Over recent months the police and the Feds have been watching her. I don’t know how closely. Because of her prior relationship with Carrie almost everyone is concerned about what Lucy’s involvement might be with her. Or is Carrie even still alive? That’s the most inflammatory question I’ve been hearing this summer. Maybe Carrie really is dead. Maybe everything happening is being manufactured by my niece, and this thought leads back to Marino. If only I could show the video to him.

I continue arguing with myself that were it possible and prudent there would be no point. I know how he would react. He would be convinced that someone—probably Carrie—is harassing me. He would say she knows exactly how to push my buttons, to stick it to me, and the stupidest thing I could have done is what I’m doing now. I should have stayed put. I shouldn’t have reacted. I’ve let her get the best of me and there must be other nasty tricks to follow.

Let the games begin, I imagine Marino commenting, and I wonder what he’d say if he knew the date it was filmed.

July 11, 1997. His birthday seventeen years ago.

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

I DON’T REMEMBER IT. BUT BIRTHDAYS ARE A BIG deal and I would have cooked him dinner, one of his favorite dishes, whatever he wanted.

It also was long ago when Lucy was at the FBI Academy, inside her dorm room breaking up with Carrie. Assuming the date is correct on the video file, the two of them had run the FBI obstacle course known as the Yellow Brick Road. Then Lucy worked out in the gym. I have no idea where I was and I don’t know where Marino might have been or what he was doing. So I ask him.

“That’s sure as hell out of the blue,” he replies. “Why do you want to know about my birthday in 1997?”

“Just tell me if you remember.”

“Yeah I do.” He looks over at me as I keep my eyes straight ahead. “I’m surprised you don’t.”

“Help me out. I have no clue.”

“You and me drove to Quantico. We picked up Lucy and Benton and went to the Globe and Laurel.”