Read Online Third Degree by Greg Iles - Free Book Online Page A

revolver, pressed against the outside of his thigh. Only part of the gun was visible, but there was no mistaking what it was.
    “My head is about to
explode,
” she said, her eyes locked on to his by force of will alone. “Whatever that piece of paper is, I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
     

Chapter 5
     
    “You’re lying,” Warren said, still clutching the gun beside his leg. “I have to say, that’s the last thing I expected from you.”
    Laurel refused to acknowledge the gun’s existence, yet it filled her mind with terrifying power. Where had Warren gotten a pistol? He owned a rifle and a shotgun, but so far as she knew, there wasn’t a single handgun in the house. Yet he was holding one now. Should she acknowledge it? Was it riskier to pretend the gun wasn’t there? Would that reinforce the idea that she was lying? Warren was almost hiding it from her, though. For now, she decided, she would pretend she hadn’t seen it.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in a level voice. She pointed at the letter on the coffee table. “What is that?”
    He slid the letter toward her. “Why don’t you read it?”
    She picked up the note and scanned the words she knew by heart, her eyes swimming.
    “Aloud, please,” Warren said.
    “What?”
    “Read the letter aloud.”
    She looked up. “You’re kidding, right?”
    “Do I look like I’m kidding? It’ll be so much more powerful that way.”
    “Warren—”
    “Read it!”
    “Will you give me the injection when I’m done?”
    He nodded.
    She’d read Danny’s last letter so many times that she could recite it from memory. She reminded herself not to glance away from the paper as she read, a mistake she might pay for with her life. She began reading in a lifeless monotone: “ ‘I know the first rule of this kind of relationship is Never Write Anything Down. But in this case I feel I have to. A—’ ”
    “You skipped the salutation,” Warren said coldly.
    She sighed, then backed up and gave him what he wanted.
“ ‘Laurel,’ ”
she said. “Blah, blah, blah. ‘A transient wisp of electrons won’t do it. There’s no need to go over the facts. We’ve both done that until we’re almost insane. But before I say what I want to say, let me remind you that I love you. I feel things for you that I’ve never felt before—’ ”
    She looked up and spoke sharply, “Warren, this is bullshit. Where did you get this?”
    He looked back at her without speaking.
    “Did someone give you this?”
    An odd smile touched his lips. “I actually found it in your copy of
Pride and Prejudice.
But then you know that already, don’t you?”
    “I told you, I’ve never seen this before in my life.”
    He shook his head. “Deny till you die, huh? I
really
expected more from you than this. Where’s the woman of principle who’s always criticizing people? Why can’t you tell me the truth? Because this guy dumped you? Are you scared to leave me without another man to run to?”
    The words rolled right over her. She couldn’t get past the gun. It seemed unreal in Warren’s hand, a mockery of everything he stood for. He had never liked guns. He knew how to shoot, of course, like any man raised in a small Southern town. But he wasn’t like a lot of the men she knew, who had fetishes about guns. Many homes in Athens Point held half a dozen firearms, and some forty or fifty. A couple of doctors actually carried guns on their person and had built pistol ranges on their property. She’d heard Warren make disparaging comments about those men, something to the effect that they used the idea of self-defense to justify the macho feeling that guns gave them. Laurel agreed, but Warren’s take on things had surprised her, because unlike most people, he had actually used a gun to defend his family.
    When he was fifteen years old, a prowler had broken into his parents’ house, looking for anything he could steal to buy drugs. Warren had awakened,