“I think you do. And by the way, we won’t even go into the personal details both Carrie and Gault learned about me. And this brings us to New York, where Gault murdered his own sister and at least one police officer, and now forensic evidence shows that he didn’t do it alone. Carrie’s fingerprints were later recovered on some of Jayne Gault’s personal effects. When she was captured in the Bowery, Jayne’s blood was found on Carrie’s pants. For all we know, Carrie pulled that trigger, too.”

“She probably did,” Lucy said. “And I already know about that.”

“But not about Eddie Heath. Remember the candy bar and can of soup he bought at the 7-Eleven? The bag found with his dying, mutilated body? Carrie’s thumbprint since has been recovered.”

“No way!” Lucy was shocked.

“There’s more.”

“Why haven’t you told me this before? She was doing this all along, with him. And probably helped him break out of prison back then, too.”

“We have no doubt. They were Bonnie and Clyde long before you met her, Lucy. She was killing when you were seventeen and had never been kissed.”

“You don’t know that I’d never been kissed,” my niece inanely said.

No one spoke for a moment.

Then Lucy said, and her voice quavered, “So you think she spent two years plotting a way to meet me and become . . . And do the things she did to . . .”

“To seduce you,” I cut in. “I don’t know if she planned it that far in advance. Frankly, I don’t care.” My outrage mounted. “We’ve moved heaven and earth to extradite her to Virginia for those crimes, and we can’t. New York won’t let her go.”

My beer bottle was limp and forgotten in my hands as I shut my eyes, and flashes of the dead played through my mind. I saw Eddie Heath propped up against a Dumpster as rain diluted the blood from his wounds, and the sheriff and prison guard killed by Gault and probably Carrie. I had touched their bodies and translated their pain into diagrams and autopsy protocols and dental charts. I could not help it. I wanted Carrie to die for what she had done to them, to my niece and me.

“She’s a monster,” I said as my voice shook with grief and fury. “I will do anything I can to make sure she is punished.”

“Why are you preaching all this to me?” Lucy said in a louder, upset voice. “Do you somehow think I don’t want the same thing?”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Just let me throw the switch or stick the needle in her arm.”

“Don’t let your former relationship distract you from justice, Lucy.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“It’s already an overwhelming struggle for you. And if you lose perspective, Carrie will have her way.”