Autopsy (Kay Scarpetta, #25)(32)

“There you go saying we,” I reply, feeling that ache in my chest again. “You’ve been saying it a lot, Lucy. And things aren’t the way they were no matter how much all of us might wish it. I’m hoping you understand that it’s not actually Janet you’re talking to, as much as I wish otherwise.”

“Depending on your definition of existence, it might be her.” Lucy puts on her leather bomber jacket, stepping away from her desk. “It really might be her energy I’m channeling electronically, we don’t know that it’s not. There’s so much we don’t know. But that doesn’t mean I think she’s going to walk into the room like she used to.”

“I just want you to be careful, please,” I remind her gently. “You’re not really talking to Janet even if that’s your perception.” As much as it hurts, I won’t stop saying it.

“Everything in the algorithms is based on direct input from her,” Lucy counters. “Or recordings and writings that represent her. For example, when I ask what I should eat for dinner, the answer is what she would say under the circumstances.”

The software factors into the equation Lucy’s mood and behavior, her health, her location. Also, the time of day and other information, including if she’s exercised or is alone.

“As long as you know the difference between an algorithm and someone no longer with us.” I follow her to the kitchen, Merlin right behind us.

“Of course I know the difference. But as fast as we’re reverse-engineering biology, I have to wonder about a lot of things. Like if we’ll end up on a computer chip someday. Or maybe we’re already on one, and that’s the meaning of eternity.”

“Speaking of chips. What about Merlin’s collar?” I inquire.

“I’m one step ahead of you.” Lucy opens the cabinet where she keeps pet supplies. “I made a few extras,” she says, retrieving another one, buckling it on him.

Sporting his jaunty bright-red replacement RFID collar, Merlin saunters past the kitchen door as if he’s quite the cat’s whiskers. He gets close enough to the cat flap that it opens with a sharp click. He sits, cleaning his face as if pleased with himself.

“I don’t like it that the other collar is at large,” I say to Lucy. “That doesn’t strike me as particularly safe since it includes Merlin’s name, a phone number, and a chip that unlocks the cat doors.”

“It’s a burner phone, and there’s no address associated.” She opens the same kitchen drawer I did earlier, retrieving her pistol and a lightweight pocket holster.

“I’d prefer we find his missing collar.” I watch Merlin slink past the cat door again, clicking open the lock again.

Back and forth, again and again, and I halfway wonder if he’s trying to warn us about something.

“We’ll keep an eye out, maybe look around a little as we walk to the house,” I decide.

“I have an app that can track it so that shouldn’t be a problem. But even if someone else found it, no big deal.” Lucy tucks the holstered gun inside her waistband. “No one’s fitting through a cat door, no one’s breaking in that way. Plus, we’d see it on the cameras, and I’ve got Janet monitoring them now.”

What she means is the AI software is checking real-time video feeds for irregularities, and once again it’s all about the algorithms. Lucy is constantly tweaking the computer code, adjusting if-else statements and variables.

“If there’s something out of the ordinary,” she says, “I get an alert on my phone, my fitness tracker. It’s the same advantage Gwen Hainey would have had if she’d installed cameras like I suggested.”

Retrieving a down vest from a hook by the back door, she hands it to me.

“I guess by now you know that Marino and I had our own unpleasant brush with her, having no idea things would turn out this way,” Lucy says. “But in retrospect it’s not all that surprising.”

“Why do you say that?”

“What you sow is what you reap,” she says as Merlin jumps up on a countertop. “No telling the lives she’s ruined, and karma always comes back around. It’s never nice when it does.”

Putting on the vest she hands me, I catch a hint of her sultry cologne around the collar.

“A lot of people end up dying the way they lived.” My niece repeats what I’ve been saying since the beginning of my career. “I didn’t like Gwen the minute we met. She was all about herself, and arrogant. Not to mention deceptive, only it’s looking like we didn’t know the half of it.”

Setting the alarm, Lucy opens the kitchen door.

“How about staying here inside your nice warm cottage like a good boy?” she asks Merlin, and I hope he won’t follow us.

I walk out on the porch, wishing he was an indoor cat, but that’s not how he’s imprinted after starting out life abandoned as a kitten. He fended for himself before making a beeline to Janet and Desi in a parking lot, knowing a good thing when he saw it.

That was four years ago, and the owl-like spotted Scottish fold is a hardwired peripatetic, especially after dark. It’s the call of the wild when he wants to venture out, and there’s no choice but to let him. Otherwise he yowls as if caught in a bear trap while tearing up the drapes or wreaking other havoc.