He knew she was carrying something. For one thing, there was no way in hell Lucy would run around unarmed, even in New York. And he knew a Pistol Pete jacket when he saw one, and he’d noticed hers the instant she’d gotten out of the cab while he and the other officer were loading the packaged chair into the back of the van. What looked like a black leather motorcycle jacket had an outside breakaway pocket big enough to hold just about any pistol imaginable.

Maybe she was carrying the forty-caliber Glock with a laser sight that he’d given to her a year ago this past Christmas, when they were both in Charleston. Well, wouldn’t that be typical of his lousy luck. He’d never gotten around to transferring the title over to her before he’d vanished from her life, so if she did anything that was whacked out, the damn gun would be traced straight back to him. All the same, the idea that she might care enough about the gun to risk breaking New York law and maybe going to jail made him feel good. Lucy could have any gun she wanted. She could buy an entire gun factory, probably several of them.

She climbed back out of his unmarked car as if it belonged to her, and jogged back to them, and he was thinking he should come right out and ask her if she was carrying, and if so, what, but he didn’t. She stood next to Berger. There was something between them and it hadn’t escaped his notice any more than the Pistol Pete jacket did. Berger didn’t stand or sit close to people. She never let anybody break through the invisible barrier that she had to have around her, or believed she had to have around her. She touched Lucy, leaned against her, and watched her a lot.

Lucy handed Marino his portable radio.

“You must be a little rusty. Been out of real policing too long?” Lucy said to him with a serious tone and straight face, what little he could see of her face in the dark. “Bad idea leaving your radio in the car. Little oversights like that? Next thing, somebody gets hurt.”

“If I want to take one of your classes, I’ll sign up for it,” he said.

“I’ll see if I have room.”

He got on his portable radio and called the unit en route to find out where he was.

“Coming around the corner now,” came the reply.

“Hit your lights and siren,” Marino said.

He pressed the intercom button.

“Hello?” the voice answered.

“Dr. Wilson. Unlock the door right now or we’re going to break it down!”