Third Degree

Chapter 11

Kyle Auster gripped his office telephone with an almost bloodless hand. The man on the other end of it was Patrick Evans, executive assistant to the governor and Auster’s line into the Medicaid Fraud Office. Evans had opened the conversation with the warning “No names,” then explained that he was calling Auster from a pay phone. At Evans’s next words, Auster’s face went slack with fear.

“I don’t know what you said to Paul Biegler today, but he’s on his way down there with two other agents to chain your goddamn office shut. You are out of business, Kyle. For a while, anyway. It’s time to hire a good criminal lawyer.”

“But…but” was all Auster could sputter. “Today? Biegler said he was coming in the morning.”

Evans didn’t bother to respond to this evidence of idiocy. Auster heard traffic zooming by whatever pay phone Evans was using. He could see his old schoolmate standing by some shady downtown pay phone, watching every vagrant like a potential mugger.

“Patrick,” Auster said in a halting voice. “Isn’t there any way I can head this off?”

“I’m sorry, man. The ship has sailed. And…I’ve got to say this. Our relationship has to end at this point. I know we go back a long way, but I’m in a high-profile job. You’re a liability now. I can’t risk everything because we played ball together in high school.”

A big truck ground its gears in Auster’s ear. He felt as if Evans had just walked away from the roulette table, leaving him half a million down. “I’ve got to go,” Evans said. “Are we clear on that last? No calls to the governor’s office, not even from home, much less jail.”

Fear and indignation rose as one in Auster. “What about all the contributions I’ve given you guys? Hell, this year alone-”

“Wake up, Kyle. This is survival. Get a good lawyer. I’m out of here.”

The phone clicked in Auster’s hand. No more traffic sounds. Nothing but the hum of his air conditioner and the sound of a patient’s voice in the corridor outside. He felt the world collapsing around him, crushing him with its density. His allotted time as Kyle Auster, noted Athens Point physician, had shrunk to the time it would take Paul Biegler to cover the one hundred and twenty-six miles of road between Jackson and Athens Point. With traffic, that was about two and a quarter hours, but if Biegler really pushed it, he could do it in ninety minutes.

Christ, when did he leave? Auster fought the urge to race out to his car, visit the bank, empty his cash accounts, and skip town. I should have kept my damn mouth shut. He pressed the intercom button on his phone and waited for Nell to answer.

“Yes, Dr. Auster?” she said in a strangely cold voice.

“Would you ask Vida to come to my office?”

“Um…she’s not here, Doctor.”

“What? Where is she?”

“She went to the store.”

“The store? What store?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Dr. Auster.”

Auster was flabbergasted. Vida never left the office during the day. Maybe she’d run out of cigarettes.

“Should I send her to you when she gets back, Doctor?”

“Ah…yes, Nell. Thank you.”

Auster’s heart was galloping. He scrabbled in his top drawer for another beta-blocker, which he swallowed with the remains of a flat Coke from his morning snack. Then for good measure he stuck an Ativan under his tongue. What the hell could he do to save himself in ninety minutes? Call Biegler and send him to Warren’s house to find the planted evidence? Claim that everything he’d done had been to protect his younger partner? Would Biegler buy that? Probably not. There was still too much evidence to be found at the office. Too many patients to buy off. Ten days simply hadn’t been enough warning. He needed Vida. Now.

He speed-dialed her cell phone, but it kicked him straight to voice mail. Either Vida was on the phone with someone else, or she was purposefully not answering his call. At a loss, Auster started to get up and see one of the patients waiting in his exam rooms. Then he sat back down, took the crystal Diaka bottle from his bottom drawer, and gulped a heroic slug right from the mouth.

“She’ll be back soon,” he gasped, thankful for the burn of alcohol in his gullet. “She’ll know what to do.”

Warren dragged Laurel down the hall to the guest room and threw her onto the bed. The horn sounded again outside, and then the doorbell rang.

“Let me answer it!” she begged. “I won’t try anything! I swear to God.”

Warren wasn’t listening. He shoved a chair under the doorknob, then began rummaging in the guest room closet, which they used to store junk that had no other place.

“What are you doing?” she cried, praying that since the front door was still locked, Diane would take the kids home to her house. But of course she would see both cars in the driveway. “Please don’t tape me up again, Warren. I don’t want the kids to see that!”

“No tape,” he said, walking out of the closet with a three-foot length of plastic-coated cable. A bicycle lock.

“No!” she yelled, but it didn’t matter.

He sat astride her chest and looped the cable twice around her neck, then cinched it tight and passed it through two slots in the wooden headboard. By the time he clicked the lock shut, she could hardly move without cutting off her air supply.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid.” He vanished into the hall. Laurel heard the front door open, then a squeal of joy from Beth at unexpectedly finding her father home early. The voices dropped to a muffled hum, and a moment later Laurel heard feet going up the front stairs.

Why?

Struggling to breathe with the bike lock choking her, she agonized over her decision at the front door. She’d read that experts advised women to try everything for freedom in a kidnap situation, even to risk being shot rather than be taken captive. But this was different. When Warren said he would kill himself, she had known by the timbre of his voice that he would do it. He would kill her and himself, too. For an instant, she’d wondered if even that would be better than letting the children fall under his power, but in the end she’d decided that they represented her last hope of bringing him to his senses. Warren had come unmoored from reality, but perhaps Grant and Beth could coax him back.

She heard soft footsteps in the playroom upstairs. The kids’ couch groaned under Warren’s unaccustomed weight. In that moment Laurel hated Danny McDavitt. Five weeks ago her life had been a beautiful dream. They had each decided to tell their spouse that they wanted a divorce on the same night, a Thursday. That way, no matter what happened, Warren would have to go to work the next day, and Danny would have flying lessons scheduled. They could almost surely find a way to see each other, even if Warren or Starlette had freaked out. They parted that Thursday afternoon with a feeling of elation that masked the deep anxiety Laurel felt at broaching the subject of divorce with Warren. After eleven months of soul-withering secrecy, they were finally stepping into the light.

Danny stuck by his side of the agreement. After he put his kids to bed, he sat Starlette down in the kitchen and told her he didn’t love her anymore. When she asked if he’d met someone, Danny admitted that he had and told her that he was truly in love for the first time in his life. Starlette went ballistic. Not only did she make clear that she had no intention of granting Danny a divorce (in Mississippi you had to have grounds), but she also stated that if Danny somehow forced her into one, his ideas on custody-him keeping Michael, for example-would never become reality. She would keep Michael, first to make Danny suffer as she would be suffering, and second because she wouldn’t let any of her friends think she was capable of relinquishing her autistic son with only minor regret (which was the truth). Danny spent that night in their kitchen, trying to find a way out of the cage he had constructed for himself.

In the Shields house, things unfolded differently. When Warren got home from his hospital rounds, he was more taciturn than usual, and he actually ignored the children for several minutes, though they tried desperately to get his attention. Worried, Laurel sent them into the backyard and asked him what was wrong. Warren told her that Jimmy Woods had died that afternoon. Jimmy had gone to school with Warren from nursery school through the twelfth grade, and they’d lived on the same street as boys. He’d developed diabetes some years ago and had a hard time keeping it under control. An hour before Warren got home from work that Thursday, Jimmy had gone into a diabetic coma while driving on Highway 24 to pick up his son from baseball practice. He ramped off a low shoulder, went airborne, and slammed into a pecan tree. Warren had been in the hospital when Jimmy was carried into the ER, and the attending had called him to help try to stabilize Woods, whose neck had largely been crushed. Jimmy died under Warren’s hands, as blue as a bruise and paralyzed from the neck down.

Warren had never before showed emotion when he lost patients, but as he recounted Jimmy’s death, he wiped tears from his eyes. He had personally broken the news to Jimmy’s wife, who’d shown up at the ER with their son in tow. Strangely moved, Laurel walked to Warren and hugged him tight, but he stiffened and tried to change the subject. She held him by force for a moment, then went back to the kitchen to finish cooking supper.

After she put the kids to bed, she came downstairs and found Warren on the sofa, blankly staring at MSNBC. Despite her desire to be with Danny, she could not find it in her heart to tell Warren then that she was leaving him. The packed suitcase hidden in her car trunk would have to stay there one more night. Danny would be upset, but they could certainly wait one day. She had decided to go take a shower when Warren turned to her and said, “What would you do if I died like that? If I was here one day and gone the next? Out of the blue?”

“Don’t talk like that,” she replied, not wanting him to go any deeper with his morbid musings.

“I think you’d be all right financially. I’ve been working on my estate this year.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Laurel said awkwardly. “But it would be such a blow to the children, I just don’t want to think about it.”

Warren nodded distantly. “Death is part of life, though. I see it every day. Men younger than Jimmy die every month in this town. Children, too. But it’s you I’m thinking about. Would you be all right? Would you be able to move on and find a new life?”

Dear God. Laurel closed her eyes, almost unable to deceive him a moment longer. But that was definitely not the moment to tell him she was leaving. Warren believed that adultery was a profound betrayal not only of one’s spouse, but of the entire family. The very concept of family. And she had never seen him as emotional as he was that night. No, the breakup conversation would definitely have to wait.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said helplessly, wondering why Warren had decided to unburden himself on this night of all others. He never had before, and that was one of the roots of their marital problems-maybe even the taproot. Flustered and angry, she checked her clone phone in the bathroom and found a text message from Danny: DON’T TELL HIM! I’LL EXPLAIN TOMORROW.

They met the next day in the woods near Danny’s house. She arrived to find Danny pacing back and forth in the little glade, looking as though he hadn’t slept at all. She asked if he’d told Starlette last night, then immediately launched into her own explanation of why she hadn’t told Warren. She’d expected Danny to get angry, but instead he looked relieved. In a subdued voice, he told her he’d decided he couldn’t divorce Starlette after all. The reason was as simple as his son. He’d already talked to a lawyer, and the lawyer had confirmed the bleak visitation picture painted by Starlette. Laurel knew that Starlette was capable of following through on her threats. The irony was that Danny’s best chance of convincing a judge that he was Michael’s primary caregiver was Laurel herself; but her testimony would be useless if she was exposed as his paramour, a fact that even a semiprofessional investigation would probably uncover.

Eleven months of dreams had vanished in a span of seconds. She had given Danny everything, or almost everything, and she’d promised him the rest. Yet he was rejecting her. He had a valid reason, yes. But it still seemed unfair. How could all his promises evaporate in the face of his wife’s selfishness? Laurel had waited thirty-five years for true love, and having found it, was she doomed to watch it float away like smoke? She felt as though fate were mocking her, showing her what was possible and then snatching it away at the last moment. And what about the previous night? What if she had told Warren she was leaving him, only to learn that Danny had chickened out? Talk about jumping out of a plane without a parachute. When Danny tried to hug her, she shoved him away. If she couldn’t have everything, she’d decided, she wanted nothing.

A creak in the hallway made her tense, and the bike lock constricted around her throat. Then the guest room door opened as slowly as a door in a horror movie.

Warren looked down at her with eyes every bit as wild as those of an ax murderer. He had a stack of boxes in his arms, and these he dumped right on top of Laurel. When she flinched to avoid injury, the cable lock cut off her airflow.

“I can’t breathe!”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Warren said, sitting on the edge of the bed with apparent disgust. “Let me know how it comes out.”

Laurel twisted her neck enough to get some air, but the terror generated by her need for oxygen overrode almost everything else. She dug her fingers under the cable and held it out just enough to take a long, sweet breath.

“I knew I was right,” Warren said. “For a while you had me doubting. The letter, too. It didn’t sound like Kyle. But you never know what somebody’s really like. You’re a perfect example of that. My pussy-hound partner turns out to be a closet romantic, and my wife a lying whore.” He clucked his tongue. “You learn something every day, right?”

Laurel had no idea why Warren was back on the Auster kick. It must have something to do with the boxes. “How are the kids?” she asked. “What did you tell them?”

“Mommy’s having a migraine.”

Laurel tried to guess every possible effect of this explanation.

“They’re very worried about you,” Warren said with false concern. “They’ve promised not to make one little peep, or to come downstairs. If they need something, they’ll call me from the upstairs extension.”

She nodded thankfully. At least they wouldn’t see her in this condition or be anywhere near Warren’s gun.

He opened one of the boxes and pulled out what looked like an accounting ledger, bound in red faux leather. “At first I figured you were storing these for Kyle. But that’s not it, is it?”

Laurel shrugged warily. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“You never give up, do you? I can understand why. You know what’s likely to happen, don’t you?” He held out the ledger. “This is some kind of duplicate set of books for the office. Only it shows all sorts of payments that never made it onto our tax returns. Cash payments, I guess. And there are codes beside certain patients’ names, codes I’ve never seen before. God only knows what they mean. God and Kyle, anyway.” He gave her a pointed look. “And you, right?”

Laurel risked cutting off her air to shake her head.

“You’re not just storing this stuff as a favor. The reason I know that is because I found these.” He held up a stack of what looked like stock certificates, bound with a tight paper band. “Bearer bonds. Two hundred thousand dollars’ worth, if I’m doing my conversion correctly.”

Laurel blinked in confusion.

“These are just like cash,” Warren said. “Totally liquid. You have them, you own them. They’re illegal in the U.S. now. But these, conveniently, were issued by a Guatemalan company.”

“I’ve never seen those before, Warren. I don’t even know what they are.”

He laughed. “That’s odd, don’t you think? They’re hidden in our house, and I’ve never seen them before. If you didn’t hide them, how did they get here? The bond fairy? Santa Claus?”

“Kyle must have hidden them here. He’s setting you up for something.”

“You’re right about that. And you’re helping him.”

Laurel knew there was no point, but she shook her head anyway. Warren reached out and closed his hand around her windpipe. “Stop denying it, Laurel. Stop lying. And maybe-just maybe-you’ll live through this.”

“Tell me what you want. What do you want me to do?”

He pursed his lips. “I want to know how you feel when you suck Kyle’s cock. Do you like knowing fifty women have done it before you? Or that he just pulled it out of Vida an hour before he saw you?”

Laurel shut her eyes and began to cry. This was what happened when you decided to break the rules. She hadn’t wanted any of this, but her acts had made it all happen. By reaching for Danny’s love, she had drawn this nightmare around herself. She had put her children’s lives at risk.

God forgive me, she thought.

“You like degrading yourself, don’t you?” Warren said. “This life we have, this perfect life…you hate that. You need drama, don’t you? You need to feel low. It gets you off. Like that porn in your computer. The nasty stuff gets you off. It must have something to do with your father, the preacher. Did old Tom give you a little private Communion after Mom went to sleep at night? A little wine and romance?”

“Baptists drink grape juice at Communion.”

Warren barked a laugh. “That’s in public. In private they do it all, don’t they?”

Crying was making her throat swell, and that made it still harder to breathe. “Please take this off my neck,” she gasped. “I really can’t breathe.”

“I will take it off,” he said, smiling strangely. “You know why? Because you’re about to make a phone call.”

“Who am I going to call?”

“Kyle, of course.”

“Kyle? What do you want me to say?”

Warren thought about it for a moment. “You want an afternoon quickie. You’re horny. You can’t go another minute without it.”

Laurel couldn’t believe his words.

“You were watching your porn, but it’s not enough. Use your imagination. I’m sure he’s fucked you right in our bed and loved every second of it. As much because of me as you, probably.”

Warren left the guest room, then quickly returned with two cordless handsets. He must have the phones hidden somewhere, she thought. Laurel lay still as he unlocked the cable, loosened it a little, and then, to her horror, shut the lock again. He had no intention of releasing her from this torture device.

She watched him dial a number on one of the handsets, then hold the phone up to her face. He put his head against hers, crushing the phone between, so that he wouldn’t miss a word Kyle said.

With his other hand he stuck his pistol against her ribs.

When Auster’s cell phone rang, he assumed it was Vida returning his call to her cell, but the LCD said WARREN SHIELDS. Auster breathed a heavy sigh of relief, though he wasn’t sure why talking to Shields should calm him down. Maybe because they were both in the same boat, even if Shields didn’t understand how leaky the boat was.

“Warren?” he answered. “Where are you, man?”

“Kyle?” said a female voice that Auster thought might belong to his girlfriend, but then he decided against it. This woman sounded more mature.

“This is Kyle. Who’s this?”

“Laurel.”

Laurel Shields? What the hell? “Laurel? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’ve been thinking about you, that’s all.”

Auster sputtered in confusion. “You have?”

“Mm-hm.”

“What about me?”

“You know. What we’ve been doing together.”

“What we’ve been doing?”

“Yes. You know.”

“Ah, I’m a little confused, Laurel. I like your tone, but why don’t you help me out here?”

“I want you to come over and fuck me. Now. The kids have a birthday party, and they’re not here now.”

Auster was stunned speechless.

“I want you to do me the way you did the last time. Can you handle that?”

The last time? “Laurel…this is some kind of joke, right? Like Candid Camera or something. Punk’d or whatever?”

“No joke, Kyle. You know me better than that.”

“What I know is that I’ve dropped hints for years, and you’ve kept me at arm’s length the whole time. What’s changed?”

There was a long pause, during which Auster sensed a hand pressed over the mouthpiece on Laurel’s end. He’d downed several shots of Diaka, but through the vodka-generated fog it struck him that since Warren had not come in to work today, he might be home now. He might even be on the phone with Laurel, though Auster couldn’t imagine what they might be playing at.

“Kyle?” Laurel said plaintively.

“I’m here.”

“What do you think? Don’t you want me to suck you off?”

Auster was about to hang up when a new scenario struck him. What if Warren had been cheating on his wife? God knew he’d been acting screwy for the past couple of months. Longer, really. If he was cheating on Laurel, and she’d found out about it, maybe she was out for a little revenge. This wasn’t the best time for it-with Biegler on the way, it would be insanity-but he’d had his eye on her for a long time. Laurel Shields was a thoroughbred. She made his latest girlfriend look like a plow horse (despite Shannon’s being ten years younger than Laurel) and Vida Roberts like something destined for the glue factory. Laurel had class, and there was nothing better than a woman with class looking in the gutter for revenge.

“Ah…I can’t say I would turn that down. What do you have in mind?”

“Just drive over here. Pull into the garage, and I’ll be waiting for you. Bring some Viagra with you. I need a serious workout.”

The mention of Viagra pushed back the fog a little. Then he thought he heard another voice, heavily muffled. “What about Warren, babe? Where is he?”

“Warren’s not at work?”

“He never came in today.”

“Huh. I don’t know, then. And I don’t care. I know what I want.”

Auster felt his sluggish blood pumping faster.

“Don’t worry about Warren,” Laurel said. “He never comes home during the day. Maybe he’s playing golf.”

Auster closed his eyes and forced himself to think beyond the moment. Biegler was driving hell for leather from Jackson to shut down the office. Vida would be getting back any second. Yes, nailing Laurel seemed like the ideal escape from all that, but what it really amounted to was professional suicide. He would have to walk away this time. For once in his life, he would leave money sitting on the table.

“I sure appreciate the offer,” he said. “But I have to pass, Laurel. There’s just too much going on, and I keep thinking of something my daddy taught me early on.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t shit where you eat.”

She gave a feminine snort of contempt. “You’ve broken that rule too many times to count.”

“Yeah, I know. But Warren’s my partner. Maybe I’ve finally learned something. Be careful, honey. You’re too sweet to waste it, you know?”

He hung up before his darker instincts could betray him.

Warren slammed the phone against the guest room wall. Laurel cringed, but hope was surging through her. She had been sexually explicit, as Warren had instructed, but that strategy had backfired, as she had known it would. The more forward she was, the more confused Kyle was bound to be. Her only worry had been that he would ignore the absurdity of her offer and accept it on the outside chance of getting sex from a delusional woman. He had certainly lusted after her long enough. At one drunken Christmas party Kyle had confessed that he often thought about Laurel while having sex with other women. She’d shoved him away, but what more could she do? How could she prove he’d said something like that? The only upside of this unsavory history was that Kyle knew her well enough to know she’d never be the pursuer, even if she decided she wanted him.

“I told you someone was messing with your head,” she said softly. “Kyle had no idea what I was talking about. Do you believe me now?”

“You’ve got some kind of code!” Warren shouted. “Something you say if I’m around. Or something you don’t say. That’s it, isn’t it?”

A Kafkaesque dread descended in her soul. “Warren…the kids. Please keep your voice down.” She took a deep breath, then spoke with utter sincerity. “If you don’t believe what you heard with your own ears, I don’t know what I can do. The only place I’ve ever cheated on you is inside your head.”

“Are these in my head?” he cried, snatching up a bundle of bearer bonds.

“I can’t explain those,” she said with conviction. “But I’m not involved with Kyle Auster in any way. I’ll take a lie detector test, if you want.”

Warren was staring at the bonds, not at her.

“Think,” she said. “Use that big brain of yours. Who could have told you where to find this stuff except the person who put it there?”

“Maybe that’s how it is,” he said slowly. “Maybe when Kyle dumped you, you kept his money for revenge. Maybe he’s trying to get back at you like this.”

“That’s crazy!” she cried, causing the lock to jerk taut against her throat. “Think of the risks. And he’d never get his money back.”

“Maybe it’s his wife, then. E-mailing me, I mean. She’d damn sure have a reason to get back at him.”

“You think Kyle would tell his wife about hidden money? Come on.”

“I don’t know. But I guess you do.”

“I’m just guessing, for God’s sake. Just like you. All I care about are those two children upstairs. They’re going to know something’s wrong pretty soon, if they don’t already.”

Warren gave her the same odd smile as before. “You don’t have enough faith in them. They’re fine. Whatever I tell them, they’ll believe. They trust me, Laurel. They know who protects them.”

They know who takes care of them, she thought. “You’re right about one thing today. There’s something bad going on around you. But you’re wrong about me being part of it. Look how Kyle reacted just then. I offered the man a blow job, and he said no. Does that sound like Kyle Auster to you?”

Warren picked up the red ledger. He seemed to be trying to stare a hole through it.

Laurel said, “You need to forget about who’s screwing who and ask Kyle about this financial stuff. Before something really bad happens.”

She heard a bump upstairs. Then another. The kids were still up there.

“Maybe I will,” Warren said, staring at the other phone. “Maybe I will.”

Auster was swigging from the Diaka bottle again when his office door opened and Vida swept in the way his mother used to when he’d misbehaved as a boy. She shut the door behind her, then stood before his desk with a look so harsh that all his glib opening lines fled his brain.

“Are you drunk?” she asked.

“Vida…we’re in trouble. Bad trouble.”

Her expression didn’t change. “You just figured that out, Sherlock?”

Auster studied the bleach-blond harpy standing with her arms crossed over her chest and wondered why he’d ever gotten involved with her. He could hardly bear to look at her anymore, much less give her what she wanted after hours. Worse, he sensed that she didn’t even want the sex herself; it was simply a tool in her campaign to protect herself from a world that had always been less than kind to her.

“What’s happened now?” she asked.

“I got a phone call while you were gone.”

“From who? Biegler again?”

“No. Evans, up at the capital.”

“And?”

Auster blew out a lungful of air. “He said Paul Biegler’s driving down from Jackson to padlock the office. Now. As we speak.”

This shook Vida from her pose. Shock pinned her painted eyelids back for several seconds, but then her features went hard again. “Let me guess. When you had Biegler on the phone, you got up on your hind legs and roared like a drunk frat boy. You can’t keep that ego reined in, can you? I bet he’s ready to put you under the jail.”

Auster nodded in despair. “And I don’t see what we can do besides sic him on Warren and hope he’s content with that.”

Vida gaped as though Auster had suggested driving into a brick wall at sixty miles per hour. “Listen to me, Doctor. You’re as crooked as a barrel of fishhooks, but when it comes to actually committing a crime, you’re about as smart as a barrel of hair. The mystery is how you made it through medical school. They must have had a lot of lady professors up there, that’s all I can figure-”

“Vida-”

“Damn it, Kyle. Blaming Shields depended on a low-key investigation and things falling just right. On sanitizing this office of anything and everything that could contradict our version of things. Losing a lot of records. And most of all, on our special patients keeping their goddamn mouths shut. But we’re not near ready yet.” She dug a cigarette out of her back pocket, lit it, and began puffing furiously.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“Shut the fuck up, Kyle. I’m thinking. The only way we could dump this thing in Shields’s lap now is if he shot himself in the head with the evidence in his house. Then we’d be the only ones left to tell what happened, other than the patients. They’d be expensive, but-”

“What about the records?”

“Shut up! I’m trying to keep your ass out of jail.”

He reached into his bottom drawer for the vodka.

Vida watched him take a slug with obvious contempt. Then she blew out a long stream of smoke and said, “I know what you’re up to, mister. You’ve got some high-toned slut on the side, stashed and waiting for you to bug out with her. I don’t know who she is, but I will in about twenty seconds, because you’re going to tell me.”

Auster reached for the bottle again, but Vida lashed out with her hand and knocked it off his desk. The precious fluid gurgled onto the carpet.

“Don’t sit there gasping like a landed fish. Tell me who she is.”

“Vida, I wouldn’t cheat on you.”

“Jesus wept. Whoever she is, the slut is out of your life as of this moment. In exchange, I’m going to save you the indignity of nightly anal sex in Parchman Farm, where you most definitely would not be the top.”

“Shannon Jensen,” Auster whispered with the sound of a deflating balloon.

Vida’s eyes flashed with fury and disbelief. “The drug rep from Jackson?”

He nodded.

“She’s only twenty-three!”

Before Auster could reply, Vida said, “Of course she’s only twenty-three. Young enough to buy into your bullshit and throw her life away before it’s begun. God, you’re a prick. That smug little sorority princess prancing up these halls with a corncob up her butt…Jesus.”

Vida was turning pale; primal anger was threatening to take over her higher brain functions. Before she could wind up again, Auster said, “I’m sorry, I’m an idiot. She’s history. Just tell me what to do.”

Vida flattened both hands on his desk and leaned over the charts lying there. “I’ve got half a mind to let Biegler clean your clock for you. I could turn state’s evidence, send you to Parchman for twenty years, and walk away rich. They give rewards for that kind of evidence now. Monetary rewards. I’d be getting a massage in Cabo, while you’d be doing research on whether size really does matter or not.”

Auster felt dizzy. “Vida, don’t lose sight of what’s-”

“I could do that,” she went on, as though he hadn’t spoken. “But I’m not. I don’t want Nell getting in any kind of trouble.”

“How can you prevent that?”

“By getting us all out clean.” Her eyes drilled into him like twin X-ray beams. “I just need to know two things, bub.”

“What?”

“One, that you’re done with that sorority slut.”

Auster nodded eagerly. “And?”

“Make the call, Kyle.”

“What call? To Shannon?”

“Who else?”

“But Biegler’s on the way!”

“I can’t think of a better time. Make it short and not so sweet.”

Auster took out his cell phone and speed-dialed Shannon Jensen. She answered with a husky tone, “Mmm, I wasn’t expecting this. I’m on the road between Oxford and Tupelo, and it’s lonely.”

Auster banished phone sex from his mind. “Shannon, I need to tell you something.”

“What?” Her alert business voice had come online.

“I have some bad news, honey. It’s…it’s not going to work out like we thought. It’s just too complicated here. My marriage, I mean. I have to end it. You and me, I mean.” Shannon gasped, but he pushed on before she could gather herself. “You deserve a lot better than me, you know that. I know you’ll bounce back like nothing ever happened.” The girl was screaming now, and sobbing, but the only word he could make out was “Why?” He started to embellish his excuse, but Vida leaned closer and gave him his cue line.

“You’re in love with someone else,” she whispered.

Auster closed his eyes.

“Say it,” Vida commanded.

“I’m in love with someone else, Shannon.”

“Oh my God,” Shannon cried. “Someone besides your wife?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Tell her who,” Vida ordered.

“It’s Vida,” he said in desolation. “From up front. She’s always been the one.”

“Even when we were together,” Vida whispered.

Auster grimaced, but he had no alternative. “Even when we were together, I was with her.”

The line was dead. He prayed Shannon had hung up before she heard the last of it.

“There,” Vida said with supreme satisfaction. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

He forced himself to nod. “I was telling the truth. You have always been the one. I just…you know me. She made it so easy, and-”

“You’re embarrassing yourself.” Vida leaned back and put her hands on her hips like a drill sergeant. “Are you ready to do what you have to do to save us?”

He nodded.

“Can you grow a freaking backbone for five minutes?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay. I want you to drive over to Dr. Shields’s house and get the stuff you planted there.”

This stunned him. “What do you mean, get it?”

“Retrieve it. Take it out of the safe room and drive it to where I tell you.”

“But why?”

“We need it to disappear. Forget blaming Warren. We need everything in that house to disappear. The second set of books, the coded records, everything. Most of all, the bonds. Biegler may have frozen your business accounts by now. Maybe even the personals.”

“Jesus!”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, but what if Warren’s at home? He didn’t come in today, which is pretty strange, and…oh, God.”

“What?” Vida asked, her eyes narrowed.

“What if Warren is working with Biegler?”

Vida thought about this for a few seconds, then dismissed the idea with a shake of her head. “No. He’d never admit to the things he’s done, not even for a big reward. His reputation means everything to him.”

“He might do it to stay out of jail.”

“I don’t think he’s at risk of going to jail. Not really. Even if they threw the book at him, he could plead out. We’re the ones who could go to jail. But I’ll tell you, there’s something weird going on with our Warren. For five years, he’s a Boy Scout. Then he walks in and says he needs money. Big money. And he starts breaking rules left and right. It doesn’t add up. There’s something fishy about that life insurance he got last year, too. I don’t know what, but I know Warren’s not about to start cooperating with the Feds. He hates the government. And in his eyes, he’s got more to lose than any of us.”

“Okay,” Auster said, calming a little. “But if he’s at home, I can’t just waltz into his safe room and start carting stuff out. He’ll freak out.”

“Screw him, okay? This is life or death, Kyle. If you have to, go in with your key, grab the stuff, and get out. You know the code. Whatever he says or does, humor him, but get that shit out of there. Tell him the FBI planted it there. Or just ignore him. Shields won’t hit you or anything. He’s not the type. Not unless you were fucking his wife or something.” Vida froze, her eyes boring into Auster’s. “You’re not, are you?”

“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.