3rd Degree

Chapter 15

Her hair fell in thick, blond clumps onto the bathroom floor. She took the scissors and cut again. Everything had to start over now. Wendy was gone forever. A new face began to emerge in the mirror. She said good-bye to the au pair she had been for the past five months.

Cut away the past. Wendy was a name for Peter Pan, not the real world.

The baby was screaming in the bedroom. “Hush, Caitlin. Please, honey.”

She had to figure it out—what to do with her. All she knew was that she couldn’t let the baby die. She had listened to the news reports all afternoon. The whole world was looking for her. They were calling her a cold-blooded killer. A monster. But she couldn’t be such a monster, could she? Not if she had saved the baby.

“You don’t think I’m such a monster, do you, Caitlin?” she called to the bawling child.

Michelle lowered her head into the sink and dumped a bottle of L’Or?al Red Sunset dye all over her, massaging it into her cropped hair.

Wendy, the au pair, disappeared.

Any moment now, Malcolm would come by. They had agreed not to meet until they were sure she hadn’t been followed. But she needed him. Now that she’d proved what she was made of.

She heard the sound of the front door being rattled. Michelle’s heart jumped.

What if she’d been careless? What if someone had seen her coming back with the kid? What if they were kicking the door down now!

Then Malcolm stepped into the room. “You were expecting cops, weren’t you? I told you they’re stupid!” he said. Michelle ran over to him and jumped into his arms.

“Oh, Mal, we did it. We did it.” She kissed his face about a hundred times. “I did the right thing, didn’t I?” Michelle asked. “I mean, the TV is saying that whoever did this was a monster.”

“I told you, you have to be strong, Michelle.” Mal stroked her hair. “The TV, they’re bought and paid for, just like the rest. But look at you.… You look so different.”

Suddenly, there was a cry from the bedroom. Mal took a gun from his belt. “What the fuck was that?”

She was behind him as he ran into the bedroom. He stared, horrified, at Caitlin.

“Mal, we can keep her, just for a little while. I’ll care for her. She’s done nothing wrong.”

“You dumb twit,” he said, pushing her onto the bed. “Every cop in the city will be looking for this kid.”

She felt herself wheezing now. The way she always did when Mal’s voice got hard. She fumbled around her purse for her inhaler. It was always there. She never went anywhere without it. She’d had it just last night. Where the hell was it now?

“I cared for her, Malcolm,” Michelle said again. “I thought you’d understand.…”

Malcolm pushed her face in front of the child. “Yeah, well understand this… That kid is gone, tomorrow. You make it stop crying. Stick your tits in its mouth, put a fucking pillow over its head. In the morning, the baby’s gone.”

Chapter 16

Charles Danko didn’t believe in taking u

there’s always another soldier.

So he made the call from a pay phone in the Mission District. If the call was interrupted, if the call was discovered, well, so be it.

The phone rang several times before someone picked up at the apartment. He recognized the voice of Michelle, the wonderfully coldhearted au pair. What a performance she’d put on.

“I’m proud of you, Michelle. Please don’t say anything. Just put Malcolm on. You are a hero, though.”

Michelle put the phone down, and Danko had to choke back a laugh at how they obeyed his orders.

It was priceless and it said so much about the human condition. Hell, it might even explain Hitler at Munich. These were very smart people, most of them with graduate degrees, but they rarely questioned anything he told them.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

He heard Malcolm’s cheerless voice. This boy was brilliant, but he was truly a killer, probably a psychopath; he even scared Danko sometimes.

“Listen to me. I don’t want to stay on too long. I just wanted to give you an update—everything is working beautifully. It couldn’t be better.”

Danko paused for a couple of seconds. “Do it again,” he finally said.

Chapter 17

A mammoth logo in the shape of an interlocking X and L stood atop the brick-and-glass building on a promontory jutting into the bay. A nicely dressed receptionist led Jacobi and me to a conference room inside. On the paneled walls, articles and magazine covers featuring Morton Lightower’s glowing face ran the length of the room. One Forbes cover asked, CAN ANYONE IN SILICON VALLEY STOP THIS MAN?

“Just what does this company do?” I asked Jacobi.

“High-speed switches or something. They move data over the Internet. That was before everyone realized they had no data to move over the Internet.”

The door to the conference room opened and two men stepped in. One had salt-and-pepper hair and a ruddy complexion, a well-cut suit. Lawyer. The other, heavy and balding, with an open plaid shirt. Tech.

“Chuck Zi

“I’m Lieutenant Boxer.” I stared at the card and sniffed. “What’s a CLO?”

“Chief legal officer.” He bowed apologetically. “This is Gerry Cates, who helped found the company with Mort.

“Needless to say, we’re horrified around here.” The two men took seats, as we did, around the conference table. “Most of us have known Mort since the begi

“Are there any leads?” Cates inquired. “We’ve heard Caitlin is missing.”

“We’re doing everything we can to follow up on the baby. We were told the family had an au pair—who’s missing. Any help you could give in finding her?”

“Maybe Helene could help you out. Mort’s secretary.” Cates looked at the lawyer.

“I think that’s doable.” Zi

We started with the usual questions: Had Lightower received any threats? Were they aware of anyone who’d want to do him harm?

“No.” Gerry Cates shook his head and glanced at the lawyer. “Of course, Mort’s financial affairs were paraded all over the media,” he continued. “People are always popping off at shareholder meetings. Financial watchdogs. Hell, you want to redo your kitchen, they’re crying you’re bleeding the company.”

Jacobi sniffed. “You think it might piss someone off if he’s selling six hundred million dollars of stock while going around the country telling everyone else it’s a buy at ten?”

“We can’t control our share price, Inspector,” Cates replied, clearly upset by the question.

A tense silence settled over the room.

“You’ll provide us a list of all your clients,” I said.

“Doable.” The lawyer jotted down a note again.

“And we’ll need access to his private computers, e-mail, and correspondence.” I lobbed a grenade at the CLO.

The lawyer’s pen never touched the page. “Those files are private, Lieutenant. I think I’d better check our legal footing before I can agree to that.”

“I thought you were the legal footing,” Jacobi said with a grin.

“Your boss has been murdered, Mr. Zi

Zi

“I don’t need to remind you that this is a murder investigation,” I said. “If anyone’s holding something back, now would be the time …”