The Scarpetta Factor

“You been keeping up with the news?” Marino said.

“At fuel stops. We know what’s all over the Internet about the yellow-cab co

“Guess you haven’t been monitoring OEM.”

“No way. No time. I got diverted twice. One airport was out of Jet-A, another hadn’t been plowed. What’s going on?”

“A FedEx box left at your aunt’s building. She’s fine, but you should call her.”

“A FedEx box? What are you talking about?” Lucy stopped walking.

“We don’t know what’s in it. May have something to do with a patient of Benton ’s. Some whack job who left the Doc a Christmas present. Santa’s sleigh had to transport it to Rodman’s Neck. Not even an hour ago, headed right at you, to the Cross Bronx Express-way, which you’d be crossing out of White Plains, and why I sent you a map. I routed you way east of the Bronx just in case.”

“Shit. Who’d you deal with from the bomb squad? I’ll talk to whoever it was.” Sixth Precinct, where the bomb squad was headquartered, was in the Village, close to Lucy’s loft. She knew a few of the techs.

“Thanks, Special Agent ATF, but it’s handled. NYPD will somehow manage without you. I’m doing what needs to be done, not to worry. The Doc will tell you about it. She’s fine. This same nut job of Benton ’s might have a co

“Why would she know him?” Lucy started walking again.

“Might be more of her make-believe, a hallucination, right? But seeing as how there was this incident at your aunt’s apartment building, maybe you should ask Hollywood about her. I’ll be at RTCC probably all night. Explain it to the boss.” He meant Berger. “I don’t want her pissed at me. But this is important. I’m going to get to the bottom of it before something worse happens.”

“So, where are you? In TriBeCa?” Lucy wove between jet wings, careful of tip extensions sticking up like dorsal fins and communications ante

“Cruised by Hollywood ’s place a few minutes ago, on my way downtown. Looks like he’s home. That’s good news. Maybe he’ll show up,” Marino said.

“You should stake him out, make sure he does. That was our deal.” Lucy couldn’t stand depending on other people to get the job done. The damn weather. If she’d gotten here earlier, she would have tailed Hap Judd herself and made sure he didn’t miss their meeting.

“I got more important things to do right now than bird-dog some pervert who thinks he’s the next James Dean. Call if you get detoured and end up lost, Amelia Earhart.”

Lucy got off the phone and picked up her pace, thought about checking on her aunt, and then thought about the number she’d written down on her kneeboard. Maybe she should call the supervisor before she left the airport. Maybe it would be better to wait until tomorrow and call the ATC manager or, better yet, complain to the FAA and get the guy sent to refresher training. She was seething as she thought about what he’d broadcast over the tower’s frequency, making sure everybody on it heard him accuse her of being an incompetent pilot, accuse her of not knowing her way into an airport she flew in and out of several times a week.

She hangared her helicopter and Citation X jet here, for God’s sake. Maybe that was his motivation. To bring her down a notch or two, to rub it in because he’d heard the rumors or was making assumptions about what had happened to her during what everyone was calling the worst financial meltdown since the thirties. Only it wasn’t the crash of Wall Street that had done the real damage. Ha

“He thought you were Einstein. A pretty Einstein but a tomboy. He adored you,” Ha

Seductive or making fun, Lucy couldn’t tell what Ha

“We miss him terribly. He was my mentor and best buddy.” This past June. Ha

Lucy told her thanks but no thanks, told her more than once. She wasn’t comfortable turning over her entire portfolio to Ha

“A tip he would have given you had he lived long enough,” said Ha

“You were like a daughter to him, and he made me promise to take care of you,” Ha

How could he have promised any such thing? Lucy realized that too late. He’d gotten sick so fast, Ha

The air traffic controller couldn’t possibly know anything about what had happened to Lucy’s net worth, couldn’t have the slightest knowledge of her damage and degradation. She was being overly anxious, hypervigilant, and irrational, what Berger called pathological, in a foul mood because a surprise weekend she’d pla