Third Degree Part 6

"Don't insult my intelligence!" Warren screamed.

She squinted against the roar of his voice. "Please, Warren. Tell me."

He leaned over her and spat the words like a priest naming a demon. "Kyle Auster."

Her mouth fell open. Did Warren really believe she was sleeping with his partner? "Kyle?" she asked, still in shock.

Warren raised his hand as though to strike her, but then he turned away and muttered, "All those times you told me he came on to you when he was drunk...Christmas parties, weekends at the lake. You told me he repulsed you. Lies, every d.a.m.n bit of it."

He turned to face her again, disgust etched into his tired face. "Do you know how many nurses that b.a.s.t.a.r.d has slept with? It'll be a miracle if you don't have every STD in the book. Me, too, by now. Jesus."

Laurel felt hysterical laughter rising in her throat, but she didn't dare release it. "Why in G.o.d's name would you think I'm involved with Kyle Auster?"

Warren picked up his revolver and pointed it at her face. "I don't think it," he said with certainty. "I know."

Chapter 7.

Nell Roberts hibernated the insurance computer and looked over at her sister, Vida, who was talking to an angry patient at the reception window. This morning had been h.e.l.l, mainly because Dr. s.h.i.+elds hadn't shown up for work. Nell couldn't remember Dr. s.h.i.+elds missing a single day because of sickness, and he always called ahead if he got hung up at the hospital. Dr. Auster had instructed the sisters to call every number they had for Dr. s.h.i.+elds, but Warren remained unreachable. Even his wife's cell phone went unanswered. Vida was so surprised by this that she'd called the ER to find out if Dr. s.h.i.+elds had been in a car accident. Unlike Vida and Dr. Auster, Nell was not surprised by Warren s.h.i.+elds's uncharacteristic absence. She had a pretty good idea why he hadn't shown up for work this morning.

Two days ago, Nell had overheard Dr. Auster and her sister talking about their recent business problems, in the coffee room after work. They thought she'd left the office already, but Nell was in the storeroom, culling some old files. Problems was actually a mild word for what had been going on around the clinic for the past ten days. First had come the letter from the IRS. The agency was doing an audit of the Auster/s.h.i.+elds medical partners.h.i.+p. This had sent both physicians into a barely controlled frenzy, Dr. s.h.i.+elds because he deeply resented the government's intrusion into every sphere of medicine, and Dr. Auster for darker reasons. For the past three years, Kyle Auster had been defrauding the government in various ways, some of which Nell knew about, while others were known only to her elder sister.

Nell kept her emotions under tight rein, but she was easily the most frightened person in the office. Dr. Auster's scams were only possible because she and Vida made them so, and Nell was deathly afraid of prison. Twenty-seven years old was too young to live behind bars, especially if you were white and pretty and basically innocent. Looking back now, she couldn't quite believe she'd done the things she had, but it was like Pastor Richardson used to say: a slippery slope. You started small, looking the other way while your sister did this or that, fudging a couple of small things because she asked you to, and pretty soon you were outright lying to help steal from the Medicaid program. It was easy to justify if you tried, like cheating on your taxes. The government did so much to screw doctors out of fees, and Vida made it sound as if they were only getting Dr. Auster his due. But if that was the case, why were she and Vida getting a big cut of the money?

And the IRS letter was only the beginning. Next had come a phone call, informing Dr. Auster that an IRS investigation was under way. That ratcheted things a little tighter and pushed the doctors closer to panic. Then came the call from a friend of Dr. Auster's in Jackson, a school friend who worked in the state government. This friend had apparently tipped Dr. Auster that the Medicaid Fraud Unit was investigating his practice. No announcement, no courteous letter filled with legalese to give them plenty of time to cover their tracks. Just a late-night warning that someone had made Kyle Auster a target. And why? Because somebody-probably a p.i.s.sed-off patient-had called the Medicaid office and told them that Dr. Auster was lying to the government. Presto, an investigation began. A secret investigation. That was all Nell knew, and more than she wanted to know.

The scariest thing was that Vida had started it all. Nell had been working in New Orleans when her sister called and told her there was a job waiting for her in Dr. Auster's clinic, no experience required. To someone making decent money as an a.s.sistant manager at an uptown hotel, working as an insurance clerk in Athens Point sounded like a step backward. But Vida had cryptically promised that she was likely to earn double what she'd been making in New Orleans-and Vida hadn't exaggerated. She had omitted to say exactly what Nell would be doing for the money.

According to Vida, the scams started this way: she'd been skimming a little money from Auster's till-on cash payments only-and fudging the books to cover it up. Just enough to cover essentials while her husband missed some work at the paper mill, certainly no more than she deserved. But there was a blue-haired lady working as Auster's insurance clerk, an old battle-ax named Bedner who should have retired years before, and she hated Vida. After catching on to Vida's scheme, she had gone straight to Dr. Auster. At this time, Dr. s.h.i.+elds was only an a.s.sociate; he hadn't yet bought into the practice and so had no involvement in the business side of things.

Dr. Auster confronted Vida after work one day, armed with evidence supplied by Mrs. Bedner. He told Vida he was letting her go but wouldn't press charges if she left immediately and without a fuss. True to her nature, Vida denied all wrongdoing and claimed she was being framed. Dr. Auster said that if Vida believed she was being framed, she could explain her side of the story to the police. Vida sat quietly for a few moments, then asked Dr. Auster whether, in exchange for a first-cla.s.s b.l.o.w. .j.o.b, she could explain her side of things to him instead. Vida had always been pragmatic about s.e.x; she'd been shocking people with her frankness for years. She knew that Kyle Auster had screwed a couple of hospital nurses, and she'd caught him looking down her top whenever he thought he could get away with it. After he heard her offer, Auster told her he'd decide what to do about the embezzlement after evaluating how good a job she did.

Apparently, she'd done pretty well, because Dr. Auster gave her plenty of time to talk afterward, and Vida used her time well. She'd spent her adult life working in medical offices, and she'd learned some sweet accounting tricks. Though Vida only had a year of junior college, she'd always been quick with numbers. When Auster heard how easy it was to hide cash, he decided to listen to the rest of Vida's ideas on increasing his income. She sold him in half an hour. The key to it all, she told him, was having control of the front office. You couldn't have church ladies like Mrs. Bedner looking over your shoulder while you were up-coding Medicaid claims. Two weeks later, Dr. Auster called a puzzled Mrs. Bedner into his office and told her she'd been mistaken about Vida, and that she couldn't continue working for him after making that kind of accusation.

Nell replaced Mrs. Bedner the next day.

That was the beginning. The crest of the slippery slope. Once the money started rolling in, Dr. Auster only wanted more. He was that kind of doctor. Cars, motorcycles, gambling trips to Vegas, wild investments, big charity donations, expensive medical equipment...he wanted everything bigger than life, and his wife wanted the same. Of course, he and Vida went full-time after the scams started. She stayed late almost every day, working on the second set of books, the one the government would see if it ever came to an audit (which it finally had). Dr. Auster stayed late about half the days and on most others stopped by for a quickie before going home after evening rounds. Nell liked to leave right at five thirty, so as to witness as little illegality as possible (and none of the illicit intimacy between Auster and her sister). That had bothered her from the beginning, and nowadays she couldn't stand the thought of it. It was too pathetic.

Because as pragmatic as Vida could be about life, she actually believed that Dr. Auster was going to leave his wife and marry her. Nell figured the chance of this happening was about the same as the chance of Toyota building an automotive plant in Athens Point. But her sister believed, and without that faith, Nell knew, Vida would have nothing in her life but two high-school-dropout sons and an ex-husband on the dole.

The strange thing was, Nell now believed she'd been wrong about Auster. He was willing to leave his wife-only not for Vida. Two days ago, Nell had overheard him talking on his cell phone to someone whose name she hadn't picked up. She'd only heard a few seconds of the call, but Auster's tone had definitely been intimate, and he'd been talking about getting married. Nell didn't know how a married man could remarry without getting divorced first, but then she realized that Auster was talking about down the road. She was pretty sure he'd said, "I just have to keep you-know-who on my side until Warren takes the fall. After that, I can leave and we can be together." There'd been a pause while the woman replied (a tinny sound with a cadence Nell was strangely certain she'd heard before), and then Auster said in a bitter tone, "I'm so tired of servicing that little redneck, I could kill myself. She scares me. But she'll have too much at risk to retaliate." He'd ended the conversation with a whispered "I love you, too," then crossed the hall and walked back into his private office. Nell stood shaking in her tracks for almost a minute, then put on a fake smile and went back to the front desk, where her sister sat working diligently to protect the man she loved from the law.

I'm so tired of servicing that little redneck.... She scares me.

One overheard conversation had split open Nell's world. She and Vida had been living in a dream. Auster was cheating on his wife and his mistress. And just as disturbing to Nell, he was planning to blame Dr. s.h.i.+elds for everything that had been going on in the office. Auster was obviously counting on Vida to back this story up in court, if necessary. Nell couldn't believe her sister would be willing to do that, but when she thought about all that was at stake, she realized that Vida would probably see the situation as a case of straight survival. Him or us. If somebody had to go to jail, better it be Warren s.h.i.+elds than the man she loved. Vida would solemnly swear that every illegal act she had committed was at the express order of Dr. s.h.i.+elds, and that Kyle Auster had known nothing about it.

Nell couldn't live with that.

The truth was so different. Warren s.h.i.+elds was not only innocent of fraud, he was also a good and conscientious physician. Moreover, he'd always treated Nell with respect. He'd never even remotely crossed the line into inappropriate behavior with her, which made him different from almost every other man she'd ever worked with. Dr. s.h.i.+elds had a beautiful wife at home, but in Nell's experience that wasn't enough to keep a man faithful, especially after twelve years of marriage. She figured Dr. s.h.i.+elds really loved his wife, and that made Nell sad for reasons she couldn't quite understand. She was only three years shy of thirty, and though most men found her attractive, her faith that she would find a husband like Warren s.h.i.+elds-a good provider and father who would truly love her for herself-was almost gone. She had held out a long time for her Prince Charming, turning down two proposals of marriage from decent men. She felt intensely jealous of Laurel s.h.i.+elds, and yet also protective of her. Nell had enough generosity of spirit to wish another woman well, if that woman had indeed found happiness.

With all this in mind, Nell had called Vida at home last night, after Leno's monologue. She'd been on the verge of telling Vida about Auster's shady phone call when Vida warned her that there were likely to be some "big doings" at the office over the next couple of days. When Nell asked why, Vida told her that the less she knew, the better off she'd be. Vida also said that if she or Nell was arrested, they shouldn't say a world until they met with a lawyer. "Kyle" would arrange for that. When Nell heard the word arrested, she'd almost peed in her pants. After getting up the nerve, she asked why they would be arrested. Vida took some time, then said softly, "There's something in Dr. s.h.i.+elds's house, honey. And if someone searches, they're going to find it. I hate that it's come to this, but things are worse than you know. A lot worse. We have to think about ourselves now. Do you understand?" Nell had mumbled that she did, then told Vida she'd see her at work the next morning.

After hanging up, she'd sat hunched over the phone for several minutes, regretting every dollar she'd ever taken from Dr. Auster and wis.h.i.+ng she'd never left the quiet old hotel on Tchoupitoulas Street. She cried for a while, then petted her cat and cried some more. Then she'd put on her coat and gone out for a walk. She did a lot of thinking during that walk, and when she got back, she sat down at her computer and typed a brief e-mail to Dr. s.h.i.+elds. She'd never sent him anything before, but she knew his AOL address from work. She used her Hotmail address, which not even Vida knew, and which had no obvious connection to her real name. After she was sure the message had gone through, she took two lorazepam copped from the samples room, washed them down with a gla.s.s of white zinfandel, and crashed so hard that she was an hour late getting to work this morning.

When Dr. s.h.i.+elds failed to show up, Nell had felt a quiet, somewhat nervous satisfaction. She a.s.sumed that he'd found whatever had been planted in his house, and that he would know what to do with it. Smart guys like Dr. s.h.i.+elds always knew what to do. For most of the morning, Nell had been expecting the FBI to come cras.h.i.+ng through the door with Dr. s.h.i.+elds behind them, ripping computers off the desks and confiscating files. It would almost be a relief at this point.

"Nell, honey?" said Vida.

Nell looked up at her sister, who, as usual, was wearing too much blue eye shadow. Vida was watching her intently from the front desk.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Nell a.s.sured her.

"You've been staring at the same insurance claim for ten minutes. You're real pale, too, honey. You look like you're in a daze."

Nell summoned her cheerleader smile, the best fake smile in her repertoire, and said, "I drank too much wine last night, that's all. I'm fine."

"Wine?" Vida's eyes twinkled. "Did you hook up with somebody? That drug rep didn't come back to town, did he?"

Nell quickly shook her head. "G.o.d, no. That's so over."

"Are you sure you're all right? This could be a rough day."

You have no idea, Vi. "I'm fine, I swear."

Several seconds pa.s.sed before Vida looked away, and Nell sighed inwardly with relief. It would only be a matter of time before Dr. s.h.i.+elds straightened everything out. And when he found out it was Nell who had warned him in the nick of time, well...it was only natural that he would be grateful. It wasn't hard to imagine the office running just fine without Dr. Auster in it. Or Vida either, she thought with a pang of guilt. It would definitely be a nicer place to work, and Nell was sure she could find a hundred ways to make Dr. s.h.i.+elds's days less stressful.

All she wanted was a chance to show what she could do.

Laurel's hands were almost numb. She'd lost the sensation in her feet fifteen minutes ago. When she complained to Warren, he'd a.s.sured her that there was no real danger unless her skin turned black. She asked about blood clots in her legs, but he waved away her fears and went back to searching the hard drive in her laptop.

Two improbable facts kept pinging around in Laurel's brain. First, that someone had told Warren she was having an affair with Kyle Auster. And second, that Warren had believed it. Kyle's interest in Laurel had been obvious years ago, when Warren entered practice with him. Auster was a well-known ladies' man who got out of hand when he was drinking. She'd warned Warren about Kyle's advances, and Warren had told her to be firm with him but not to make a big deal of it, so long as the incidents remained rare. This hadn't been the answer Laurel was looking for, but they had a lot riding on the success of the partners.h.i.+p, not least the matter of paying back Warren's school loans. Auster's interest in her never faded, but he did stop making overt pa.s.ses, which allowed everyone to settle down to a tolerable undercurrent of anxiety about the issue, if not to put it behind them altogether.

Clearly, someone had resurrected the issue by lying to Warren about an affair. But why would he be willing to view her as Auster's paramour, rather than a put-upon wife? It must have to do with the ident.i.ty of the informer. That person must be someone in a position to know about such an affair, if it were really happening. But what reason could someone have for telling such a lie? The longer Laurel thought about it, the more confused she became. According to popular rumor, Auster (who was currently married to his second wife) was involved with a nurse at St. Raphael's Hospital (blond and busty, naturally) and possibly someone in the office as well. Why anyone would believe that Laurel would waste time on him was beyond her.

Then suddenly she saw the logic. If she was miserable at home, and she blamed Warren for her misery, might not she get involved with Auster simply to hurt Warren? To publicly embarra.s.s him as profoundly as she could? Some wives she knew had played that game. But Danny's "anonymous" letter hadn't exactly bolstered this scenario. It had painted a picture of soul mates finding each other after years of searching. But considering Warren's mental state when he'd discovered the letter, she could understand his glossing over the details.

She thought back over what he'd said about the informer. Supposedly, it was someone who cared about his welfare more than Laurel did. Someone "offended by adultery." But had that person told Warren to look specifically for a letter? The informer couldn't have betrayed the existence of Danny's letter, because no one-not even Danny-knew that she'd kept it. Warren claimed to be certain she was having an affair with Auster, yet how could he be certain without hard evidence? A photograph. Or a tape recording. But if he had seen such evidence, why would he care so much about the unsigned letter he had found in Pride and Prejudice? Instead of searching her computer, he'd be waving the evidence in her face.

The facts didn't add up. Not as she knew them, anyway. But if Warren had been told to search their house (and he had claimed to be looking for the letter, not anything to do with the IRS audit), then the informer's warning must have been more general- Unless there was another letter waiting to be found. A planted letter, whose purpose she could not know. Or maybe it wasn't a letter. Maybe some other incriminating piece of evidence had been planted in the house, one that Warren had been prompted to find. If so, he had stopped searching for it, because he had stumbled onto Danny's letter instead.

Laurel thought of voicing her reasoning to Warren, but there was no point. He'd only think she was trying to stop him from searching her computer. Rather than ponder what the planted evidence might be, she focused on who might have planted it. Who could possibly profit from Warren thinking his wife was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his partner? A woman who wanted Warren for herself? Laurel couldn't believe that Warren had given any woman enough encouragement to take such drastic steps.

As she watched him probing her computer, a flash of insight struck her. What if the source of the lie about Laurel and Kyle was Auster himself? If Kyle had committed crimes at work-crimes that had come to the attention of the authorities-he would desperately need to distract Warren while he tried to save his own skin. It would take a lot to distract Warren from an IRS investigation, but a bombsh.e.l.l like marital infidelity would do it. (Witness today's freak-out.) And once Warren began to hate Kyle for something so personal as cuckolding him, he would be unlikely to see him straight in business matters. Moreover, any subsequent accusations of mismanagement that Warren might make about Auster would be viewed through a distorted lens.

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 s.e.xy 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 p.o.r.n 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 m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e."

"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 G.o.d's sake, she replied in the silence of her head. And you should have known that long before you found my p.o.r.n 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 m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed?"

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 s.e.xual 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 a.s.sertion 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."