a possible source for comparison.”