Third Degree

by Greg Iles

  Marilyn laughed and slid the plane a quarter mile to the east.

  Danny got a perfect view of Laurel’s Acura parked behind her husband’s Volvo. The sight tied a knot in his stomach. What the hell was going on down there? Maybe they’re getting it on, he thought, surprised that he almost wanted this to be true. Because any alternative was bound to be worse.

  “See any bucks?” Marilyn asked.

  “What?”

  “The deer. See any bucks?”

  “Nah. Nothing but does, and they skipped into the trees.”

  “Should I start my turn?”

  “Yeah. Go ahead.” Danny closed his eyes and tried to think logically, but his nerves kept getting in the way. Or was it his emotions?

  “An S-turn over Belle Chêne?” Marilyn asked.

  “Let’s skip that,” said Danny, glancing at his watch. “Let’s take her back to the airport. I’ve got something I can’t be late for.”

  “Suits me,” Marilyn said, watching him from the corner of her eye. “I’ve got a deposition this afternoon. Big case coming up.”

  “I pity the lawyer you’re up against.”

  She laughed. “You don’t know whether I’m a good lawyer or not.”

  He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Oh, yes, I do.”

  “How?”

  He tapped the bridge of his nose. “I’m a good judge of character.”

  Marilyn elbowed him in the side, and he saw some color come into her cheeks. “I’ll bet you are,” she said, looking as if she wanted to say more.

  Danny resisted the urge to look back toward Avalon as she made a controlled 180-degree turn.

  “Are you all right?” she asked in a concerned voice.

  “Sure, I’m fine.”

  “You look worried to me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you worry before.”

  This is why you’re a good lawyer, Danny thought. “Little bit of a headache, that’s all.”

  “If you say so. But if you need any help . . . don’t hesitate to call me.”

  He tried to laugh this off, but the more he thought about the situation, the more worried he became. The Cessna headed southwest toward the Mississippi River, where it curved between Angola Prison and DeSalle Island. “Marilyn, do you know anything about family law?”

  She sighed. “I thought it was something like that. Yes, I know a lot. I used to handle nothing but divorces, until I got enough oil-business work to keep me going.”

  Danny rubbed his forehead for a while. He’d talked to a couple of lawyers already, but neither had seemed to grasp the special nature of Michael’s educational problems. Praying that Marilyn was different, he said, “I need to ask you about a custody issue.”

  She looked him in the eye and nodded, more serious than he’d ever seen her.

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  She smiled encouragingly. “That’s why you need a professional. Fire away, Major.”

  • • •

  Laurel was nearly mad with fright. The Merlin’s Magic program had been hammering steadily at her Hotmail account for the best part of an hour, and sooner or later, the mindless digital battering ram would break through. It was fast and efficient, a brute-force strategy that guaranteed success, given sufficient time. Laurel didn’t know enough about probability theory to guess how long it might take for the program to hit on her password—surely longer than the fifteen or twenty minutes until Grant and Beth got home—but what was to stop Warren from keeping her and the children prisoner all night? He could run Merlin’s Magic until the contents of her secret files finally poured into his lap, even if it took until morning.

  Shortly after Warren installed the program, Laurel had heard what she thought was the faint sound of an airplane engine far to the east. She was unable to get up and look, however, because Warren had retaped her ankles and calves, probably so he could focus on the password program without worrying about her. She was almost afraid to hope that the sound had come from Danny’s plane. And yet she did. Who else could help her? The fact that she had not answered his last two text messages might have worried him enough to overfly the house. But what more could he do?

  You have to help yourself, said a voice in her head. Don’t wait to be saved. So she hadn’t. After a few minutes’ thought, she had hit on one possible method of escaping the duct tape. When Warren wasn’t looking, she had reversed her engagement ring—a radiant-cut two-carat diamond that he had bought three years ago to replace the sliver of a stone that had graced the ring when he proposed—and tested its ability to saw through duct tape. Where the tape was stretched tight, the raised edges of the diamond worked reasonably well. The problem was Warren, who had a clear line of sight to her. After complaining that the wet duct tape was itching badly, which was true, she began scratching often. Whenever Warren seemed entranced by the computer screen, she would saw at the vertical rip she’d made in the tape binding her lower legs. She worried that the diamond might pop out of its setting if she sawed too hard—white gold was a soft metal—but she was bracing the stone with her thumb as she cut, and besides, she saw no alternative.

  A few minutes ago Warren had typed on the Sony’s keyboard for nearly a minute. At first this frightened her, but when she realized he had not broken into her account, she decided he must be writing or answering an e-mail. She’d used this time to work harder at the duct tape. Yet even if she managed to free her legs, her wrists would remain bound. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve the vase and hit Warren over the head with it if her hands were bound together. And even if she succeeded at that, there remained the problems of trying to get her keys, reach her car, and drive away. Warren wasn’t going to lie peacefully on the floor while she did all that.

  She was pretending to scratch her ankles when he got up from the ottoman and stared at her like a man trying to hypnotize someone.

  “Why did you run to the safe room?” he asked.

  “Because I thought I would be safe there. Duh.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “What other reason could there be?”

  He pointed his right forefinger at her, then wagged it right and left like some cranky middle-school teacher. “Let’s find out.” He shoved the gun into his waistband, then walked out of the great room and into the kitchen.

  Laurel bent nearly double on the couch and sawed frantically at the tape. A few seconds later Warren walked out of the kitchen with a knife and came straight to the sofa. Kneeling beside her, he cut through the tape around her calves, then the strips binding her ankles. She was terrified that he would notice her saw marks, but he was in too much of a hurry. He pulled her to her feet and marched her toward the foyer.

  “Who are you talking to online?” she asked.

  “Why do you think I’m talking to someone?”

  “You’ve been typing and reading something. I figured it was e-mail. Or IMs. And you said before that someone told you to search for the letter. They just told you to look in the safe room, didn’t they?”

  “Aren’t you the little detective.”

  “I told you there was something else in the house. Somebody’s screwing with your head, Warren. Big-time.”

  “We’ll see when we find out what it is, won’t we?”

  I was right! Laurel thought anxiously. What the hell are we about to find? Just don’t let it be something I can’t explain—

  He opened the closet that concealed the steel door of the safe room and told Laurel to turn her back to the door. After she did, he punched his new code into the child-protection key pad, which opened the steel door unless the master lock had been set from the inside. As Warren stepped into the metal room, a spark of excitement flashed through her. If she could get inside the safe room and somehow shove him out, then she could slam the door and lock it. With him outside, the kids would still be in danger, but there was a secure phone in the safe room, and she could use it to call Diane Rivers and stop her from bringing the kids h
ome.

  Laurel took a furtive step backward, instinctively realizing that this was the way to get into the safe room. Warren would be nervous that she was trying to break for the front door. As if on cue, he said, “That’s far enough. You come stand here, in the doorway.”

  She shuffled forward like a reluctant prisoner. The air in the safe room was musty and stank of mildew. Warren began removing the canned goods stored on the shelves, grabbing shrink-wrapped packs of Bush’s baked beans and stacking them on the floor. Next came the bottled water. Laurel was ready to risk her life to get Warren out of there, but he outweighed her by sixty pounds, minimum. And that sixty pounds was almost all muscle. To complicate matters, her wrists were still taped together, and Warren was almost flush against the shelves on the back wall. How could she get behind him and shove him out the door?

  She found her chance less than a foot away.

  Where the reinforced wall met the steel door, a sharp piece of sheet metal protruded a half inch into the open doorway at shoulder level. It looked a lot like an old-fashioned razor blade, and she wasted no time testing it. As Warren cursed and dropped a six-pack of Dasani onto the pile behind him, she raised her arms and dragged the duct tape along the protruding metal. Warren paused at the ripping sound—which sounded like Velcro being unhooked—but by the time he turned, Laurel was holding her wrists together again.

  He knelt before the deep shelves, then grunted in surprise.

  Laurel picked up a heavy can of beans and drew it back as if to hurl it at his head. It seemed safer than moving close enough to hit him, but if she missed, he might shoot her out of simple reflex. Warren groaned in frustration. He was trying to pull something off the back of the bottom shelf. A white cardboard box. A banker’s box.

  She sprang forward and drove the can down toward the base of his skull, aiming for the brain stem. With her children in danger, there was no point in half measures. Warren must have heard her approach, because he turned his head back and upward just as the can reached the end of its arc. Instead of knocking him into a vegetative coma, the flat of the can crashed into his neck and jaw.

  He fell against the shelves, his eyes blank.

  Laurel raised the can to deliver another blow, but Warren toppled sideways, out of reach. She darted forward, meaning to grab the gun from his waistband, but the light of awareness flashed in his eyes. She froze, aware that she had moved within his grasp, then whirled and lunged for the door.

  The gun thundered like a cannon in the tiny room.

  “DON’T TAKE ANOTHER STEP!” Warren screamed.

  Laurel was too close to freedom to obey. She kept moving, and the pistol exploded again. A hole appeared in the foyer wall ahead of her. This image somehow penetrated the rush of panic driving her forward. She turned and saw Warren crawling through the door of the safe room with the pistol in his hand. She darted to her right, which carried her out of his line of sight and to the front door.

  The door was bolted shut, but the key was in the lock. She was turning the key when a car horn sounded outside. Two quick blasts that told her Diane Rivers had just pulled to the end of the sidewalk with the kids. As the bolt clicked open, a shadow fell across the door. Laurel put her hand on the knob.

  “Open that door, and I’ll kill you,” Warren said. “I’ll kill you with Grant and Beth watching.”

  She gripped the brass knob with all her strength, willing herself to open the door. No way will he shoot me in front of them, she told herself. He’d spend the rest of his life in prison, and not one person would ever visit him. Not even his mother—

  “And then I’ll shoot myself,” Warren said quietly.

  Laurel froze, a thousand images from news stories she’d seen over the years playing in her mind. Murder-suicide! Distraught Dad barricades home and executes family! Stabs wife, strangles kids in their beds! Father crashes plane into mother-in-law’s house with children aboard! She let her hand fall from the knob.

  Warren seized her by the neck and dragged her away from the door.

  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.