'Was Santa good to you, Dr. Scarpetta?' she cheerfully asked, sorting through room keys.

'I must have been bad this year,' I said. 'I mostly got switches.'

'I can't imagine that. You're always so sweet,' she said. 'We've got you on the security floor, as usual.'

'Thank you.' I could not recall her name and had a feeling she knew it.

'How many nights will you be with us?'

'Just one.' I thought her name might be Sarah, and for some reason it seemed very important that I remember it.

She handed me two keys, one plastic, one metal.

'You're Sarah, aren't you?' I took a risk and asked.

'No, I'm Sally.' She looked hurt.

'I meant Sally,' I said, dismayed. 'Of course. I'm sorry. You always take such good care of me, and I thank you.'

She gave me an uncertain look. 'By the way. Your niece walked through maybe thirty minutes ago,'

'Which way was she headed?'

She pointed toward glass doors leading from the lobby into the heart of the building and clicked the lock free before I had a chance to insert my card. Lucy could have been en route to the PX, post office, Boardroom, ERF. She could have been heading toward her dormitory room, which was in this building but on a different wing.

I tried to imagine where my niece might be at this hour of the afternoon, but where I found her was the last place I would have looked. She was in my suite.

'Lucy!' I exclaimed when I opened the door and she was standing on the other side. 'How did you get in?'

'The same way you did,' she said none too warmly. 'I have a key.'

I carried my bags into the living room and set them down. 'Why?' I studied her face.

'My room's on this side, yours is on that.'

The security floor was for protected witnesses, spies or any other person the Department of Justice decided needed extra protection. To get into rooms, one had to pass through two sets of doors, the first requiring a code entered on a digital keypad that was reconfigured each time it was used. The second needed a magnetized card that was also often changed. I'd always suspected the telephones were monitored.

I was assigned these quarters more than a year ago because Gault was not the only worry in my life. I was baffled that Lucy had now been assigned here, too.

'I thought you were in Washington dorm,' I said.

She went into the living room and sat down. 'I was,' she said. 'And as of this afternoon, I'm here.'

I took the couch across from her. Silk flowers had been arranged, curtains drawn back from a window filled with sky. My niece wore sweatpants, running shoes, and a dark FBI sweatshirt with a hood. Her auburn hair was short, her sharp-featured face flawless except for the bright scar on her forehead. Lucy was a senior at UVA. She was beautiful and brilliant, and our relationship had always been one of extremes.

'Did they put you here because I'm here?' I was still trying to understand.

'No.'

'You didn't hug me when I came in.' It occurred to me as I got up. I kissed her cheek, and she stiffened, pulling away from my arms. 'You've been smoking.' I sat back down.

'Who told you that?'

'No one needs to tell me. I can smell it in your hair.'

'You hugged me because you wanted to see if I smell like cigarettes.'

'And you didn't hug me because you know you smell like cigarettes.'

'You're nagging me.'

'I most certainly am not,' I said.

'You are. You're worse than Grans,' she said.

'Who is in the hospital because she smoked,' I said, holding her intense green gaze.