“Did you really think—for even five minutes—that he’d never find out? That Kay and Lucy would never find out, for God’s sake? At any given moment, Kay could be summoned to my office to go over an autopsy report that Marino has something to do with—which will probably happen, by the way. She’s in and out of the morgue as a consultant. She’s on CNN every other week.”

“For all he knows, she does CNN by satellite from Boston.”

“Oh, please. Marino hasn’t had a lobotomy since you saw him last. But I’m starting to wonder if you have.”

“Look,” Benton said, “I hoped if enough time passed … Well, we’d deal with it. And I don’t pass on tawdry stories that are, if we’re honest, nothing more than rumors.”

“Nonsense. What you wanted was to avoid dealing with reality, and that’s how this entire mess has happened.”

“I was putting off dealing with it. Yes.”

“Putting it off until when? The next life?”

“Until I figured out what to do about it. I lost control of it.”

“Now we’re getting close to the facts of the case. This isn’t about hearsay, and you know it. It’s about your head in the sand,” she said.

“All I wanted, Jaime, was to restore some civility. Restore something. To move on and do so without malice, without irrevocable damage.”

“To magically make everybody friends again. Restore the past, the good ol’ days. Happily ever after. Delusions. Fairy tales. I imagine Lucy hates him. Probably Kay doesn’t. She’s not the sort to hate.”

“I don’t know what the hell Lucy will do when she sees him. And she will. Then what? It’s a big concern. It’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’ve seen her in action. This is serious.”

“I was hoping she’d outgrown killing people in the line of what she considers duty.”

“She’s going to see him eventually, or know about it, at least,” Benton said. “Since you’ve decided to avail yourself of her forensic computer skills.”

“Which, by the way, I found out from the DA in Queens County and a couple of cops. Not from you. Because you didn’t want me to know she was here, either, because you hoped I’d never use her—nice de facto uncle that you are. Because if I decided to use her, one day she’d show up at my office, and guess who she might run into?”

“When you talked to her on the phone, is that what happened?” Benton asked. “You said something about Marino?”