Third Degree. Greg Iles

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      She kept staring at the paper, wishing harder than she had as a child forced to sing in front of her father’s congregation that she could magically be transported elsewhere. As she stared, the periphery of her vision shrunk and went dark, until she was staring at the letter through a round window. Her dread of pain returned with enough force to take her out of the moment—almost.

      “Just tell me the truth,” Warren said softly. “Please. I won’t be angry.”

      Glancing up at his slitted eyes, she felt she had just heard a rattlesnake hiss, Just step right here on my tail, I promise I won’t bite you.

      “I have told you the truth. You don’t want to hear it.” She dropped the letter on the floor. “I got a migraine aura thirty minutes ago. If I don’t get that injection, I’ll be flat on my back all afternoon, unable to speak. You won’t be able to continue this ridiculous interrogation.”

      He regarded her coolly. Withstanding his scrutiny as best she could, she tried to make a plan of action. Given the as-yet-unmentioned gun, she should probably get out of the house as fast as possible. But that wasn’t as simple as it sounded. She couldn’t outrun Warren, and no one could outrun a bullet. It seemed inconceivable that he would actually shoot her, but if someone had asked her whether Warren would threaten her with a gun, she would have declared that impossible, too. No … she was going to have to talk her way out of this. Talk and bluff.

      “Is that a gun in your hand?” she asked in a neutral voice.

      He lifted the pistol into plain sight. “This?”

      “Yes, that.”

      “It is.”

      “Is it loaded?”

      “Of course. An unloaded gun is useless.”

      Oh, boy. “Where did you get it?”

      “I bought it a couple of months ago. Some punks hassled me one night when I was riding my bike on the south end of town. I carry this in my seat bag now. I’ve got a permit for it.”

      Warren was still an obsessive cyclist; he’d won dozens of regional races, and even a couple of nationals a few years ago. He rode countless miles in training, but she’d heard nothing about any gun, or any incident where he’d needed one.

      “You keep that in the house, with our children?”

      She’d tried to sound suitably shocked, but Warren ignored her apparent concern. “I have a lockbox for it in the storeroom. Top shelf. It’s kidproof, don’t worry.”

      It’s not the kids I’m worried about right now. “That doesn’t mean it’s Grant-proof.”

      A smile crossed Warren’s face as he thought of his mischievous son.

      “Why are you holding it now?” she asked.

      “Because I’m very angry. And this makes me feel better.”

       Oh, God—

      “Apparently,” he went on, “you don’t want to tell me the truth. But you should know this: you’re not leaving this house until I know who wrote that letter.”

      “I don’t want to leave the house, Warren. I want a shot of Imitrex.”

      He frowned as though he were being greatly inconvenienced. “Give me your cell phone.”

      A shiver of panic went through her, until she remembered she was carrying both phones. There had been days when she’d only had her clone phone in her pocket.

      “Hand it over! Your car keys, too.”

      She slid her hand into her right front pocket and drew out her legitimate Razr. Warren reached out and took it, then laid it on the coffee table.

      “I’ve already gone over your cellular records online. I’ve got a couple of questions for you.”

      She shrugged. There was no danger there. She had always used her clone phone to call Danny.

      “The keys, come on.”

      She drew her car keys from her left front pocket and passed them to Warren, who shoved them into his own pocket. She hated to give them up, but she couldn’t risk him searching her and finding the clone phone in her back pocket. Danny was probably trying to call her right now. He would be sitting in the clearing on his four-wheeler, expecting to see her Acura come rolling between the big oak trees. He’d wait awhile, thinking she was only running late. Then he would start to worry. She had to contact him. A sickening wave of nausea hit her, and she tensed against it. As it passed, she got an idea about how to text Danny.

      “I want your computer, too,” Warren said. “Where is it? In the kitchen?”

      The blood drained from her face. There were things in her computer that could destroy her. Danny, too. “I’m going to throw up,” she groaned.

      She ran for the master bathroom.

      “Goddamn it!” Warren cursed, jumping up and rushing after her.

      She ran all the way to the toilet cubicle, hoping that Warren would stop in the bedroom, but he didn’t. He stood over her as she fell to her knees and put her face in the toilet bowl. She had no choice now. Retching loudly, she stuck her finger down her throat and brought up what remained of her breakfast.

      Warren didn’t flinch. He’d seen things in his medical career that made a little vomit look like a picnic. She was terrified that he would notice the flat, rectangular bulge of the second Razr in her back pocket, but he suddenly walked out of the cubicle. She heard him rummaging in the medicine cabinet on his side of the marble-floored bathroom. Could she risk texting Danny now?

      “Is the Imitrex in there?” She coughed. “Did you find it?”

      “I’ve got it. Come lie on the bed, and I’ll give you the shot. Stay away from the bathroom windows. I noticed Mrs. Elfman nosing around out there this morning.”

      Laurel’s throat constricted in terror. She prayed that the e.p.t box still lay behind the hedge beneath the bathroom window.

      “Hurry up!” Warren said irritably, suddenly standing above her again. “You’re done, aren’t you?”

      “I’m still nauseated.”

      “The sooner the better, then.”

      He grabbed her pants right above the pocket that held the Razr. As she screamed and tried to protect the phone, he yanked down her waistband and jabbed a needle into her hip. After what seemed a savage twist, he yanked it out again.

      “Ow!” she cried. “What’s wrong with you?”

      “Me? I’m ‘cold, logical, held-in, almost sterile.’” He slapped the spot where he’d injected her, something nurses did to distract patients from the pain of injections—usually before the needle went in—but his slap was hard enough to bruise. “Tell me who wrote that shit. Tell me who else has been looking at that ass.”

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