Trace

45

Inside Benton's town home, in the third-floor bedroom that he uses as an office, he sits at the desk in front of his laptop computer and waits for Lucy to activate her hidden video camera that is disguised as a pen and connected to a cellular interface that looks like a pager. He waits for her to activate the high-sensitivity audio transmitter disguised as a mechanical pencil. On the desk to the right of his laptop is a modular audio intelligence monitoring system built into a briefcase. The briefcase is open, the tape recorder and receivers inside on standby.

It is twenty-eight minutes past ten a.m. in Charleston and two hours earlier than that here in Aspen. He stares at the black screen of his laptop, sitting patiently at his desk and wearing headphones, as he waits. He has been waiting for almost an hour. Lucy called him when she landed in Charleston late yesterday her time and told him she had the appointment. Dr. Paulsson is overbooked, she added. She told the lady who answered the phone that it was urgent. Lucy had to get a flight physical right away because her medical certificate expired in two days. Why had she waited until the last minute? the woman at Dr. Paulssoris office wanted to know.

Lucy described her theatrics to Benton, proud of them. She said she faltered and sounded scared. She stammered a bit and replied that she just hadn't been able to get around to it, that the helicopter owner she worked for had been flying her all over the place and she just hadn't been able to get around to the flight physical. And, well, she'd been having personal problems, she told the woman, and if she didn't get her physical, she wouldn't be legal to fly and she might lose her job, and the last thing she needed on top of everything else was to lose her job. The woman put Lucy on hold. When she got back to her, she said Dr. Paulsson would fit her in at ten A.M. the next morning, which is now this morning, and he was doing her quite a favor because he was cancelling his weekly doubles match because of her predicament. Lucy had better not change the appointment and she had better show up, because of the huge favor the important, busy Dr. Paulsson was doing for her.

So far, all is well and according to plan. Lucy has an appointment. She is at the flight surgeon's house now. Benton waits at his desk and looks out the window at a snow sky that is lower and denser than it was not even half an hour ago. It is supposed to start snowing again by dark and snow all night. He is getting tired of snow. He is getting tired of his town home. He is getting tired of Aspen. Ever since Henri invaded his life, he has been getting tired of just about everything.

Henri Walden is a sociopath, a narcissist, a stalker. She is a waste of his time. His post-incident stress counseling is a joke to her, and he might feel sorry for Lucy were he not angry with her for allowing Henri to do so much damage. Henri lured her and used her. Henri got what she wanted. Maybe she didn't plan on being attacked inside Lucy's Florida home, maybe there are a lot of things she didn't plan on, but in the end Henri looked for Lucy and found her and took what she wanted from her, and now she is making a mockery of him. He has sacrificed his Aspen vacation with Scarpetta so some sociopathic failed-actress-failedinvestigative-agent named Henri can mock and infuriate him. He gave up his time with Scarpetta, and he could not afford to give up that time. He couldn't. Already things were bad. Maybe now they will be over. He wouldn't blame her. The thought is unbearable, but he wouldn't blame her.

Benton picks up a transmitter that looks like a small police radio. "Are you up?" he says to Lucy.

If she's not, she won't pick up the transmission through the tiny wireless receiver inside her ear canal. The earpiece is invisible but she'll have to be clever about wearing it. Certainly, she can't have it on when Dr. Paulsson checks inside her ears, so Lucy will have to be very quick and shrewd. Benton warned her that the one-way receiver would be helpful but risky. I'd like to be able to talk to you, he told her. It would be extremely helpful if I could cue you. But you know the risks. At some point during the examination, he's going to discover it. She said she would rather not be cued. He said he would rather she was.

"Lucy? Are you up?" he broadcasts again. "I'm not hearing or seeing you, so I m checking."

The video is suddenly activated and he watches images fill the screen of his laptop, and he hears Lucy's footsteps. A picture of wooden stairs in front of her bobs up and down as she climbs the stairs, and in the headphones he hears her feet. He hears her breathe.

"I got you loud and clear," he says into the transmitter, holding it close to his lips. The voice and video and recorder lights have switched from standby to active.

Lucy's fist intrudes into the picture and is very clear and loud as she knocks on a door. Benton sits at his desk, watching, and the door opens and a lab coat fills the screen, and he sees a male neck, then the face of Dr. Paulsson sternly greeting Lucy, backing away from her, telling her to have a seat, and as she moves, the pen camera sweeps around the small, stark examination room and the white-paper-covered examination table comes into view.

"Here's the old form. And the second one I filled out," Lucy says, handing forms to him. "I'm sorry. I hope I didn't mess up your system.

I'm not good with forms. Flunked forms, you know, in high school." She laughs nervously as Dr. Paulsson seriously scans the forms, both of them.

"Loud and clear," Benton says into the transmitter.

Her hand passes over his computer screen as she passes her hand in front of the pen, acknowledging that she hears him through the tiny receiver in her ear.

"Did you go to college?" Dr. Paulsson asks her.

''No, sir. 1 wanted to, but…"

"That's too bad," he replies, unsmiling, and he wears small rimless glasses and is a very attractive man. Some people might call him handsome. He is taller than Lucy but not much, maybe several inches taller, maybe around five-foot-ten or -eleven, and he is slender and looks strong based on what Benton is able to see. He is able to see only what the pen camera picks up from the breast pocket of Lucy's flight suit.

"Well, I don't need to go to college to fly a helicopter," Lucy says with uncertainty. She is doing an excellent job of acting insecure and intimidated and basically invalidated by life.

"My secretary mentioned you've been going through personal problems," Dr. Paulsson says, still looking over her forms.

"A little bit."

"Tell me what's been going on," he says.

"Uh, just the usual boyfriend stuff," she says nervously, sheepishly. "I was supposed to get married and it didn't work out. You know, with my schedule. I've been gone the last five months out of six if you added it up, I bet."

"So your boyfriend couldn't handle your absenteeism and bolted," Dr. Paulsson says, placing her paperwork on a countertop where there is a computer. Lucy is doing a fine job of turning her body to capture him on the video camera concealed as a pen.

"Good," Benton transmits, glancing at his closed, locked door. Henri went out for a walk, but he has locked his door because he isn't sure that she won't just walk in. She hasn't learned about boundaries because to her nothing is out of bounds.

"We broke up," Lucy replies. "I'm all right. But that and everything else… It's been stressful, but I'm fine."

"That's why you waited until the last minute to come in for a physical?" Dr. Paulsson asks, moving closer to her.

"I guess so."

"That's not very smart. You can't fly without your medical. There are flight surgeons all over the country, you should have taken care of it. What if I couldn't have seen you today? I had one emergency appointment this morning for the son of a friend of mine and the rest of the day off, but I made an exception for you. What if I'd said no? Your medical expires tomorrow, assuming the date you put down is correct."

"Yes, sir. I know it was stupid to wait. I can't tell you how much I appreciate…"

"I'm very pressed for time. So let's move along and get you out of here." He retrieves a blood pressure cuff from the counter and tells her to roll up her right sleeve, and he wraps the cuff around her upper arm and begins to pump. "You're very strong. Do you work out a lot?"

"I try to," she replies in a shaky voice as he brushes a hand against her breast, and Benton feels the violation as he watches it on his laptop more than a thousand miles away in Aspen, Colorado. No one looking at Benton would see a reaction, not even a spark in his eyes or a tightening of his lips. But he feels the violation as much as Lucy does.

"He's touching you," Benton transmits, for the taped tecord. "He's begun touching you now."

"Yes," Lucy seems to be answering Dr. Paulsson but she is answering Benton, and she moves her hand across the camera lens, verifying her affirmative response. "Yes, I work out a lot," she says.