Greg Iles - Third Degree

“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.

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.