“We have to ask ourselves what she calculates we’d do.” Benton’s hands are loosely curled around the phone in his lap, and every other second he’s looking at what’s landing in the display. “To start with she’d predict you’d say what you just did,” he adds, and he’s in a different character, the one who takes over when he conjures up the devil, when he invites evil to be part of the discussion.

“If it’s true she has a blood disorder and it’s not being treated,” I say to him, “then she could be in trouble.”

Even as I ask this the same doubts nag at me. Why would Carrie want me to know that her health could be compromised? Why would she use her self-produced video recordings to reveal that she has a potentially life-threatening gene mutation that killed her mother and her grandmother—if Carrie was telling the truth. Why would she want me to know she suffers from polycythemia vera. By telling me that, she’s given me reason to suspect she’s physically compromised beyond any injury I might have inflicted on her at the bottom of the sea in Fort Lauderdale last June.

I explain to Benton that if Carrie hasn’t been having regular blood draws she may be suffering from headaches and exhaustion. She could have weakness, visual disturbances and serious complications that could kill or incapacitate her. Such as a stroke, and it seems impossible to consider that a monster like her might ultimately be defeated in such a mundane way.

“I’ve checked with area doctors, phlebotomists and clinics to see if someone even remotely fitting Carrie’s description has been getting blood removed,” Benton says to my disappointment and surprise. “And the answer seems to be no. But she’s masterful at disguises and creative options.”

“Then you’ve seen the videos.” I confront him again about the Depraved Heart recordings and he doesn’t say a word. “How long have you known about them and her blood disorder.” I push harder.

“I know about her suffering from polycythemia vera,” he says.

“Am I to assume you’ve had access to lab values that show an increased hematocrit and bone marrow packed with red cell precursors?”

He says nothing.

“The answer’s no. So in other words, Benton, I don’t see how you could have known. Unless you witnessed the same thing I did on recordings she covertly made.”

He’s seen them. But he’s not going to say it.

“If she’s been in this area for the better part of a year as we suspect then she has to have some means of removing a unit or pint of blood every month or two,” I then say, because he’s not going to discuss what he’s orchestrated and misrepresented. “Unless she’s found a different way to take care of her problem.”