“Lucy says where I am right this minute is safe. My guess is most of her property isn’t, and the same may be true of my phone if they’ve wiretapped into it. It may be true of my office e-mail. I have no idea what’s safe to be honest.”

“Has Lucy talked to the FBI? Has she so much as said good morning?”

“She’s been cooperating with them to a degree. I’m afraid she’s too comfortable.” I look up at the helicopter and imagine the agents inside looking back. “I’m not happy that she didn’t call you right away.”

“That wasn’t a good idea. But I know her. It’s her nature to underestimate them. She absolutely shouldn’t.”

Lucy is now pacing, looking at her phone, texting, and she must not have serious worries about the FBI accessing her e-mail or anything else. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, and I don’t envy anybody who decides to intrude upon her privacy. She’ll treat it as a challenge, as a competition. She’s happy to return the favor. I can only imagine the cyber mischief and destruction she’s capable of if she puts her mind to it, and I remember the look in Carrie’s eyes as she said how spoiled Lucy was. The video clip I just watched continues playing in my mind. I can’t make it stop.

I can’t shake Carrie’s mockery, her grandiose self-absorption and bottomless pit of hate, and it’s outrageous and wrong that I’m subjected to any of it. I feel saddened, angered and undone in a way that’s hard to define. I wonder if that’s the real point in subjecting me to this, and then I have another thought. If I tell anyone—including Jill Donoghue—there will be the problem of credibility.

No one will believe me, and for good reason. The links texted to me are dead. It’s impossible to prove they were ever connected to recordings made by Carrie Grethen or anyone else.

“Who besides you is on the property?” Donoghue continues to ask me questions, to prep herself before she heads out the door.

“Marino. Janet and their adopted son, Desi,” I reply. “Well he’s not officially adopted yet. His mother, Janet’s sister, died of pancreatic cancer three weeks ago.”

Donoghue says she’s deeply sorry to hear it, and whenever she attempts to show empathy or kindness she gets a certain tone in her voice. It reminds me of a piano key that’s a little flat or the dull clink of cheap glass. Her walking around in another person’s moccasins is a well-oiled act. Unfortunately she doesn’t mean it, and I go out of my way never to forget that her charisma, her alleged empathy are a rubber chicken. You hungrily sink your teeth into it and discover it’s fake.