The Silence That Speaks (Forensic Instincts 4)

Marc scowled in her direction. “He can’t afford my rates.”

“Where’s Abby now?” Aidan asked tentatively.

“Doing somersaults with Claire—or on Claire—in the yoga room.”

“Oh, God.” Aidan squeezed his eyes shut. “I’d better rescue poor Claire and get out of here before Abby wrecks the whole place.”

At that moment, Ryan came in, scanning some of the printouts he and Aidan had made of their work.

“Thanks, Aidan,” Ryan was saying. “I...” He halted in his tracks. “What the hell happened in here? And why is Marc fiddling with my equipment?”

“Abby had a little fun,” Casey explained. She patted Ryan’s arm. “Not to worry. We’ll restore everything to its original state under Yoda’s guidance.”

“If Yoda hasn’t croaked by now,” Marc said, finishing up his task. “Last I heard, he wasn’t feeling too well.”

“Who blames him?”

“Sorry, Ryan,” Aidan said. “But take it from one who knows, the equipment will be okay. Abby has applied every known substance to every knob and dial at my place.”

“Okay.” Ryan looked dubious.

“So what’s the verdict with the decryption process?” Marc asked.

Aidan held up the USB drive that Ryan had given him. “I’m taking this with me, and continuing our efforts at home.”

“Yeah.” Ryan perked right up. “Aidan designed a special computer strictly for decryption purposes. The man’s a genius. He bought off-the-shelf GPUs and assembled them into a killer computer optimized for decryption. I can’t wait to see what this baby can do.”

“The problem with the decryption process is that you never know how long it’ll take,” Aidan reminded him. “We could have an answer in hours or we could never have an answer.”

“Don’t I know it.” Ryan rubbed the back of his neck. “To further complicate things, Ronald Lexington had a photographic memory. Janet Moss told Casey that at their lunch. So while most people have a problem remembering a couple of short passwords, this guy would have no trouble devising and remembering a long and complex encryption key that would make most of us cringe.”

“Let’s be optimistic,” Casey said. “We won’t know if we don’t try.”

“Yup.” Aidan turned around. “So let me collect my daughter and get home to get started

.”

23

SHARON GILDING WAS entering the ladies’ room, just as Janet Moss was coming out. They each nodded hello, but before the neurosurgeon had continued on her way, Janet’s eagle eye did a quick once-over.

Sharon’s skirt was askew, her lipstick was smeared and her overall appearance was ruffled.

Dr. Sharon Gilding was never ruffled. Well, almost never.

Janet smiled to herself. At least her boss would be in a good mood this afternoon. Sex always put men in a good mood. Unless, of course, it was one of those times. Times when Sharon was angry and pissy about the damned chief of surgery job she wanted. Then Jacob would have had to listen to her rant about how she’d done everything and more to ensure that it was she, and not Conrad Westfield, who got that job, and how Jacob had better make it happen.

If that’s how their afternoon delight had ended, Jacob would be cranky and snappish—and less than cheerful.

Janet had prepared herself for that, but not for the explosion that ensued when she returned from the ladies’ room.

She’d just opened the door into the executive offices when Jacob came sputtering out of his office, red as a beet. He saw Janet and shouted, “Get me Stephen Diamond on the phone. Now.”

Each sputter was accentuated by the pile of legal papers Jacob was waving furiously in the air.

Janet raced into her office and straight to her desk and took care of calling the hospital chief counsel. She’d never seen Jacob Casper so out of control.

About an hour later, Stephen Diamond, Esq.—a lanky, stony-faced man of about forty-five—appeared in the executive offices and was ushered immediately into Jacob’s office.