No good deed goes unpunished, and Lucy hadn’t done a good deed, wasn’t about to, because had she been charitable and let Rocco live, he would have killed his cop father, a hit, payback. Peter Rocco Marino Junior had changed his name to Caggiano, he hated his own father that much, and little Rocco the bad seed had orders, had a precise cold-blooded plan to take out his old man Marino while he was on his yearly fishing trip, minding his own business in his cabin at Buggs Lake. Make it look like a home invasion gone bad. Well, think again, little Rocco. When Lucy walked out of that hotel, her ears ringing from the gunshot, all she felt was relief-well, not exactly all. It was something she and Marino didn’t talk about. She’d killed his son, a judicious execution that looked like a suicide, black ops, her job, the right thing. But still, it was Marino’s son, his only offspring, the last branch on his family tree as far as she knew.

The controller got back to her. “Niner-lima-foxtrot standby.”

Fucking loser. Lucy imagined him sitting inside the dark control room, smirking as he looked down on her from the top of his tower.

“Niner-lima-foxtrot,” she acknowledged, then to Berger, “Same thing he did last time. Messing with me.”

“Don’t get worked up.”

“I should get his phone number. I’m going to find out who the fuck he is.”

“You’re getting worked up.”

“They better not have lost my car or fucked with it.”

“Tower has nothing to do with parking.”

“Hope you’ve got clout with state troopers; I’m going to speed,” Lucy said. “We can’t be late.”

“This was a bad idea. We should have done it another time.”

“Another time wouldn’t have been your birthday,” Lucy said.

She wasn’t going to allow herself to feel the sting, not when she was pulling in almost ninety percent torque, a crosswind slamming her tail boom, trying to swing it around while she held it steady with the pedals, making tiny corrections with the cyclic and collective. Berger was admitting it, telling the truth: She hadn’t wanted to go to Vermont for her birthday. Not that Lucy needed to be told, good Christ. Alone in front of the fire, looking out at the lights of Stowe, looking out at the snow, and Berger may as well have been in Mexico, she was so distant, so preoccupied. As the head of the New York County DA ’s Sex Crimes Unit, she supervised what always turned out to be the most heinous cases in the five boroughs, and it was assumed within hours of Hannah Starr’s disappearance that she was the victim of foul play, possibly a sex crime. After three weeks of digging, Berger had a very different theory-thanks to Lucy and her forensic computer skills. Lucy’s reward? Berger could think of little else. Then the jogger had to die. A surprise getaway Lucy had planned for months, fucked. Another good deed punished.

Lucy, on the other hand, with her own prepossessions and emotions, had been able to sip a grand cru Chablis by the hearth while she undetectably entertained her own shadowed thoughts, very dark shadowed thoughts, fearful thoughts about mistakes she’d made-specifically, the mistake she’d made with Hannah Starr. Lucy couldn’t forgive it and couldn’t get out from under it, so furious and full of hate it was like being sick, like chronic fatigue or myoneuralgia, always there making her miserable. But she revealed nothing. Berger didn’t know, couldn’t possibly fathom, what was inside Lucy. Years of deep undercover with the FBI, ATF, and paramilitary and private investigations, and she controlled what she gave away and what she kept to herself, had to be impeccably controlled when the slightest facial tic or gesture could blow a case or get her killed.

Objectively, ethically, she shouldn’t have agreed to do the forensic computer analysis in the Hannah Starr case, and she sure as hell should recuse herself now but wasn’t about to, knowing what Hannah deliberately did. Of all people, Lucy should be the one to take care of such a travesty. She had her own history with Hannah Starr, a far more devastating one than she’d imagined before she’d started searching and restoring the entitled pampered bitch’s electronic files and e-mail accounts and sat around day after day looking at e-mails her lover boy husband, Bobby, still sent. The more Lucy discovered, the more contempt she had, the more righteous rage. She wouldn’t quit now, and no one could make her.

She hovered over the yellow-painted hold line, listening to the controller vector some poor Hawker pilot all the hell over the place. What was wrong with people? When the economy had begun its free fall, the world seeming to disintegrate, Lucy had assumed people might behave better, like they did after 9/11. If nothing else, you get scared and survival mode kicks in. Chances for survival are better if you’re civilized and don’t go out of your way to piss everybody off unless there’s something tangible to be gained by it. There was nothing tangible to be gained by what the asshole air traffic controller was doing to Lucy, to other pilots, and he was doing it because he was anonymous up there in his tower, the goddamn coward. She was tempted to confront him, walk over to the tower and press the intercom button by the locked outer door. Someone would let her in. The people in the tower knew damn well who she was. Good Christ, she told herself. Calm down. For one thing, there wasn’t time.

Once she shut down, she wouldn’t refuel. She wasn’t going to wait for the fuel truck. It would take forever, might never get to her, the way things were going. She’d lock up the helicopter and grab her car and race to Manhattan. Barring any further delays, they should be in the Village, in her loft, by half past one. That was cutting it close for a two a.m. interview they’d never get again-an interview that might lead to Hannah Starr, whose disappearance had captured the public’s morbid imagination since the day before Thanksgiving, when she was allegedly last seen getting into that yellow cab on Barrow Street. Ironically, just blocks from where Lucy lived, Berger had pointed out more than once. “And you were home that night. Too damn bad you didn’t see anything.”

“Helicopter niner-lima-foxtrot,” the controller said over the air. “You can proceed to the ramp. Landing is at your own risk. If you’re unfamiliar with the airport, you need to inform us.”

“Niner-lima-foxtrot,” Lucy said with no inflection, the way she sounded before she offed someone or threatened it. She nudged the helicopter forward.

She hover-taxied to the edge of the ramp, made a vertical descent, and set down on her dolly, situated between a Robinson helicopter that reminded her of a dragonfly and a Gulfstream jet that reminded her of Hannah Starr. The wind grabbed the tail boom, and exhaust fumes filled the cabin.

“Unfamiliar?” Lucy chopped the throttle to flight idle and turned off the low-RPM warning horn. “I’m unfamiliar? You hear that? He’s trying to make me look like a crappy pilot.”

Berger was silent, the smell of fumes strong.

“He does it every damn time now.” Lucy reached up and flipped off overhead switches. “Sorry about the exhaust. You okay? Hang in there for two minutes. Really sorry.” She should confront the controller. She shouldn’t let him get away with it.

Berger took off her headset and opened her window, moving her face as close to it as she could.

“Opening the window makes it worse,” Lucy reminded her. She should walk over to the tower and take the elevator up to the top and let him have it inside the control room right in front of his colleagues.

She watched seconds tick by on the digital clock, fifty-something to go, and her anxiety and anger grew. She would find out the name of that damn air traffic controller and would get him. What had she ever done to him or anybody who worked here except act respectfully and mind her own business and tip well and pay her fees? Thirty-one seconds to go. She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know him. She’d never been anything but professional over the air, no matter how rude he was, and he was always rude to everyone. Fine. If he wanted a fight, he’d get one. Jesus Christ. He had no idea who he was tangling with.