Jacob’s eyes widened. “You mean Madeline?”
“Anything’s possible.” The attorney pursed his lips. “But before we start making extra work for ourselves, let’s start with the easy route. Conrad wasn’t a teaching surgeon, was he?”
Jacob shook his head.
“Then we have to assume he made those recordings for his own purposes.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Jacob replied. “Conrad was a perfectionist. He must have been reviewing his work and scrutinizing it.”
“Then let’s see just how obsessive he was.” Stephen picked up the phone and dialed. “Edward Markham, please. This is Stephen Diamond.”
A moment passed.
“Hello, Mr. Markham. We’ve come across a situation, and we’re hoping we can be on the same side on this one.” He went on to explain what Roger had found—or not found—and to stress the significance of this.
“I’m sure your client would want to help us both out if he could, since it could only benefit him.” A pause. “Exactly. What I was wondering is if Dr. Westfield happened to keep copies of those videos of his surgeries, since I know how diligent he was about reviewing his work.” Another pause. “I appreciate that. Please let me know immediately after you speak with him....Good. I’ll look forward to your call.”
* * *
Outside Jacob’s door, Janet backed away, feeling her insides twist. This was the worst-case scenario, the very thing she had feared from the beginning.
Of course Madeline would know where those videos were. She was the most methodical and organized person Janet had ever met. So if Conrad was in the dark, his ex-wife wouldn’t be.
Janet had to intercept this problem. She had to get her hands on that video recording before everyone else did.
32
RYAN WALKED INTO his lair and sat down at his computer station.
Casey had heard nothing back from Janet Moss, so the woman was obviously not having any luck figuring out Ronald’s coding system.
That didn’t work for Ryan. Sitting around and waiting made him crazy. Everyone else seemed to be guarding Madeline and Conrad, while he was spinning in neutral. He’d picked up nothing incriminating at the Lexington house—just a lot of ranting and raving from Nancy Lexington that pointed to her being a nut job, but not a murderer.
It was time to check out the current results of his keystroke-logging software. So far there’d been nothing exciting.
Firing up his computer, Ryan called up the keystroke logger management interface.
He scrolled through the log file...nothing major from most of the bigwigs, but Roger Lewis had been a busy boy. Ryan grimaced. He’d probably been sending emails to an online lonely hearts club, weeping about his shattered relationship with Emma.
A minute later, he changed his mind. No whining over Emma. The guy had obviously decided to throw himself into his work. His input was all hospital business.
Brow furrowed in concentration, Ryan reviewed Roger’s keystrokes. The guy had been trying to retrieve files. What files in particular? Ryan intended to find out.
He opened up a Telnet session, tunneling right through the hospital’s firewall. Using the admin credentials he had forged, he had the same access Roger did. Now to replicate what that shithead had done. It was a long and painstaking process.
Success. Ryan scanned the screen and found the same thing that Roger had—a file was missing and its backup had been deleted.
Checking a little more thoroughly, Ryan put together the pieces and bolted upright in his chair. Based on similar directories and files on the same storage device, the missing file was one of many missing files that had contained video recordings—recordings of surgeries performed the same day as Ronald Lexington’s surgery.
Someone had erased the files.
What the hell was on that video recording that someone wanted to make vanish?
Jumping out of his chair, Ryan took the steps two at a time until he reached the conference room.
* * *
Casey and Claire were in heated conversation. Marc was pacing the room, and Hero was sitting up straight, visibly tense.