Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(118)

She nods. Their eyes lock.

"Okay, then." Lucy doesn't stop looking at her. "Tomorrow. You ever been in a helicopter?"

Rudy gets up. "I gotta go. I'm beat."

He knows. In his own way, he accepts it. But he's not going to watch.

Lucy gives him her eyes, aware that he understands but in a way never will. "See you in the morning, Rudy."

He walks off, his feet light on the stairs.

"Don't be reckless," Lucy tells Nic. "You strike me as the type who would and probably has been."

"I've been engaging in my own sting operations," she confesses. "Dressing like potential victims. I look like a potential victim."

Lucy examines her closely, looking her over, making an assessment, as if she hasn't been making assessments all night.

"Yes, with your blond hair, body build, air of intelligence. But your demeanor isn't that of a victim. Your energy is strong. However, that could simply present more of a challenge to the killer. More exciting. A bigger coup."

"I've been wrongly motivated," Nic chastises herself. "Not that I don't want him caught. More than anything, I want him caught. But I admit I'm more aggressive, more bullheaded, maybe putting myself in danger, yes, because of a task force that doesn't want small-town girls like me in their club. Even though I'm probably the only one who's been trained at the best forensic academy in the U.S., trained by the best. Including your aunt."

"When you've been out there putting yourself in danger, did you observe anything?"

"The Wal-Mart where Katherine was abducted. I was there within hours of it happening. One thing still stands out, this lady who acted peculiar, fell down in the parking lot, said her knee went out from under her. Something bothered me. I backed off and wouldn't help her up. Something told me not to touch her. I thought her eyes were weird, scary. And she called me a lamb. I've been called a lot of things, but never a lamb. I think she was some homeless schizo."

"Describe what she looked like." Lucy tries to remain calm, tries not to make the evidence fit the case instead of the other way around.

Nic describes her. "You know, the funny thing about it is, she looked a bit like this woman I saw a few minutes earlier inside the store. She was digging around in cheap lingerie, shoplifting."

Now Lucy is getting excited.

"It's never occurred to anyone that the killer might be a woman or at least have a woman who is an accomplice. Bev Kiff?n," she says.

Nic gets up for more coffee, her hand shaking. She blames it on caffeine. "Who is Bev Kiff?n?"

"On the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list."

"Oh my God." Nic sits back down, this time closer to Lucy. She wants to be close to her. She doesn't know why. But the near proximity of her is energizing and exciting.

"Promise me you won't go out there prowling again," Lucy tells her. "Consider yourself on my task force, okay? We do things together, all of us. My aunt, Rudy, Marino." 1 promise.

"You don't want to tangle with Bev Kiff?n, who is probably bringing the abducted women to her partner, Jay Talley, number one on the FBI's Most Wanted list."

"They hiding out here?" Nic can't believe it. "Two people like that are hiding out here?"

"I can't think of a better place. You said your father has a fishing shack that he abandoned after your mother was murdered. Any possibility Charlotte Dard might have known about it, known where it was? Or is."

"Is. Papa never sold it. The place must be half-rotted by now. Mrs. Dard might have known, since my mother was so into salvage, the stuff she sold in her shop. She liked old weathered wood, would recommend using it for fireplace mantels, exposed beams, whatever. Especially, she liked the thick pilings the fishing shacks are built on. I don't know what she might have said to Mrs. Dard. But my mother was completely trusting. She thought everybody had their good qualities. The truth is, she talked too much."

"Can you show me where the fishing shack is, the one your father abandoned?"

"It's in Dutch Bayou, off the Blind River. I can show you."

"From the air?"

"I'm pretty sure," Nic says.

119

BENTON LEAVES HIS JAGUAR tucked in a church's back parking lot less than half a mile from the Dard plantation house.

Each time he hears a car or truck approaching from either direction, he crashes through underbrush and hides in thick woods across the road from the Mississippi River. In addition to not knowing who might come along, he is well aware that it would appear odd to see a man in a black suit, black T-shirt, black cap and black butt pack walking along the side of a narrow road in the rain. Someone might stop and ask if he's had car trouble. People would stare.

When he spots the gates that he drove past late last night, he leaves the pavement and enters the woods, this time penetrating deeper, until the mansion rises above trees, his scan constant. Looking where he steps, he does his best to avoid snapping fallen branches. Fortunately, the dead leaves are wet and silent. When he scouted the area last night, he didn't venture into the woods because it was too dark to see, and he didn't dare use a flashlight. He did, however, climb over the gate, getting rust all over his jacket and jeans, one of many explanations for why he opted to wear his suit again.