“It was one of my better decisions.”

“She signed up with the FBI because of you.”

“And I’m very glad because she might not have met Lucy, and I’m not sure where we’d be right now if it wasn’t for Janet.”

“And she’s texting you but not me.” I make that point again. “She hasn’t asked you to pass along to me that they’re okay, and that’s surprising because she knows what I’m feeling. I was on their property this morning. She’s aware of my concern to put it mildly.”

“We’ve always had a special closeness.”

“Even during the years they were broken up and out of contact.”

“Janet kept up with her through me,” he says. “She’s always been Lucy’s biggest protector.”

“Including now.”

“Yes.” He looks at me. “It would be good if you’d leave it at that.”

“I can’t possibly. I couldn’t help but notice that Janet seems very aware of the cameras inside their house, ’specially in the machine shop, where Lucy was removing tiles from the floor, pulling out rifles the FBI missed. I had a funny feeling Janet knew they were being filmed.”

Benton doesn’t reply, and I hear Carrie’s voice in my mind. I see her gleaming eyes as she talks into the camera.

And you know the evolutionary purpose of psychopathy now don’t you?

“If I didn’t know better I’d think Janet was trying to hurt Lucy. Not help her,” I hear myself say to Benton as I remember the recordings I watched. “Because I’m not sure how it helps Lucy’s case if she’s caught on video obstructing justice, committing a felony.”

“A video that could be very destructive if it ever became public,” Benton says. “The Democrats in particular don’t need to further inflame the NRA for example by showing two young women fearing for their lives and the life of their child because the FBI rolled in and took all of their guns for no good reason.”

We’ve never had a substantive conversation. Not even a cordial one. And that’s shocking when one considers what you could learn from me.

Carrie was talking to Benton. Long years ago she made the recordings with him in mind, and I say that to him as we drive through the Harvard campus, past the Yard with its old brick walls and wrought iron.

“As I think back to everything I watched in her Depraved Heart secret recordings it makes sense that she was never talking on camera with me in mind,” I say to Benton. “She was talking to you.”

“A supreme narcissist like that and she assumes I want to know the slightest detail about her.” He confirms he’s seen the recordings but there’s more to it than that.