Greg Iles - Third Degree

“Listen, Ray,” Warren said, his tone growing testy. “The thing is, I’m waiting for something in here. We’re running a computer program, and we’re waiting for a certain result. Once I have that, we’ll all come out and visit with you guys for the rest of the evening, if you want. But this is business, Ray. It’s important. You know what I mean?…Of course you do. All right. As soon as I have what I need in here, we’re all coming out…. Kyle, too, absolutely…. Good talking to you, too.”

Warren hung up, jerked the curtains over the kitchen window, and turned to Laurel with manic energy. “Get some sheets out of the laundry room to cover Kyle. I’ll stay with Beth.”

Laurel started to argue, but then she remembered that her clone phone was sitting on the shelf in the laundry room. Warren was letting her go alone because he knew she wouldn’t leave Beth inside the house with him. “I’ll be right back,” she said, touching Beth’s arm. She walked into the pantry, which led to the laundry room.

“The door to the garage is bolted,” Warren called, in case she had a lapse of maternal judgment.

She reached up and slid her Razr off the detergent shelf. Her heart leaped when she saw 3 NEW MESSAGES on its LCD screen. Flipping open the phone, she bent over the laundry basket and made rummaging noises among some folded sheets. The first message read, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll b close by if u need me. I love u. So much hope and relief suffused her heart that she felt giddy. The second message read, Saw both cars home. What should I do?

“What’s the holdup?” Warren called.

Laurel picked up two folded sheets as she read the third message: Text me the instant u r out of there! Crazy with worry!

“Me, too,” she whispered, sliding the phone into her back pocket.

She carried the sheets out to the kitchen and set them on the granite countertop. “What now?”

“I’m going to move Kyle out of the hall,” Warren said softly. “You’re coming with me.”

“I think I’m going to give Beth that Benadryl after all,” Laurel murmured. “If we’re lucky, it’ll cause short-term memory loss.”

He frowned and picked up the sheets. “I need some food. We all do.”

“I’ll cook something,” Laurel offered. “Breakfast would be easiest.”

He nodded.

She looked at Beth lying on the banquette. “Would you like an egg with a hat on it?”

Beth actually sat up at this suggestion. “And grits and biscuits? And grape jelly!”

“Tell you what,” Warren said to Laurel, “you do the work with the sheets. Leave Beth with me. I’m going to shut all the blinds, then start the food.”

Laurel hesitated, then nodded in agreement. She took the sheets and went down the hall with Danny’s messages running through her mind. She hadn’t thought to check the time stamps, but he obviously hadn’t followed her advice to leave town. Running simply wasn’t in him. So where was he now? He must have driven by the house at least once, she thought. Or else that was his plane I heard before. He knows I’m here with Warren. And that, combined with me not showing up in the clearing, started him worrying. But what can he do? Danny sometimes flew the Sheriff’s Department helicopter and so was fairly tight with the sheriff. If he’d heard the report of a shooting out here, Laurel was sure he would find a way to get himself into the loop. Once that happened, it would only be a matter of time before someone came to save her and Beth. Danny would have a tricky job trying to explain his concerns without betraying their affair, but she felt sure he could do it.

She looked down at Kyle’s body. His eyes were still open, but the opaque irises held no life. The dead face already looked more like a wax figure of Kyle than the man himself. Pity rose in her, but she knew that her duty was to the living, not the dead. She thought of texting Danny that Kyle had been shot, but Warren might be watching from the end of the hall.

Unfolding one of the sheets, she laid it gently over Kyle’s corpse, then with considerable effort rolled the body over. Then she stood and dragged it to the guest room door. With the sheet under him, Kyle slid fairly easily on the polished hardwood. Getting him over the threshold was harder, but she turned away from him, grabbed his ankles under her arms as though hitching a cart to a mule, and in three great heaves dragged him onto the carpet and clear of the door.

With the walls of the guest room around her, an almost irresistible compulsion to call Danny took hold of her. As she reached out to close the door, Warren appeared there with Beth in his arms.

“Good enough,” he said, keeping Beth’s head turned away. “We miss you.”

She swallowed hard, then followed Warren back to the kitchen. Danny knows I need help, she told herself. He knows everything he needs to know. I’ve got to keep the phone secret, no matter what. It might make the difference between life and death.

“You take over,” Warren said, pointing at the iron skillet heating on the stove. An egg carton and a can of Pillsbury biscuits lay beside it. “I’m going to check the computer.”

The computer. As it had been from the beginning, her laptop remained the greatest danger to her. At any moment, the Merlin’s Magic program could give Warren access to hundreds of messages from Danny: love letters, embedded digital photos, all the stuff she’d been insane ever to put on her hard drive. All the things someone in love can’t live without. “No worries,” she said brightly. “Beth and I have got it under control.”

Warren seemed about to take Beth with him to the great room, but then he walked away alone. “All the doors are bolted,” he reminded her. “And I took out the keys.”

“Thanks for that information,” Laurel replied in a tone that said, Stop upsetting our daughter.

“Don’t open the blinds,” he added. “And tap the skillet with a fork while I’m down there.”

“Just go already!”

He vanished into the great room.

She clanked the skillet a couple of times, then lifted Beth onto the counter beside the Viking cooktop. Laurel felt almost drunk with adrenaline. A new plan had come to her, and she had no time for second thoughts. There was risk, yes, but she was almost certain that she and Beth would survive it. She cracked four eggs open and dumped them into the skillet with her right hand while holding Beth’s hand with her left. “Daddy’s not right in the head now, punkin,” she whispered. “Can you tell that?”

Beth nodded with wide eyes and whispered, “Daddy lied to that policeman on the phone.”

“Yes, he did. I need you to do one thing for me, darling. One easy thing, and then we can go outside where Grant and the nice policemen are. Will you do that for me?”

Beth nodded again.

“Do you remember where my laptop is? Down on the coffee table?”

“Uh-huh. Where Daddy is.”

“After Daddy comes back up here, I want you to take your glass of water down to the great room like you’re going to play. Then I want you to unplug the computer and dump your water into my keyboard.”

Beth opened her mouth in shock. “What?”

“Pour it right into the keys, where the letters are. But be sure you unplug it first. And don’t touch the computer with your hands afterward. That’s important. Just dump the water into the keyboard from high above it. Far away. No touching.”

Beth blinked several times, processing Laurel’s request. “I can do that. But won’t Daddy be mad?”

“He’s going to be mad at me, not you. But that’s what we have to do to make all this stop. Okay?”

Beth smiled. “Okay.”