She believes her conversation with Carrie is between the two of them. It isn’t. I can’t imagine how Lucy would feel if she knew that in a sense I was inside that room with them. I may as well have been there then because I am now, and I feel disloyal. I feel I’m betraying my own flesh and blood.

“How was the gym?” Carrie’s eyes move around the room, finding cameras Lucy can’t see. “Crowded?”

“You should have done weights while you could.”

“Like I told you, I had things to take care of including a surprise.”

Carrie is in the same running clothes but there’s no sign of the machine gun. There’s no time stamp on the recording, only a run time of almost twenty minutes now, and I watch her open the small refrigerator.

“I brought you a present.” She grabs two St. Pauli Girls, pops off the caps and hands one of the green bottles to Lucy.

She stares at it but doesn’t take a sip. “I don’t want it.”

“We can have a drink together can’t we?” Carrie brushes her fingers through her peroxided buzz-cut hair.

“You shouldn’t have brought it here. And I didn’t ask you to.”

“You didn’t need to ask. I’m very thoughtful.” Carrie picks up the Swiss Army knife from the top of the refrigerator, resting the thick red handle in the palm of her hand, flipping open a blade with her thumbnail, and stainless steel flashes.

“You shouldn’t have done it without asking.” Lucy strips down to her sports bra and bikini briefs, and she’s sweating and flushed from exertion. “I get caught with alcohol in my room and I’m fucked.” She drops her clothing into a bamboo hamper I bought for her, grabs a towel and begins drying off.

“You’d better hope they don’t find out you have a gun in here,” Carrie says somberly and for the effect as she studies the knife blade shining thinly, sharply. “A very illegal one.”

“It’s not illegal.”

“Maybe it’s about to be.”

“What have you done? You’ve done something.”

“Well it would be a crime if it’s missing. But what the hell is legal anyway? Arbitrary rules invented by flawed mortals. Benton’s more or less your uncle. Maybe it’s not stealing if you took it from your uncle.”

Lucy walks over to the closet, opens the door, looks inside. “Where is it? What the hell did you do with it?”

“Have you learned nothing in the time we’ve been together? You can’t stop anything I want to do and I don’t need your permission.” Carrie looks directly into a camera and smiles.

I watch Lucy sit on a corner of the desk inside her dorm room, her tan muscular legs dangling. She’s getting visibly upset.