I take off my apron and absently run my fingers through my hair. There’s no mirror in the kitchen and it’s just as well. I know I look like hell. The first part of this past week I didn’t leave the office. I didn’t sleep. It wasn’t just the caseload and associated complications, which are massive. I didn’t dare vacate the premises or close my eyes while Amanda Gilbert was on the prowl and the Feds were everywhere.

The FBI has been frantic in its investigative and PR efforts to determine how it was possible that four of their agents including Erin Loria were murdered without a struggle. They must have been lured downstairs the same way Benton and I were, and somehow Carrie electrocuted them, possibly by tricking them to step on the same wet flooring Benton was about to walk across when I short-circuited the electrical booby trap that I’m now certain would have killed him.

I will always wonder what I was hearing. For the rest of my days I know I’m going to wonder and anguish. The boom, the thuds happening in quick succession, and as I remember them I’m haunted by the fear that what I was hearing was those four agents dying. I’ll never know but will always worry that Carrie was killing them even as Benton and I were inside the Gilbert house.

She dragged the bodies deep into the tunnel, piling them into the same stall where we eventually would find Hyde. At least he died more humanely than the others, stabbed in the back of the neck with the copper arrow that was then planted inside my truck. It’s unlikely he knew what hit him. He didn’t suffer. His spinal cord was transected. He was blessed with instant death.

“Maybe we could have a little music?” I take the tumbler of Scotch from Benton after he’s dropped a few more ice cubes in it. “It might not soothe us but it will help.” The liquor heats up my nose and the back of my throat. “Maybe The Magic Flute.”

“So in good operatic fashion we can be reminded of the ordeals that lead to enlightenment.” Benton heads to the sound system in the hallway closet. “Before we’re cast into the eternal night.”

Momentarily the Overture begins. I chop celery to the crashing of big brass answered by argumentative piccolos and scurrying strings.

“THE FBI AND CFC DATABASES have been hacked.” Benton carries a platter of cured meats and bread to the teak table in the backyard where all of us sit. “There’s no telling what else.”

“You’re thinking we’re going to discover that she’s into other databases.” Jill Donoghue picks up her drink, and I can smell the Scotch’s sherry finish as I walk past her and hand out small plates and napkins.