Third Degree

Despite Kyle’s panic, Warren remained unmoved. “Then you’re out of luck, unless the program finishes before then.”

Kyle turned on Laurel. “Give him the fucking password.”

Warren’s eyes flashed with interest. “Give it to him, goddamn it!” Auster screamed. “This is my life here!”

And mine, you bastard. And the life of someone I actually love. “I don’t even know the password,” she said. “Warren’s gone paranoid.”

Warren was watching Auster, trying to judge whether he was sincere or not. Without a word, Warren walked around to the coffee table, picked up Danny’s letter, then came back and held it out to Auster. “If you’re bored, here’s some reading material to pass the time.”

Kyle took the letter like someone forced to accept literature from a Hare Krishna. He scanned it quickly, then looked from Laurel to Warren. “You know I didn’t write this crap, partner.”

“Do I?”

“All that hokey can’t-live-without-you stuff? Are you kidding? You of all people should know I couldn’t even make that up. My love letters read like something out of the Penthouse Forum.”

“Maybe they did until you fell for my wife.”

Auster was turning purple. He had the face of an innocent man being dragged bodily into prison.

“Besides,” Warren went on, “I’ve recently discovered that my blushing bride might be a fan of the Penthouse Forum. She’s a closet porn addict.”

“This is insane,” Laurel muttered.

With sudden defiance, Kyle shook Danny’s letter under Warren’s nose. “This isn’t my handwriting, kemo sabe. It’s not even close.”

“Do you know whose it is?”

“How could I? It’s block print. It could be anybody’s. Or nobody’s. I don’t know any grown men who write this way. I think somebody’s messing with you. And you don’t have time for that right now. Look around you, man. You’re married to one of the greatest women ever. You’ve got two fine kids. Get past this high school bullshit and think about what really matters. Being free to raise your children, not stuck in a cell somewhere.”

Laurel found herself nodding. Amazingly, when the shit hit the fan, it was Auster who had his priorities in line, whereas Warren seemed lost.

Kyle dropped the letter on the floor and stared hard into Warren’s eyes. “You want the truth, buddy? Listen up. We were going to let you take the fall. Vida and me. That’s why the bonds and the ledgers are here. But it’s all happening too fast. The only way out for any of us now is to get rid of all the evidence. Everything, ASAP. Those ledgers have to go, and the bonds have to disappear.”

His pragmatic tone broke through Warren’s sarcastic front. “And how do you suggest we manage that?” Warren asked.

“We go down to the creek behind your house and have a little bonfire. Then I’ll take the bonds somewhere safe.”

Warren laughed. “As a favor to me, right? You’ll take that two hundred thousand off my hands?”

“Do you want the bonds for yourself? Is that what this is about?”

“I want to know what they’re really doing here!”

Kyle spoke as he might to a child. “I just told you. I planted them here last week-with the ledgers-so that you’d take the fall for what’s been going on at the office. That’s it. End of story.”

When Warren didn’t respond, Kyle turned to Laurel. “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?”

“He won’t take yes for an answer.”

Kyle tapped Warren on the shoulder. “You want my secrets? I was screwing Shannon Jensen, okay? Midlife crisis maximus. But Vida caught me, so I ditched her. But your wife was nowhere in my plans.” Kyle glanced at Laurel, then pushed on, his voice ragged with fear. “We’re standing on the edge of a cliff, partner. You wouldn’t believe the penalties they have now. I’m talking fifty years in prison and millions of dollars in fines. Tens of millions. That’s buried so deep you’ll never get another chance at life. We’ve got to take care of each other now.”

Contempt chilled Warren’s eyes. “Like you’ve taken care of me all along?”

Kyle groaned in frustration. “Buddy…most of the time, life is every man for himself. But sometimes, we all have to pull together. We have to hang together, or we’ll all hang separately, right? Ben Franklin said that.”

“The circumstances were rather different.”

“Yeah, well, the sentiment’s the same. Come on, bro. Don’t be a sucker.”

“But I am. That’s what I’ve always been.” Warren pursed his lips, his gaze far away. Laurel tried to read his face, but her old systems of spousal interpretation were no longer reliable. She had no idea how this new version of Warren reasoned. He looked from Kyle to her like a man trying to judge the lesser of two evils.

“The computer will decide,” he said finally. “That’s the only thing I can trust. If you’re not Laurel’s e-mail buddy, you can go.”

Auster stared at his junior partner for several seconds. “You’re crazy if you think I’m staying here. I’m not spending my last good years in prison because your wife is poking somebody else. You’ll just have to shoot me.” He turned and started walking toward the foyer, which probably meant the safe room.

Warren raised his pistol and cocked it with a loud click. “It’s your choice.”

Auster took two more steps. Then he stopped and looked back, his face sagging under the strain. Laurel saw a wet glint in his eyes.

“You’re committing suicide,” Kyle said. “Okay, fine. But why make me do it with you?”

“Because we’re partners,” Warren replied, smiling with irony. “We share everything, right?”

Chapter 13

Nell was standing in line for a teller at the Planter’s Bank when a blast of precognition so strong it made her dizzy hit her. She didn’t know what to call it: foreboding, ESP, the heebie-jeebies, whatever. She just knew in her heart that something was dreadfully wrong at the office. Something about Vida’s manner had rattled her to the bone, but without her quite realizing it. It was a delayed reaction, like somebody dying in the night from a blow to the head during the day.

Vida was too calm.

The situation was unraveling, yet she was walking around and joking like a jaded undertaker at a funeral. Nell hurried out to her car, drove down the frontage road, and crossed Highway 24 onto Audubon Boulevard. Then she turned into the employee parking lot, which was practically deserted, except for Dr. Auster’s Jaguar and Vida’s old Pontiac. She ran to the back door of the office, which was locked and bolted. She let herself in with her key, then moved quietly into the hall.

The door to exam room six was partly open. She saw stockinged feet sticking off the examining table. So there were still patients here. But she saw no staff whatever. As she passed X-ray, she looked in, but Sherry wasn’t at her counter. Same in the lab. No sign of JaNel, and the lights were off. The blood-chemistry machines were still running, though.

A cold chill raced the length of her body, and her shoulders jerked as though a static charge had suddenly left her. The building seemed alien to her, as though she had entered an office that looked like the one where she worked, but was not. Some of the office buildings near the hospital were almost identical. But not this one. Dr. Auster’s building had a hipped roof and dormers, unlike the “modern” boxes with flat tar roofs standing in front of the hospital.

Suddenly Nell understood the reason for her anxiety. The computers were silent. She had never been inside the office when the computers were shut off. It seemed a different place without their steady, reassuring hum. The machines gave the building a sense of being alive, whereas now the whole place seemed dead.

The clinic had always smelled of rubbing alcohol, but as Nell neared the reception area, its biting odor