Greg Iles - Third Degree

Before the hostage taker was killed…

She craned her neck and looked at the top of Warren’s head, just visible over his monitor. Rather than hatred, she felt pity for him. She had the sense of looking at a mental patient, a man who had been perfectly normal one day and woke up schizophrenic the next. Warren’s mind had locked itself into the track of marital infidelity, and he could not disengage it. Did he deserve to die for that? Could she send out words that might doom him in the next few minutes?

Danny’s assertion that no one outside knew of their phone link gave her pause. Was he simply trying to keep their love affair secret? Or did he not trust the sheriff completely? For that matter, was the sheriff even in charge out there? Nell Roberts had mentioned federal agents on the phone. What if the FBI was outside? Would Danny trust them? She needed to know more before deciding what further message to send out.

“Warren?” she called. “Would you come over here, please?”

“Why?”

“I need to ask you something.”

More than a minute passed before his chair squeaked and he rose to walk into the great room. Time means nothing to him, she thought. He’s receding from the world. The house phone had rung a half dozen times, yet he hadn’t answered since he’d let her talk to Sheriff Ellis. She forced away the memory of Danny’s voice during those few precious seconds; she couldn’t focus when she let that sound loose in her head.

As Warren came toward her, she recalled how boyish and wild he’d looked this morning, after staying up all night searching for something Nell Roberts had warned him about. The irony was exquisitely tragic: Nell had tried to save Warren from Kyle and Vida, and by so doing had led Warren to Danny’s letter, which might ultimately cause his death. Warren stopped three feet from her and sat on the ottoman he’d used earlier. He looked as though he’d aged fifteen years since this morning.

“I want to ask you something,” Laurel said softly. “We’ve been married for twelve years, and in all that time you never raised a hand to me. You’ve been calm, rational, even kind most of the time. And now, in the span of a few hours, you’ve become a totally different person. Can you help me understand that?”

“You never betrayed me before.”

“I don’t think that’s it. I really don’t. If I’d told you a week ago that you were going to beat me and tie me up, you wouldn’t have believed it. Not even because of adultery or anything else. And in front of our six-year-old child? You couldn’t even have imagined that.”

He blinked but said nothing.

“I’m worried about your mental health, Warren. I’m serious.”

The faintest of smiles touched the corners of his mouth. “Your worries no longer worry me.”

This set her back. “And our children’s worries?”

“They’ll know someday who really cared about them.”

“What does that mean?” Laurel struggled against her bonds in frustration. “You’re talking like a Delphic oracle. You keep telling me I’ve broken a trust. All right, what if I have? From what Kyle said, you’ve done the same thing with your patients. Or with yourself. Maybe both. I don’t know, because you won’t tell me. But he was talking about prison, Warren. Whatever you did must have been pretty bad. I don’t understand it, but then I don’t have to. Because I can forgive you, whatever you’ve done. I know you’re a good man, deep down. So why can’t you forgive me?”

“It’s different. Completely different.”

“How? Stealing is a lesser sin than adultery?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know what I’ve done, or why.”

“I want to!”

“And I want to know what you’ve done. Are you going to tell me?”

She bit her bottom lip. She had certainly thought about confessing. If she admitted her affair with Danny, Warren would believe her, she knew. After the initial shock had passed anyway. Because every word she spoke would ring with the conviction of truth. The question was how Warren would react once he’d accepted that truth. If her lover had in fact been Kyle, or someone else of that caliber, Warren would probably scream and yell in disgust, then kick her out of the house and divorce her. But Danny McDavitt was a different thing altogether. For Warren, the essential nature of masculine honor was sacrifice, and he respected Danny more than almost any man he’d ever met. He admired Danny’s war record, of course; that was a given. But he also saw Danny as a dedicated family man. When he and Danny coached the girls in soccer last year, little Michael had come along for most practices, and all of the games. Many times Laurel had caught Warren staring as Danny patiently tried to engage his son in activities with the other kids. And what she’d seen etched into her husband’s face at those times was a combination of pity and admiration. Once, Warren had actually climbed into the car after practice and said, “Danny McDavitt’s a better man than I am. If Grant had been born like that, it might have killed me.” This happened months before Laurel and Danny started seeing each other, but Laurel sometimes wondered if Warren’s admiration for Danny had formed some perverse part of her attraction to him.

No confession, she decided. If Warren were to find out now that I’m in love with Danny-and that Danny loves me-he’d self-destruct. A colder woman, she thought, might reveal the truth to try to drive her husband to suicide, but Laurel couldn’t consider it. First because she didn’t want her children to lose their father. Second because Warren might decide to make his wife and children precede him into death. A lot of fathers had done so in the past. All you had to do was watch the news to know that. And last, of course, there was the selfish consideration. Danny might be in love with her, but he was unwilling to give up custody of Michael to marry her. Even if Warren died tonight, it would bring her no closer to a future with Danny.

“We both need to talk about the bad things we’ve done,” she said. “But not right now. Right now we need to find a way out of this trap we’ve made for ourselves. We need to make sure our children are safe.”

Warren actually looked as if he was considering it. “What about Kyle?”

“What about him? He tried to kill you. You acted in self-defense. I’ll testify to that.”

Warren looked toward the study. “I just want you to know one thing. Everything I’ve done this past year was for the children. And for you. Even the bad things.”

“Warren, how can that be? Please help me understand!”

“I can’t. You know how I am. Some things I just can’t talk about.”

The phone rang again, but he ignored it.

“Don’t you think you should answer? They’re probably getting pretty antsy out there.”

He nodded. “They are. I can see them on my computer.”

Laurel was thunderstruck. She had entirely forgotten about the security cameras they’d installed when the house was built. She’d never used them, but Warren had the cameras connected to his computer via wireless connection, and he was obviously monitoring them now. No wonder he was so calm! Sitting there while the phone rang endlessly! He’d know the assault was coming in plenty of time to retreat to the safe room. She needed to text Danny about the cameras right away.

“I don’t think they know I can see them,” Warren said. “Or they’d be concealing themselves better.”

“The cameras are pretty hard to see,” Laurel observed, remembering how well the architect had hidden them in the molding outside.

“You insisted on that, remember?”

Yeah, great. “So, you’re not going to answer the phone anymore?”