Third Degree by Greg Iles Read Free Book Online

coming next?”
    Laurel looked at her schedule sheet. A blank spot like a bull’s-eye hovered in the middle of it. “Mrs. Bremer.”
    “You go on, sweetheart. I’ll call Mary Lou. All us moms are like family now.”
    “Thank you so much,” Laurel said, grateful for the graciousness of Southern women. “I don’t get these much, but when I do, they’re severe.”
    “Say no more. Go, go, go.”
    She picked up her purse and computer case and hurried across the driveway to the elementary building’s office. She told the secretary that she had to leave, then walked down to Diane Rivers’s classroom and poked her head through the open door. Twenty-nine third-graders looked up as one. Diane looked over from her desk and saw instantly that Laurel was in distress. She got up and walked out into the hall, her face lined with concern.
    “Migraine worse?”
    “Deadly. I have to go home. Do you think you could drop my kids off after school?”
    “You know I will. It’s right on the way.”
    Laurel squeezed Diane’s hand, then walked to the door at the end of the hall. She was crossing the drive to her car when her aide called out from the playground behind the school, where the children of the parents Laurel had been meeting were playing. Erin Sutherland was a local girl in her early twenties, an education major from USM. Laurel didn’t want to stop—if her students saw her, some would come running—but Erin waved both hands as she jogged to the fence, so Laurel walked over and forced a smile.
    “Hello, Erin. Is something wrong?”
    “I wanted to tell you one thing. Early this morning, Major McDavitt came out and sat with his son for a while. I figured it was okay since you and he are friends, and I know how much he does for all the kids.”
    Laurel nodded warily, then cringed as another wave of nausea hit her.
    “The thing is,” Erin went on, “he looked really upset. I think maybe he was crying. Michael definitely was.”
    Laurel had known Danny was upset, but crying was totally out of character for him. She looked past Erin, scanning the playground until she found Michael. He was sitting alone on a motionless swing, a small, dark-haired boy with his hands floating before him as he rocked forward, then back, again and again. “Did Major McDavitt say anything to you?”
    “No. I went up and asked if everything was all right, but he just kind of waved me away. You know, like, mind your own business.”
    “And then he left?”
    Erin nodded as though worried Laurel would scold her. Laurel was about to reassure the girl when her cell phone vibrated against her left thigh. It had been so long since Danny had texted her that she ignored it at first. Then she remembered that her clone phone was in her left pocket, and her legit one in her right. The clone was registered to a friend of Danny’s, and Danny paid the bill in cash. Danny also carried a duplicate phone, so that he could speak to Laurel without Starlette finding out about it. This message could only be from Danny.
    Laurel patted Erin’s arm, then turned and walked briskly to her Acura, flipping open the Razr as she went. Danny’s text read,
Sorry about today. Please call. Star gone to Baton Rouge for the day.
    Laurel shut the phone without typing an answer, then climbed into her car and drove quickly out to Highway 24. In her mind Michael still sat on the motionless swing, endlessly rocking. With a stab of maternal guilt, she forced the image from her mind. She needed to drive to Warren’s office and get a shot of Imitrex. But Warren was the last person she wanted to see right now. He rarely noticed when she was angry or upset, but he would have to be brain-dead not to see that she was on the ragged edge of a breakdown today. Besides, she was pretty sure that her old Imitrex injection kit was still at the house, in the back of Warren’s medicine cabinet.
    Only…there was Danny’s message to consider. Her pride told her to ignore it, but she had been