“Why not? Let’s assume I’ve been hacked as of now and they’re reading my mail. When I log in and go to BullettBeep or whatever, they’re watching, right?”

“To a point. Once you pay up and become a ‘member,’ for lack of a better term, your messages are instantly encrypted and protected. They have to be or these sites couldn’t work. They have to guarantee complete anonymity.”

“And they’re popular?”

“Who knows? It’s all secret. I mean, I never use them and I don’t know anybody who does, but then I’m not having an affair or selling arms or doing whatever Nelson was up to in his novels.”

“Thanks.”

She left and Bruce waited, and waited. At exactly 3:01, he went to BullettBeep, followed instructions, paid with a credit card (which was also being watched, he presumed), and said hello as 88DogMan. He was already tired of the silly names.

There was a long pause as he waited and gawked at the screen. He took a deep breath and tapped his fingers beside the keyboard. Finally,

10.

After two days and nights at the Lowell with no contact, Bruce was privately bitching about Manhattan hotel prices and thinking of leaving. To make matters worse, Noelle was shopping out of boredom. Whatever the reason, the prices were high and the boxes were piling up. Bruce had lunch with Nelson’s editor, and he had drinks with an agent, and he hung out in a couple of his favorite bookstores, but he was tired of the city. On the third day, Noelle was having tea in the hotel bar when an attractive brunette stopped at her table and said, “You’re Noelle, right?”

The “i” was flat, as in North Florida.

“I am.”

She handed over a small envelope, yellow. “Please give this to Bruce.” And she was gone.

Bruce read the note: Meet me in the second floor bar of the Peninsula Hotel on 55th at 3:30 p.m. I’ll be alone.

They arrived early and the bar was empty, and dark. Noelle took a table close to the counter, ordered a seltzer, and began reading a newsmagazine. Bruce went to the rear with his back to the mirrors and a full view of the bar. At 3:30, the same brunette sauntered in like a fashion model, noticed the couple was not together, and walked to Bruce’s table and sat down. Without offering a hand, she said, “I’m Danielle.”

“Also known as Dane?” Bruce asked calmly, and she couldn’t conceal the shock. She exhaled as her shoulders dropped and all pretense of being cool and in charge vanished. She flashed a fake smile and glanced around. Perfect teeth, high cheekbones, lovely brown eyes, a bit too much padding in the forehead, but all in all one good-looking woman. Tall, slender, decked out in designer stuff. Very classy.

“How’d you know?”

“A long story, one of many. I’m Bruce. We weren’t expecting a woman.”

“Sorry to disappoint. Look, I’d feel better if we had more privacy. I have a room on the fourth floor.”

“I’m not going to your room, because I’m not sure what I’d find there.”

“You’ll find nothing.”

“If you say so. Noelle and I are happy to invite you to a room we have on the sixth floor.”

“Very well.”

They rode the elevator with three strangers so not a word was spoken. Once safely inside the room, they managed to relax as they sat around a small coffee table. With a flair, Bruce began with “Well, I’m Bruce Cable, small-town bookseller from Camino Island, Florida. This is my wife, Noelle, peerless importer of antiques from the South of France. And you are?”

“Danielle Noddin, Houston, Texas, and I have a lot of questions.”

“So do I,” Bruce said. “How did you know about our wedding ceremony on the beach?”

She flashed a warm smile and Bruce almost melted. “I was on the island with a friend, just a few days at the beach. I wanted a closer look at you and your turf. When we were in the store we overheard a conversation about the ceremony, so we just happened to stop by. It’s a small town and I guess people talk too much.”

“That’s certainly true,” Noelle said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I mentioned it so that you would take my letter seriously.”

“Oh, I did,” Bruce said. “We’re not playing games here.”

“No, we’re not. Why did you know I’m called Dane?”

“We went through Nelson’s stuff after the police were finished. There wasn’t much. Virtually all of his notes and research were, evidently, in his computer and heavily encrypted. But there were three notebooks with all sorts of random chicken scratch. Notes on the best dive lodges in Bermuda; restaurants in Santa Fe; a three-page story idea for a novel, one that went nowhere because the idea was not good; a few phone numbers that the police checked out and got nowhere. That sort of stuff. But there were four references to a ‘Danielle,’ who was also called Dane. I take it you guys met once in San Antonio.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “We did.”

“The police paid no attention to it. No surprise there.”

“Where is their investigation?”

“Still open, but they’ve found little. Coffee, anyone?”

Noelle nodded and Dane said, “That would be nice.”

Bruce stepped to the phone and called room service. Noelle asked her softly, “You’re in the city often?”

“Twice a year. The usual, shopping and Broadway and a new restaurant or two, with some girls from Houston.”

It was obvious Dane had expensive tastes and lived well. Noelle pegged her age at forty-one, max.

Bruce returned to the sofa and asked, “Now where were we?”

“How much do you know about Grattin?” Dane asked.

“Well, everything that has been written about a company that works extremely hard at revealing nothing. Basic corporate structure, sales figures, number of facilities, a few names of the big boys, and a lot of bad press about nursing home abuse. The company seems to relish staying in trouble.”

“The company relishes making money, and it’s very good at it. Does the name Ken Reed ring a bell?”

“It’s his company, CEO and chairman.”

“When Ken was about thirty years old, his father died in a plane crash and he inherited a string of cheap nursing homes in Texas and Oklahoma. He learned the business, spruced up his facilities, and began expanding. He was and still is very ambitious. Now he’s sixty-two, rich, and still works seven days a week.”

“Do you work for him?”

“I sleep with him. I’m wife number three. First I was his secretary slash assistant slash girlfriend. He got tired of wife number two and I got the big promotion. Now he’s looking for number four. The man will never have enough money or women. He’s more than happy to get me out of town. It’s never been a healthy marriage and it will soon be over.”

“Forbes puts his net worth at six hundred million.”

“No one knows. He buries it here and there, does a lot of offshore banking, runs money through a maze of corporations. He’s paranoid about his privacy and cheats like hell on his taxes. Not your typical rich Texan who can’t wait to show off his money. There’s always somebody richer down there so he doesn’t play that game.”

“Why will the marriage soon be over?”

She smiled again and looked out the window. “We don’t have enough time.”

“You brought it up. We can talk about something else.”

She offered him a soft gaze but the beautiful eyes were focused, almost glaring. “When I was twenty, I got a job as a secretary with a company in Tulsa that owned some nursing homes. Ken bought the company and came through one day. I caught his eye, primarily because his eye is always roving. I got a promotion I didn’t deserve and was transferred to Abilene, where I got another lucky promotion and a one-way ticket to Houston, where his company was headquartered. It was called West Abilene Care back then. Later merged with Grattin, and Ken liked that name better. His name is on nothing but his car titles and land deeds and not all of them. Anyway, when I got to Houston he was waiting. He offered me the job as his executive assistant, at a generous salary, and before long we were companions. This went on for about five years. He finally paid off number two and I became number three. That was fourteen years ago. I worked hard, took my job seriously, learned everything about the company, most of which I’d like to forget, by the way, and kept up with the technology. Over time, Ken began to worry that I knew too much, so he forced me into retirement, to get me out of the office. But I was quite unhappy sitting around the house—I refused to have children with him, which has proven to be a wise decision—and I insisted on a job, something meaningful. He resented this but finally agreed. Not long after I returned to work I learned that he had a serious new girl in Dallas. This was no surprise, really, because he has never stopped philandering. So, I’ve played the game myself. Not exactly an open marriage but it’s kept me sane.”

Bruce looked uncomfortably at Noelle, who ignored him. The term “open marriage” brought back memories.

“And you met Nelson?” Bruce asked.

She smiled seductively at her own memories. “I did. I liked him a lot. Obviously, you’ve read his last novel.”

“Read it, edited it, sold it.”

“Well, folks, the novel is true, and the story is about Grattin and its secret drug. When I decided to squeal, snitch, blow the whistle, call it what you want, I decided to go to Nelson Kerr. I had read an interview with him in which he talked about his work and his research into shady conspiracies and such. I reached out, we met, hit it off in a fine way, and began a relationship.”

“Go, Nelson,” Bruce said.

“Come on, Bruce,” Noelle scolded.

“It’s okay,” Dane said. “We were very fond of each other. And, I feel responsible for his death. If he hadn’t met me he would still be alive.”

“We’re leaving out entire chapters here,” Bruce said. There was a knock on the door and Bruce opened it. A porter set the coffee service on the table, and Bruce signed the check. Noelle poured as Bruce locked the door.

They fiddled with their sugar and cream for a while. Dane said, “A question. Can the novel be stopped?”

“No way,” Bruce said. “That’s where they screwed up. They didn’t know that Nelson was finished with it when they took him out. I’ve sold the book and it’s coming next year. In a big way. If we can prove he was murdered because of it, they won’t be able to print ’em fast enough. A question for you. How did they know about Nelson and his research?”

“He went to China and found the lab. I told him not to go, just as I told him not to dig too deep. Just take the story, fictionalize like crazy, and write a novel. That wasn’t good enough for Nelson. He wanted to know all the dirt. Somehow, somewhere in the underworld, word got out that Nelson Kerr, a bestselling author, was writing about a nursing home company and its mysterious drug.”

“Was the Chinese lab involved in his death?”

“I doubt it. It’s a huge pharmaceutical over there that makes all manner of illegal and semi-legal drugs. They don’t care and they’re immune from prosecution and liability. They make fentanyl, even meth. How much do you know about the drug?”

With a bit of showmanship, Bruce pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. Inside were three clear capsules filled with a brown substance. “There is the mysterious vitamin E3. Guaranteed to keep you ticking even though you can’t see a damned thing and you’re puking up your guts.”

Dane’s jaw dropped as she gawked at the pills in disbelief. They watched her as she tried gamely to be stoic while her mind went crazy. She breathed deeply and said, “I’ve never seen the drug. How on earth did you get it?”

“It’s a long story that we don’t need to discuss. But, Grattin has three hundred facilities in fifteen states, so there’s a lot of this stuff in the pipeline and in play. It wasn’t that difficult to lift a few capsules.”

“How’d you know about the side effects?”

“We ran it through some high-end labs where it was finally identified as Flaxacill. We’ve done some work, Dane.”

“Indeed you have. Was this by chance found in Flora, Kentucky?”

“It was. By Brittany, who is no longer with us. You feel responsible for Nelson’s death. We feel responsible for Brittany’s.”

“Don’t. Brittany was killed by the same people who took care of Nelson.”

“The boys at Grattin?”

“Yes. I wasn’t in the room, but I’d bet that when Ken Reed and his circle found out that a ten-dollar-an-hour orderly in Flora, Kentucky, had lifted a bottle of E3, they went into a panic.”

“These guys kill all the time?” Noelle asked.

Dane tried to relax with a sip of coffee. She gently set down her cup and took two deep breaths. “These guys, and there are four of them, began as decent men. The money ruined them. They started making millions and figured out ways to make millions more. They provide substandard care at expensive rates, courtesy of the taxpayers. If there’s a way to screw Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Ag, Defense, pick another one, then these guys know how to do it. Have they killed before? Probably, but nothing has ever been proved. Roughly ten years ago a federal meat inspector in Nebraska died under suspicious circumstances. One of Reed’s offshore corporations owned several meat-processing plants in the Midwest, low-end beef and pork they peddled to fast food chains, school lunch programs, even the military. An inspector surprised them with a visit and found plenty of violations. He shut down two plants. The company ran to Washington, lined up the politicians on its payroll, and got them reopened. The inspector would not go away and kept inspecting. He shut them down again, and again. He eventually died in a car crash, late at night, on a lonely road.”

“Who are the four?” Bruce asked.

“Ken Reed; his cousin Otis Reed, a lawyer; Lou Slader, head of security and bribery; and an accountant named Sid Shennault. Slader is the one to worry about. Ex-FBI, ex–Army Ranger, a smooth operator who always carries a gun. He runs all security, at least around the headquarters. There’s not much at the facilities, costs too much. He also handles the political side and doles out huge sums of money to politicians, above the table, and to regulators, under the table. Grattin operates on a large scale, so there are a lot of inspectors and bureaucrats to keep at bay. It’s far cheaper to pay bribes than to provide quality care.”

“And these four men make all the decisions?”

“No, not at all. Ken Reed is the dictator. The other three are like sycophants. They do what he says, make him look good, and never cross him. He demands complete loyalty.”