Greg Iles - Third Degree

Laurel could admire the logic of the scheme, if she removed herself sufficiently from the reality. As she thought it through from various angles, excitement began to build inside her. If she was right, her salvation might still be waiting in the house for Warren to discover it.

What might Kyle have planted? she wondered. An article of clothing? Underwear? A cuff link? (Auster actually wore French cuffs whenever he went out.) A nude photo of himself? What about a love letter in his own handwriting? A crudely sexy letter, knowing Kyle. Laurel thought back over the past couple of weeks, trying to remember if Auster had visited their house. She didn’t think so, but the house usually stood empty for most of the day, and she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Kyle had a key of his own. If they had ever lent him a key-and she was pretty sure they had, early on, during a Disney World vacation-then he still had a copy in his possession. Kyle was that kind of guy. Laurel counted herself lucky that he hadn’t simply let himself in one day when Warren was off at a bike race and climbed into the shower with her.

Regardless of how it had happened, the odds were that someone-possibly Kyle Auster-had planted something far more damaging than Danny’s letter in the house, and it was still waiting to be found. Whatever that something was, there was a good chance that it might not jibe with Danny’s letter, since the person who planted it had known nothing of that letter. A strange pair of underwear or a used condom wouldn’t help her case, but a different letter written in a different hand-and outlining a different scenario-might sell Warren on her frame-up theory. Going in that direction was certainly less risky than letting him continue to dig through her computer.

“Warren?” she said evenly. “We need to talk.”

He glanced up, then returned his attention to the screen.

“I think I have an idea what’s really going on here.”

No response.

“I think I know who’s sent you on this wild-goose chase.”

Warren seemed to have frozen in his chair.

“What is it?” she asked, panic fluttering in her chest.

“Well, well!” he crowed. “Isn’t this special. A hidden folder, under the Windows System folder. It’s labeled ROPN. Any idea what this could be?”

Her belly knotted. She wished she could twitch her nose like Samantha Stephens and delete the folder in question. “Look and see,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.

Warren stared at her for several seconds, then clicked on the folder. She didn’t know what he’d expected to find, but his eyes quickly widened as he scrolled through the images and video clips she kept in that folder.

“Where did you get this stuff?” he asked without looking up.

“The Internet.”

“Did you pay for it?”

“No. I downloaded it off LimeWire. And it’s not really hidden, you know. I made the folder invisible so Grant or Beth wouldn’t stumble onto it if they booted up my computer. By next year, Grant will know how to find that kind of folder.”

Warren’s eyes jerked right and left; he was probably scanning thumbnail images of her explicit video clips. He bit his upper lip, looking angry and disturbed. “Why haven’t you ever told me you look at this stuff?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

He snorted. “You know that’s not true.”

“Look…I know you, okay? I didn’t think you’d like me looking at that kind of thing by myself.”

His eyes remained riveted to the screen. “Why do you look at it by yourself?”

“Why do you look at porn by yourself?”

He shrugged as though the answer were self-evident. “That’s different.”

“How?”

“I’m a guy.”

She couldn’t believe it. “So?”

“So I just use it to masturbate.”

“I see.” She waited a few moments. “What do you think I do with it?”

His eyes opened wider. “Are you serious?”

“What else would I do with it?”

Warren wrestled silently with this for a while. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Since it got easy to get video clips like those online.”

“So you’ve been unsatisfied for that long.”

Of course I have, for God’s sake, she replied in the silence of her head. And you should have known that long before you found my porn cache. You would have known, if you’d paid any attention at all. But what she said aloud, considering the gun and Warren’s fragile mental state, was “Haven’t you always masturbated?”

He nodded rigidly.

“Have you been unsatisfied with me all that time?”

“No. But I’m a guy.”

“Jesus.”

“I mean, of course I’d like to do it more often. I just…you don’t seem like you want to, so I don’t push it.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. For the past three or four months, Warren had hardly touched her, yet he seemed to be speaking as though this sexual dry spell had not occurred. She decided to take a chance. It was a risk, but if she played doormat and acquiesced to everything he said, he wouldn’t believe she was telling the truth about anything. “That’s not very perceptive. Haven’t you ever noticed that after you finish, I still want more?”

“Not really. You never come out and say that.”

“That’s because I don’t want to hurt your feelings, in case you can’t perform again right away. But I’ve tried to show you.”

“Well, no guy can do it again right away.”

She nodded, though she knew this assertion to be untrue. “I’m sure you’re right.”

Warren’s eyes hardened with suspicion. “Are you?”

“I don’t have much to compare you to, as you know.”

“So you told me. To tell you the truth, I never really believed the number you gave me. Not deep down. How many people did you really sleep with before me?”

Here we go. “Warren…do you see why I don’t talk to you about these things? I’m trying to be honest with you, and the first thing you do is accuse me of lying even before we got married.”

He stared at her a long time before replying, “This isn’t spontaneous honesty. You’re caught in a lie already. And you’re trying to sell me a bill of goods.”

“Two men before you,” she said flatly. “Two boys, actually.” God, don’t strike me dead, she thought, as Warren looked down and clicked the mouse again. Cries and groans came from the laptop’s tiny speakers, as though miniature humans were copulating inside the carbon-fiber case.

Warren would have freaked out at any number higher than two, and even that made him nervous. It bothered him no end that he hadn’t taken her virginity, but at least he understood that. Everyone had to lose it to somebody, and that wasn’t usually the best sexual experience anyway. But the “second guy” had always worried him. Warren wanted to know exactly how many times she’d had sex with him, and every act she’d ever tried with him. Laurel had strained her imagination to invent a bland physical relationship with a college boyfriend of six months, someone from a Northern state whom they would never run into in the future. After seeing Warren’s reaction to even this small “revelation,” it hadn’t taken a brain surgeon to figure out that it was best to banish her other partners to the female Bermuda Triangle of “never happened.” After all, it wasn’t as if she’d slutted around or anything. She’d held on to her virginity until eighteen, which was a record in her high school class. But during college she’d had a couple of inebriated hookups that went further than she’d initially planned. Handsome boys she had screwed on the first date, for no reason other than she was lonely and they’d made her feel good and she just by God wanted sex.