Third Degree (22 page)

“Hell, no!”

She returned his gaze without the slightest bit of faith. “If you’re not, it’s only because she wouldn’t touch you with three sets of gloves on.”

That’s what you think.
“You know Laurel, all right.”

Vida chuckled. “Yes, I do. Way too much class for you.”

He was surprised by how deeply this assertion stung. “What will you be doing while I’m at Warren’s?”

Vida sat on the edge of his desk and looked at him with a strange light in her eyes. “Burning this office to the ground.”

A bolt of terror went through him. “What? Burning…?”

“You heard me. It’s the only way, Kyle. And we’ve only got a few minutes to do it. Biegler and his guys are probably driving ninety miles an hour from Jackson, which makes it about an eighty-five-minute trip.”

Auster felt sick. “But—”

“They’ve probably got somebody watching the office, too, to make sure we don’t try to cart the files and computers out of here.”

“They’ll follow me when I leave,” he thought aloud.

She nodded. “They will, if they recognize you.”

“How could they not?”

She smiled. “Wait here.”

Sixty seconds later, Vida walked in with some threadbare pants, a polyester work shirt, and a green John Deere cap.

“Where’d you get those?” he asked.

“Mr. Chaney. He’s lying on the X-ray table in a paper gown. I think he’s getting a good trade myself, and so will he. Your pants and button-down together probably cost three hundred bucks.” She tossed the clothes into Auster’s lap. “I doubt they’d take these rags at the Goodwill.”

A reek of BO rose from his lap. “They stink!”

“Life’s rough. Get changed, Doc.”

“Do I take my own car?”

“Sure you do, chunkhead.” Vida dug into her jeans and brought out a jingling key ring. “Mr. Chaney drives a black Chevy pickup. It’ll be in the front lot. If we’re lucky, Biegler’s spy will be watching your Jag in the employees’ lot. Change clothes, damn it!”

Auster removed his butter-soft Charles Tyrwhitt pinpoint and folded it carefully on his desk. Then he raised the stained work shirt and slid an arm into it.
“Ugh,”
he grunted, wrinkling his nose. “Is this the only way?”

Vida gave him a blue steel stare. “You’d better believe it.”

“Don’t you dare give Chaney the keys to my Jag.”

“Forget the Jag, and forget your cell phone. Don’t use it for anything, unless I tell you to. That’s why I didn’t answer your call before.”

Auster’s mind filled with images of his office burning, a black column of smoke bringing all the doctors and nurses out of the hospital three blocks away.

“I’ll tell you one thing, buster,” Vida said. “You’re gonna owe me after this. For a very long time.”

Auster nodded in surrender, but he knew Vida wouldn’t buy it. Her father had been a pathological liar, and she saw all men as reflections of him. Sometimes he wondered if she was far wrong.

Nell sat at the reception desk and tried to look like a normal person, but inside she was a wreck. In the last few minutes the office had gone crazy. Vida was acting like some sort of secret agent, and a few minutes ago a strange man had shambled past in the hall, coming from the direction of Dr. Auster’s office. Then an old man in X-ray had started yelling that someone had stolen his clothes. JaNel was looking for Dr. Auster and couldn’t find him, and Vida had told Nell to hold down the front while she took care of some necessities. When Nell asked what was going on, Vida had leaned close and whispered, “Give me five minutes, hon. Then I’ll tell you what to do.” That was five minutes longer than Nell could stand, but she’d gritted her teeth and tried to look calm.

Then Dr. Shields called, and her legs turned to jelly. “I need to speak with Kyle,” he said in a stiff voice.

“I don’t think he’s here, Dr. Shields,” Nell said nervously.

“What kind of answer is that? Either he is or he isn’t.”

“Um…that’s all I know at this point.”

“Listen, if that son of a bitch is trying to avoid me, you tell him I said to get his ass on the phone.”

Nell sat blinking in the wake of Dr. Shields’s profanity. From Warren Shields, a curse word in the office was like an explosion. “Dr. Shields?” she ventured tentatively.

“Yes?”

“Can I tell you something?”

“What?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m the one who’s been e-mailing you.”

Silence.

Nell was suddenly sure she’d made a mistake, but then Dr. Shields said, “You e-mailed me to look in my safe room?”

“That’s right.”

“But…how did you know what was in there?”

“I didn’t. I still don’t. But I knew it was dangerous. My sister told me about it. I was trying to help you. I mean, I
am
trying to.”

“You did help me, Nell. Look, do you know anything about a letter? A love letter written in green ink?”

She thought back over all the papers she had seen in the past few days. “No, sir. Nothing like that.”

There was a long pause. “What’s going on up there today?”

Nell blinked away tears. Being able to talk to Dr. Shields directly was more relief than she could stand. “Things are out of control. I think some kind of agents from Jackson may be on their way here. Because of all the stuff Dr. Auster and my sister have been doing. You know what I’m talking about?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I haven’t been a hundred percent perfect in my life,” Nell said, “but I never meant to hurt anybody. And I know
you
didn’t. And…I just don’t want anything to happen to you. You don’t deserve that, Dr. Shields.”

“I’m going to be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“I don’t know. You’re too trusting, and you sure can’t trust Dr. Auster. Not a lick. Listen, if I hang up all of a sudden, it’s because Vida’s come in. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, but you’d better not call back here. Not with those agents coming. You just do whatever you think is right. You can count on me to back you up.”

Dr. Shields didn’t speak for several seconds. Then he said, “Nell, I need to ask you something.”

“Hurry.”

“Is Kyle having an affair?”

“Well…yes, sir. With my sister.”

“I know that. I’m talking about with someone else.”

Nell wasn’t sure she should say more, but she didn’t want to hold anything back from Dr. Shields. It might hurt him in some way. “I did hear Dr. Auster on the phone with somebody two days ago. I think he’s planning to run off with somebody new.”

“Who?”

She sensed a sudden urgency in Dr. Shields’s voice. “I don’t know.”

“Are you sure? Don’t hold back to spare my feelings.”

This comment confused her. Why should Dr. Auster’s affair hurt his feelings? “I really don’t. But you’d better—” Vida’s cheap heels were clacking down the corridor. “Sorry, I have to go.” Nell set the phone in its cradle and began typing entries on a Blue Cross insurance claim.

“Patients still calling?” Vida asked, walking in with two stuffed Walgreens bags.

“What do you think? It’s like a tidal wave without Dr. Shields here.”

“You just keep blowing them off, honey. And it doesn’t matter what you tell them. Say we’re gone to the NASCAR races. This shop is closing for good.”

Nell stared openmouthed at her sister.

Vida gave back her “I meant what I said” look, then began opening the file cabinets against the back wall.

Laurel watched Warren’s face as he hung up the phone. He had looked puzzled while he was talking, but now he wore an expression she couldn’t begin to read.

“That was Nell Roberts?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Nell is the one who’s been sending you e-mails?”

“Apparently. She’s worried about me.”

Laurel had met Nell a few times, but only in passing. A pretty girl in her late twenties, she looked as if she’d come from a different family than her putative older sister. “How could Nell possibly know anything about me?”

Warren seemed to be working something out in his head. “Through Vida, I guess. Vida’s got a vested interest in protecting her relationship with Kyle.”

Laurel saw where this was going. “Warren, don’t try to bend things around to fit your preconceptions. Look at the facts. You obviously didn’t even know who was telling you this stuff. What if Nell has an ulterior motive herself?”

“Like what?”

“Maybe she’s in love with you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Why? She’s young and single, and you’re a handsome doctor, her boss—”

“I’m not going to listen to that crap. Nell is the only good person in that whole snake pit. She doesn’t even belong there.”

“She can be a good person and still do not-so-good things. And anybody can be mistaken about things they see or hear.”

Warren raised his eyebrows. “Well, she’s apparently heard that Kyle is planning to run away with someone. A new girlfriend, she said. And that seems to square with the two hundred grand in bonds hidden in our safe room. Guatemalan bonds, huh? Were you planning to take our children with you?”

Laurel suddenly realized that reason would never get her out of this. No matter what facts surfaced, Warren would find a way to fit them into his betrayal scenario. “Listen to me. I’m not going to discuss Kyle anymore. I haven’t had sex with him, I don’t even like him, and I can’t answer any of your questions. I don’t know what those bonds are doing here, or the ledgers, or anything else. I know
nothing,
okay? Kyle is your partner and your problem. End of story.”

Warren looked at his watch for a long time, as though calculating the number of hours he’d been awake. Laurel guessed thirty-four. How rational could anyone be after that kind of sleep deprivation? He yawned as if trying to swallow his head with his own mouth, stretching his arms back until his shoulders popped.

“Do you want to see the kids?” he asked.

She looked at him in disbelief. “You’re going to untie me?”

“If you promise to behave.”

“Can I clean up before they see me?”

“You worry too much about your looks. We go upstairs as is, or forget it.”

Laurel wasn’t sure she should let the kids see her in her present state. But somewhere in the back of her brain simmered a fear that she might not survive this encounter. “Okay.”

With a quick turn of the dials, Warren opened the bike lock. One moment she was a chained prisoner, the next she was free. Free to move, at least. She was still a prisoner.

She’d expected to be led straight upstairs, but he took her arm and walked her back to the great room, where her laptop sat clicking on the coffee table. Interposing himself between Laurel and the machine, he looked down at the screen to check the progress of the password-cracking program. Around his back, Laurel saw the Hotmail log-in page superimposed in miniature over a background page, which showed a gray-bearded wizard staring wisely up from the screen. Lightning flashed from the staff in his hand, but what held Laurel’s attention was the numerical ticker below the wizard. It was seven digits long, and the last three digits were increasing almost too fast to see, like the digital readout of a gas pump filling a bottomless tank. Above this, a line of asterisks filled the PASSWORD field of the Hotmail log-in page, and a red error message read SIGN IN FAILED. The asterisks and letters appeared to be permanent, but as Laurel stared, she realized that they were blinking so rapidly that she almost could not detect it. Somehow, the cracker program had disabled the feature that kicked people off after ten failed attempts. She felt as though a ghostly robot were sitting at her computer, trying to break into her e-mail account at the speed of light.

“Any minute now,” Warren said, glancing around at her. “Nervous?”

She turned away. “Let’s go see the kids.”

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

He led her up the front stairs, only letting go of her arm when they reached the top. Laurel heard the TV blaring through the closed door of the kids’ playroom. She tried to steel herself, but she knew she would cry when she saw them. She had once burst into tears upon seeing them after a five-day education seminar in Dallas. She expected Warren to warn her in some way, but he simply pocketed his gun, opened the door, and cried, “Hey, hey! Look who’s here!”

Laurel heard a scuttling sound to her left, but saw nothing there. Her eyes were drawn to the couch, where Grant lay sprawled on his back watching the big-screen TV. He’d changed his royal blue school uniform shirt for a ripped GIRL skateboard T-shirt, and his New Balances for Adios with stripped black laces. On the screen before him, Tony Hawk leaped and spun over the lip of a massive half-pipe, which Grant never tired of begging Warren to build in the backyard.

“Hey, Mom,” Grant said, moving his eyes but nothing else. “How’s your headache?”

“A little better,” Warren said quickly. “She’s not over it yet. Where’s your sister?”

“Over
here,
” said a small voice. “Ta-da!”

Beth jumped out from behind the closet door. Laurel had to cover her mouth to hide the pain that pierced her at the sight. Beth was wearing the Snow White costume Laurel had bought her during their last trip to Disney World. Not the cheap one-piece costume, but the full-blown ensemble of yellow satin and dark blue velvet, with bright red ribbons like the ones in the Disney classic. Beth’s proud smile and flashing eyes made her look impossibly alive and happy, like a character who had leaped out of a movie herself.

“How do I
look
?” she asked.

Laurel bit her lip and knelt before her daughter. “Did you put this on all by yourself, Snow White?”

Beth curtsied with elaborate ceremony.

“I helped,” Grant said from the couch.

“No, you didn’t!” Beth cried.

Grant shrugged.

“He just tied my bow,” Beth explained. “Nothing else.”

“Riiiight,”
Grant drawled.

“Shut up, Butt Face.”

Grant broke up at this.

“Stop provoking her,” Warren snapped. Then he looked down at Beth. “And you stop saying ‘Butt Face,’ young lady.”

“Well, he is.”

As Grant stifled more laughter, Laurel hugged her daughter as tightly as she dared. “Mama?” Beth’s small voice in her ear. “Are you okay?”