'This one's pretty bad.' She initiated the conversation. 'At least the basement is ground level, but there's only one door. So most of the water's in a pool down there. We got a truck on the way with pumps.'

'How deep?'

I thought of thousands of gallons of water from fire hoses and imagined a cold black soup thick with dangerous debris.

'Depends on where you're stepping. If I were you, I wouldn't have taken this call,' she said in a way that made me feel unwanted.

'Yes, you would have,' I said, hurt.

Lucy had made little effort to hide her feelings about working cases with me. She wasn't rude, but often acted as if she barely knew me when she was with her colleagues. I remembered earlier years when I would visit her at UVA and she did not want students to see us together. I knew she was not ashamed of me but perceived me as an overwhelming shadow that I had worked very hard not to cast over her life.

'Have you finished packing?' I asked her with an ease that was not true.

'Please don't remind me,' she said.

'But you still want to go.'

'Of course. It's a great opportunity.'

'Yes, it is, and I am so pleased for you,' I said. 'How's Janet? I know this must be hard…'

'It's not like we'll be in different hemispheres,' Lucy answered back.

I knew better, and so did she. Janet was an FBI agent. The two of them had been lovers since their early training days at Quantico. Now they worked for different federal law enforcement agencies and soon would live in separate cities. It was quite possible their careers would never permit their relationship again.

'Do you suppose we can carve out a minute to talk today?' I spoke again as we picked our way around puddles.