I gave her a quick summary of Carrie’s letter to the press, and after I had finished, Janet was as silent as a cathedral.

“I’m telling you because you’d better be prepared,” I added. “You could wake up tomorrow and see this in the paper. You might hear it on the late news tonight.”

“It’s best you told me,” Janet said so quietly I could barely hear her. “And I’ll let Lucy know when she gets in.”

“Tell her to call me, if she’s not too tired.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“Good night, Janet.”

“No, it isn’t. It isn’t a good night at all,” she said. “That bitch has been ruining our lives for years. One way or another. And I’ve fucking had enough of it! And I’m sorry to use that word.”

“I’ve said it before.”

“I was there, for God’s sake!” She began to cry. “Carrie was all over her, the manipulative psycho bitch. Lucy never stood a chance. My God, she was just a kid, this genius kid who probably should have stayed in college where she belonged instead of doing an internship with the Fucking Bureau of Investigation. Look, I’m still FBI, okay? But I see the shit. And they haven’t done right by her, which just makes her all the more vulnerable to what Carrie is doing.”

My whiskey was half gone, and there wasn’t enough of it in the world to make me feel better right now.

“She doesn’t need to get upset, either,” Janet went on in a gush of frankness about her lover that I had never before heard. “I don’t know if she’s told you. In fact, I don’t think she ever intended to, but Lucy’s been seeing a psychiatrist for two years, Dr. Scarpetta.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” I said, disguising my hurt. “No, she hasn’t told me, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect her to,” I added with the perfect voice of objectivity as the ache in my heart got more intense.

“She’s been suicidal,” Janet said. “More than once.”

“I’m glad she’s seeing someone,” was all I could think to say as tears welled.

I was devastated. Why had Lucy not reached out to me?

“Most of the great achievers have their very dark passages,” I said. “I’m just glad she’s doing something about it. Is she taking anything?”

“Wellbutrin. Prozac weirded her out. One minute a zombie and bar-hopping the next.”

“Oh.” I could barely speak.

“She doesn’t need any more stress or upheavals or rejections,” Janet went on. “You don’t know what it’s like. Something knocks her off balance, and she’s down for weeks, up and down, up and down, morbid and miserable one minute and Mighty Mouse the next.”