The Silence That Speaks (Forensic Instincts 4)

But when he was in the middle of a case, that went by the wayside.

He heard his cell phone bing, followed by a trilling sound from his email.

Rolling over, he reached for his iPhone. He scanned Aidan’s text and then opened the email, scanning its contents.

“Holy shit,” he muttered. “Smut and stealing all at once.”

Jumping out of bed, Ryan headed for the shower. Simultaneously he called Casey. He knew her well enough to know that he’d be expected in the office, armed with info, yesterday.

Twenty minutes later, he was on his way.

* * *

Casey was a busy woman that morning.

When Ryan came in, Marc was already perched at the conference room table. He’d just told her that Madeline was headed back to work in a few hours, and she’d responded by telling him that Casper had offered to fire Conrad and Madeline to settle the lawsuit.

“Shit,” Marc had said. “How do you know?”

“The bug in Nancy Lexington’s house. Ryan listened to the conversation. She boasted about it to her kids.”

“Shit,” he said again. “Madeline is walking into a hornet’s nest.”

“I’ve got news,” Ryan announced, interrupting the conversation. “I got a text from Aidan.” He handed Casey the pages he’d printed out. “One file. One woman. One unique encryption key. That part sucks. This, on the other hand, makes for fascinating reading.”

“A naked woman in erotic positions?” Casey commented drily as she scanned the first few pages. “Porn isn’t usually your style, Ryan.”

“Keep reading.”

Marc had gone around behind Casey to read over her shoulder.

“Valerie Pintar. That’s one of the names Janet mentioned—an employee who slept with Ronald and got fired for it,” Casey said, reading on.

“Now this is interesting,” Marc commented, pointing as they got to the embezzlement part. “Far from shocking, but interesting. So Ronald Lexington wasn’t just a womanizer. He was a thief.”

Casey looked up. “What did you mean when you said, ‘That sucks’?”

“Aidan is telling us that he only cracked this one numerical file. That means that Ronald has a different encryption key for each file, which makes his and our jobs that much harder.”

“Each encryption key has to be broken separately,” Marc murmured.

“Exactly. And who knows how the hell long that will take?”

“You’re right,” Casey said. “That sucks. We have no time for a setback.” Her eyes rose to meet Ryan’s. “I want you to access the human resources database at the hospital. Search every bit of material available for Valerie Pintar. See if you can find any connection between her and the number 266—her birthday, social security number—anything.”

“Already under way,” Ryan replied. “But this could well be a dead end. The numbers could be random or they could be things the records would never show—like Valerie and Ronald’s first date, the hotel room number from their first night together, their first-month anniversary....”

“I get it, but try. In the meantime, it’s my turn. I don’t give a damn how much turmoil the hospital’s in. I’m scheduling that dinner with Janet Moss. I want to pump her for information about any more of Ronald’s paramours she knows of. I want to hear the ideas she might have regarding personal vendettas these women could have concerning Ronald’s death.”

“This might blow your cover,” Marc pointed out.

“It might. But I’ll try to elicit her help as an ally. We’ll see how that flies.”

* * *

Emergency board meetings were becoming a regular part of hospital procedure, Janet thought as she filed into the conference room.

This time the meeting was a tactical one since Nancy’s lawsuit was going to trial. Jacob and the team of lawyers were instructed by the board to start the legal process of discovery.