LITMIR.BIZ

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I’ve lived for and that more than anything else is what I can’t get past.

      I met death on the bottom of the sea as silt billowed in a cloud and a dark thread fled up from me, dissipating in my bubbles. I realized I was bleeding and had the irrational desire to take the regulator out of my mouth. Benton says I did, that as soon as he’d place the regulator back in I’d pull it out again and again. He had to hold it in place. He had to fight off my grabbing hands and force me to breathe, force me to live.

      He’s since explained that removing the regulator is a typical response when one panics underwater. But I don’t remember panicking. I remember wanting to shed my buoyancy control device (BCD), my regulator and scuba tank, to free myself because I had a reason. I want to know what it was. It’s on my mind constantly. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about why dying seemed like the best idea I’ve ever had.

      Lucy appears around a bend.

      She walks briskly toward us, and the thunderous noise seems suddenly louder. Of course it’s my imagination. But what she’s wearing isn’t. The shapeless old gray gym shorts and T-shirt have the FBI ACADEMY boldly emblazoned on them, and it’s as deliberate as waving a battle flag. It’s like showing up in uniform after you’ve been court-martialed or wearing an Olympic medal after you’ve been stripped of it. She’s flipping off the FBI, and maybe something else underlies her behavior.

      I stare at her as if she’s a ghost from the past. I was just watching her teenaged self inside her FBI Academy dorm room, and I almost wonder if my eyes are deceiving me. But the way she’s dressed stays the same, and she could pass for being that young again. It’s as if the Lucy in the videos is walking toward me in real time, a Lucy in her midthirties now. But she doesn’t look it. I doubt she’ll ever look her age.

      Her energy is fiercely childlike, her body really hasn’t changed, and her discipline about being fit and vital isn’t vanity. Lucy lives like an endangered creature that twitches at the slightest movement or sound and hardly sleeps. She may be volatile but she’s sensible. She’s steely logical and rational, and as I step up my pace to meet her, the searing pain reminds me that I’m not dead.

      “Your limping is worse.” Her rose gold hair flares in the sun, and she’s tan after a recent trip to Bermuda.

      “I’m fine.”

      “No you’re not.”

      The expression on her chiseled pretty face is difficult to read but I recognize tension in the firm set of her lips. I sense her dark mood. It sucks up the bright light around her. When I hug her, she’s clammy.

      “Are you all right? Are you really?” I hold on to her a second longer, relieved she’s not injured or in handcuffs.

      “What are you doing here, Aunt Kay?”

      I smell her hair, her skin and detect the swampy salty odor of stress. I sense her state of high alert in the pressure of her fingers and her constant scan, her eyes moving everywhere. She’s looking for Carrie. I know it. But we aren’t going to discuss it. I can’t ask if she’s aware of the video link sent to my phone or tell her that it appears she was the one who sent it. I can’t let on that I watched a film clip secretly recorded by Carrie. In other words, I’m now an accessory to Carrie Grethen’s spying and who knows what else.

      “Why is the FBI here?” I ask Lucy instead.

      “Why are you?” She’s going to push for an answer. “Did Benton drop a hint that this was going to happen? Nice of him. How the fuck does he look at himself in the mirror?”

      “He didn’t tell me anything at all. Not even by omission. And why all the swearing? Why must you and Marino swear so much?”

      “What?”

      “I’m just mindful of all the profanity. Every other word is fuck,” I reply as an emotional surge rolls over me.

      It’s as if the Lucy I’m facing is nineteen again, and I’m suddenly shaky inside, overwhelmed by the loss of time, by the betrayal of nature as it gives us life and instantly begins to take it back. Days become months. Years become a decade and longer, and here I am on my niece’s driveway remembering myself at her age. As much as I knew about death I really didn’t know that much about life.

      I just thought I did, and I’m aware of how I must look as I limp along on Lucy’s property as it’s being raided by the FBI two months after I was shot with a spear gun. I’m thinner and my hair needs cutting. I’m slow and at war with inertia and gravity. I can’t silence Carrie’s voice in my mind and I don’t want to hear it. I feel a stab of pain and suddenly I feel angry.

      “Hey. You okay?” Lucy is watching me carefully.

      “Yes. I’m sorry.” I look up at the helicopter and take a deep breath, calm again. “I’m just trying to sort through what’s going on.”

      “Why are you here? How did you know to be here?”

      “Because you sent an urgent message?” It’s Marino who answers. “How else would we know?”

      “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

      “You know.” His vintage Ray-Bans bore into her. “You let us know you have some sort of emergency and we dropped what we’re doing. We literally left a damn dead body on the floor.”

      “Not exactly,” I reply.

      “What?” She seems genuinely amazed and baffled.

      “A text message landed on my phone,” I explain. “From your In Case of Emergency line.”

      “I promise it wasn’t from me. Maybe from them.” She means the FBI.

      “How?”

      “I’m telling you it wasn’t from me. So you got a message? And that’s why you suddenly decided to show up here in a crime scene truck?” She doesn’t believe us. “Why the hell are you really here?”

      “Let’s focus on why they are.” I glance up at the helicopter.

      “Benton,” she again accuses. “You’re here because he tipped you off.”

      “No. I promise.” I pause on the driveway, resting for a second. “He indicated nothing to either of us. He has nothing to do with why I decided to rush here, Lucy.”

      “What did you do?” Marino has a way of acting as if everybody is guilty of something.

      “I’m not sure why they’re here,” Lucy replies. “I’m not sure of anything except I got suspicious early this morning that something was up.”

      “Based on?” Marino asks.

      “Someone was on the property.”

      “Who?”

      “I never saw whoever it was. There was nobody on the cameras. But motion sensors went off.”

      “Maybe a small animal.” I start walking again very slowly.

      “No. Nothing was there and yet something was. Plus someone’s in my computer. That’s been going on for about a week. Well I shouldn’t say someone. I think we can figure out who it is.”

      “Let me guess. Considering who’s dropped by for an unexpected visit.” Marino doesn’t disguise how much he hates the FBI.

      “Programs opening and closing on their own and taking too long to load,” she says. “The cursor moving when I’m not touching it. Plus my computer was running slow and the other day it crashed. No big deal. Everything is backed up. Everything vital is encrypted. It must be them. They’re not particularly subtle.”

      “Anything leaked or corrupted?” I ask. “Anything at all?”

      “There doesn’t appear to be. An unauthorized user account was created by someone pretty savvy but no genius, and I’m on top of all that, monitoring unusual log-ins, all e-mails sent, trying

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