Shaddyr's Eclectic Collection > Pretender Fanfiction > Exchange Part 4

 

Exchange: Part 4
by Liz Shelbourne



Unable to see Dr. Carmichael, Jarod had opted for an electronic inquisition.  Delving into the doctors credit history, personal and financial records was more rewarding than he had expected.  It seemed that the good doctor was the half-owner of the building that housed his offices, along with a moderately sized condominium in Florida and a five bedroom home in one of the tonier sections of town.  His credit cards were paid and his luxury car was leased.  Not altogether unbelievable for a successful neurologist, but scanning through the record, another piece of information jumped off of the computer screen.

 Twenty-seven years ago, Dr. Carmichael, struggling through his residency, had taken time off to marry a Miss Bianca Morrell. Jarod did not believe in coincidence, not when money was involved.  A quick background check of Bianca Morrell showed a younger brother, Geoff, now a lawyer working for PremiaMed. Tonight would be Jarod’s last night of work at the insurance company.  For the first four hours, he worked diligently, first adding a few new time-savers to Misty’s program, then entering the information from the stack of files that seemed to renew itself every day.  Simultaneously, he had the other monitor displaying the extensive list of every possible fraudulent claim by ATC for the last four years.  On the other side of the room, the printer spit out page after page of details.  He addressed a large envelope to Dr. Christian Borkowski; this would be his insurance policy.

Yesterday, he had noted that the majority of the other twenty-eight people who were putting in their hours at night, mostly on telephones or at computers, took a break between ten and eleven.  Amanda Teague, with her accomplishments and self-discipline, had been afforded the opportunity to come in later after feeding her family their evening meal, and working until the wee hours of the morning, so she had most often taken her break after the rush of the others.

Tonight, Jarod waited until the magical hour of midnight, shut off both monitors, and calmly walked out to his car with his briefcase and its ream of information, announcing to the reception/security guard that he would return shortly with "something other than vending machine food." After waiting in his car for fifteen minutes, he returned to the front door of the building, carrying a paper bag from a local fast-food restaurant.  The guard recognized him and buzzed the door open even before Jarod could use his security card.  Smiling and waving, he stepped into the elevator, pushed a button, and descended.  Exiting the elevator in the basement, he turned quickly to the left and walked through the fire door to the stair case.

The fourth floor of the PremiaMed building housed the offices of the President and various executives in charge of marketing, data, accounting, etc.  Geoff Morrell had an office on the floor below, much to the lawyer’s chagrin, but it would be the first on Jarod’s list. Opening the door from the stair well, Jarod reached into the paper bag and pulled out a roll of duct tape.  He tore a small piece off, wrapped it around the strike plate of the doorframe and let the door close gently.  The stairway door was now barred from locking by itself.  Approaching the door to the lawyer’s office, he noticed the ubiquitous security card slot.  Knowing that his own would do nothing, or worse, set off an alarm, he reached into the bag once more and pulled out a small device, commonly known as an electronic lock pick.   Sliding a thin metal bar, the same shape as his security card, into the slot, he waited patiently while the tiny hand-held computer ran through all the various permutations of numbers that might open the system. A few seconds later, the light turned green, he extracted the "key" and slipped inside the darkened room. The monitor on the desk cast a low glow over bare desk in front of it – Mr. Morrell did not seem the type to be concerned with saving energy.  Jarod sat down in the leather chair and pulled out the keyboard from below the desktop. Although Toliver did not seem to think that Morrell was one of the Security team, Jarod had other ideas.  There was physical security, locks and guards and cameras, and then there was electronic security.  Jarod was fairly sure that the lawyer’s duties included developing the elaborate system for the computer, and his suspicions were proven when he accessed it. Ironically, the security features here at his desk were minimal, a momentary digression into the server back door that he had found yesterday, a bootleg password, and Jarod was in.  Morrell, it seemed, put more faith in mechanical than electronic deterrents when it came to his private office; more likely, he was simply lazy and did not want to be bothered with the safeguards that were installed everywhere else on the system.

The screen that greeted him was unlike anything he had seen in the company’s system before.  Morrell had access to every kind of program imaginable, from the cooling system to the alarms to the payroll.  Jarod wondered if any of the Board of Directors was aware what kind of power this man held on top of his desk.  He quickly moved into the Billing program, scanning the various accounting subprograms that determined how and how much each of the over two hundred physicians, hospitals and care providers would be paid.  The program was immense.  Each of thousands of different items had preset costs; anything submitted above it would not be paid, but any amount submitted below the magic number would be used as the reimbursable amount.  Payment went to dozens and dozens of locations, some directly to bank accounts, some to private billing agencies, others to the doctors and clinics themselves. Searching through the hundreds of sub-programs took time, time that he did not want to waste, however, the key to the puzzle had to be there somewhere.  Finally, he found it, the subroutine attached to the member files – any member diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, living with someone other than a spouse was automatically run through the ATC billing cycle.  If they happened to actually be a patient, the automatic cycle stopped.  The program even had a variation that checked for a change in the status of the responsible party, so that when a spouse of an Alzheimer patient passed away, the billing showed up within a few months.

 Jarod was impressed.  The program, seemingly so simple, was actually quite complex, almost virus-like.  It searched each and every new members file, looking for the word "Alzheimer," and once finding it, either acted immediately or waited, patiently, until the day when it would spring in to action.  The billings changed too.  Not everyone was charged for the same things, different test were "performed" on different patients, so that the fees were rarely the same over the course of a month.  The "invoices" were created within the PremiaMed system, never actually seeing the light of day.  Jarod was sure that almost all of the members charged were as unaware of the billings for care they had not received as Misty had been, their families simply too busy to look into it.  The only thing that they might notice was a dollar or two increase in their rates.

 The payments were made directly to the ATC’s bank, electronically deposited, again, without a paper trail.  Someone at the clinic had to be aware of the fraud, someone had to be there to take the money, and divide it up, and all the electronic fingers pointed to Dr. Carmichael.  But there had to be another collaborator at the insurance company, Jarod thought, an individual with enough clout to convince the auditors and the Board of Directors that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the ATC account.  That meant someone on the floor above.

 The electronic lock pick made life easier for Jarod once again.  He started with the office nearest the stairway, limiting his exposure in the hallway.  Robert Shackley, VP in charge of Marketing was not high on Jarod’s list of possibilities, and once inside, he knew almost immediately that this was not the right man.  Shackley’s office was decorated almost entirely with copies – replicas of old furniture for a desk and chairs, prints of paintings on the wall, copies of porcelain statuary.  Even the suit he wore in one of the pictures that nearly covered one wall looked like a knock-off of a designer label.  This was a man who wanted to look like he had money, but frankly, couldn’t afford it.  With the two pictures of children on one of the faux-antique tables, and the obvious absence of any picture of a wife to be seen, Jarod guessed that Shackley was working hard to meet his alimony payments, with little left over for the things he really wanted.  Although that might have been a compelling reason to consider fraud as a supplemental income, there was no evidence that the man had an extra two or three hundred thousand dollars a year to play with.

 The next door belonged to Arthur Solomon, VP in charge of Finances.  Mr. Solomon had the second to last say in most of the PremiaMed’s monetary dealings, from investments to rate increases to the contracts with the hospitals, and as such, ranked at the top of Jarod’s list.  It was Solomon’s duty to collate all of the financial information and present it to the President, so that he could then present it to the Board of Directors.  >From talking with Amanda, Jarod knew that Solomon rarely, if ever, received the kind of notice that he would like; that was reserved for the President, but that position was in his future plans.  In the mean time, he did whatever he could to advance the company, make a profit and make the President look good.  Jarod had to wonder just what he was doing to advance himself.

 Arthur Solomon’s mahogany desk was completely clear except for a telephone and an eight-by-ten portrait of a woman in a dark wood frame.  Behind the desk and tucked into an elegant armoire was his computer, printer, and fax.  A tall, wooden filing cabinet was placed nearby, two oil paintings graced the far wall.  Unlike Shackley, the financial officer realized that less could actually be more, and in this office, nothing was a fake.
 Jarod sat behind the desk, running his hands over the smooth wood of the top.  This was a man who relished order, whose life was run as a series of debits and credits.  It was also a man with serious ambition, this was not the desk of a VP, this was the furniture of a President, or even a CEO.  He leaned back in the leather chair, straightening his tie as he did, summoning the pretender skills that had been honed for so many years at The Centre.  He looked at the room, at life, through the eyes of Arthur Solomon.

 I’ve been there from the beginning, he thought, making this company what it is today.  I made the decisions, I made the plans, but everyone else got the attention, the glory.  I have given this company twenty years of my life, and what do I have to show for it – an office and nothing more.  VP, what does that mean, its not a title, it’s a sentence.  They’ve forced me to stay here, surrounded by mediocrity, above, below and all around.  It should be so simple to see, the facts are clear - I should be President of PremiaMed, nothing less.  I’ve done my time, I’ve paid my dues, now, they owe me.
 Debits and Credits.  They owed, he took.  If he couldn’t have the title, he would have the money.  The account was balanced.

 Jarod glanced at the portrait sitting on the corner of the desk.  The picture was of a middle-aged woman desperately trying to hold on to her youth.  The photographer had use a soft focus and lighting and any other possible trick to make the portrait as complimentary as possible – there are some things that money can still buy, and in this case, it was the illusion of youth.  A broad flamboyant signature traced across the lower corner of the picture, " Merriam."

 Jarod looked at the face closely.  There was something familiar about it, but he knew that he had never had the pleasure of meeting this woman before.  So what was it that struck him so?  Then he had it, the eyes!  He had seen those eyes before, a muddy brown, deep set and just a bit suspicious, Geoff Morrell had the same kind of eyes.  Casting back through the reams of information he had seen in the past few days, he tried to remember the information he had found on the now Mrs. Carmichael.  There had been two siblings, younger brother Geoff and a sister, had her name been Merriam?  The name did sound familiar, thinking about it, he became more convinced that he had found the third collaborator.

 He glanced at the watch on his wrist, almost one in the morning.  To allay any suspicions, he knew that he should return to the basement for a last run at the stacks of data waiting to be entered.  Sliding the electronic gadget back into the paper bag, he silently closed the office door behind him, slipped down the hall and opened the unlatched door to the stairwell.  Having done its duty, he removed the duct tape from the latch and let the door lock with an audible click as he worked his way down the stairs to the basement.

  Jarod arrived at the hotel just before noon on Saturday and walked directly to Amanda’s room.  He knocked on the hotel room door.  "Hi, honey, I’m home."

 Opening the door, Amanda’s eyes were sticky with sleep, but her smile was broad.  "Hey, there, Mr. Alstadt.  You caught me napping."

 Walking into the room, Jarod offered her a white paper bag and a thick file folder.  "I brought lunch and some answers, which would you like first?"

 She grinned and grabbed both, jumping onto the closer of the double beds and pulling two paper-wrapped sandwiches out of the bag.  Checking them first, she handed Jarod one and began to nibble on the other, all the while scanning the file that she had opened up on the bed before her.

 "I recognize some of the names here," she said around a mouthful of food.  "Are you saying that all of these people have been used to defraud the company?"

 Jarod nodded.  "Those are the ones that I am sure of, there are a few dozen more that would take some work to prove yes or no, and I didn’t want to take the time.  I think we’ve got enough."

 "So who is the guilty party, Borkowski?  Carmichael?"

 "I’m pretty sure that Dr. Borkowski is not involved, at least I hope not.  Carmichael is, along with VP Solomon and his brother-in-law Geoff Morrell."

 Amanda scowled.  "Morrell?  I haven’t heard that name, who is he?"

 "Your late night visitor with the gun."

 The woman’s eyes grew wide.

 "He’s also a lawyer for the company, with a lot more control than I think anyone knows.  I think he is the one who hired the computer specialist who designed the system, and the one who put the special "Alzheimer’s loop" into the billing.  But if you look into the programmer’s employee file, it says that he was hired by the Mr. Pettigrew, the president."

 Realization slowly dawned for her.  "You mean, if anyone did find the subroutine, they would blame it on the programmer, and then blame Pettigrew…"

 "Who is named as co-owner of the Alzheimer Treatment Center with Dr. Carmichael."  Jarod finished.  "He’d be finished, as would the good doctor."
 Impossibly, Amanda’s eyes grew even larger.  "So not only are Morrell and Solomon screwing the insurance company, they’re all ready to screw Pettigrew and Carmichael if it should come out into the open."

 "Exactly."  Jarod smiled.  "Then Solomon would have a very good chance to move to the office of president, and Morrell would follow him upstairs.  It would work out sweetly for both of them."

 "So what is the connection, what brought these three together?"

 "Morrell’s sister’s married the other two.  I imagine the idea came up one Thanksgiving while they were all sitting around after dinner, but I doubt the women were involved.  Unfortunately for Mrs. Carmichael, blood is not thicker than money, her brother and brother-in-law are willing to send her husband up the river to save their own skins."

 Amanda shook her head in disbelief.  "So what was Morrell going to do with me?"

 Jarod was serious.  "I don’t know.  He is an intelligent man, but his first priority is himself.  I don’t want to think about what might have happened if he had found you.  However," he brightened. "I have a very good idea about what to do to him, and I’m going to need your help."

****

 The phone in Raymond Carmichael’s den rang late in the afternoon on Sunday, his wife scurried to answer it from the sun deck.  The voice on the other side was feminine, professional.

 "Is Dr. Carmichael available?"

 "No, I’m sorry, he’s out golfing."

 The professional voice became concerned.  "Oh.  That’s too bad.  We were hoping to speak with him immediately."

 Bianca Carmichael was beginning to get irked.  Her husband was, in her mind, a specialist who treated old people.  They had long, lingering diseases and then they died, they did not have emergencies on Sunday afternoons, and that was one of the things she liked the most.  She had the best of both worlds: married to a doctor who’s patients never interrupted the dinner party.  If someone had the nerve to call her husband on a Sunday, well, they could just wait until regular hours on Monday as far as she was concerned.  "Who is this," she demanded.

 The professional voice was unaffected by her gruff question.  "I work for the lawyer who is representing Mr. Pettigrew.  Is there any way I can reach Dr. Carmichael?   We have some very important questions."

 At the word lawyer, Bianca blanched.  This was something she understood.  In her eyes, her brother was both the best and the worst in the trade, a shining example of just what an overbearing and argumentative teen can do with his life when he puts his mind to it.  She both had an innate fear and respect for all lawyers because of him.

 Pettigrew, Pettigrew.  Now where did she know that name?  She was not a stupid person, but her mind ran in social circles and she knew that that name had very rarely come up.  She mulled it over for a moment longer.  Something about Raymond’s clinic, what was it????

 The woman on the other end of the line waited patiently throughout the silence, then was rewarded with a very quiet "Oh my God."  She smiled, knowing that Mrs. Carmichael had finally put together just what this phone call was all about.  Her husband’s clinic was in some kind of jeopardy, and therefore, so was her doctor’s wife’s life.

 Suddenly Bianca Carmichael was very helpful.  "He doesn’t take his cell phone with him on the golf course, some silly club rule, I guess, but I could go over there and find him if you’d like."

 The voice was appreciative, soothing but did nothing to allay her fears.  "I don’t think that that will be necessary, however, we would like to take a look at some of the ATC books.  Do you know if Dr. Carmichael will be available later this evening?"

 Look at the books?  Now, her heart was really pumping.  "I, um…he might, I don’t know."  She needed to stall for time for her husband.  "Can I get a number where he can reach you?"

 The voice on the phone was clipped.  "I’ll just try to call back later, Mrs. Carmichael.  Thank you for your assistance."  The line clicked dead.

****

 "Mr. Morrell?"

 "Yes, this is he.  Who is this?"

 "This is Jarod Alstadt, we met the other day in the computer room at PremiaMed,  I was from the temporary agency."

 There was a short pause.  "Yes, I remember you.  What are you doing calling me at home, where did you get my number?"

 Jarod smiled.  The man was already starting to sound edgy.  "It’s not very hard, Mr. Morrell, if you know where to look.  I found some other things while I was looking around, some things that you might be interested in."

 "Like what?"

 "Like some inconsistencies in the billing at PremiaMed, specifically involving your brother-in-law and his clinic."  Now Jarod paused.  "But you know all about that."

 "I have no idea what you are talking about."  Morrell voice was higher than he wanted.  He cleared his throat and began again, trying to regain some of his composure.  "Who did you say you were?"

 Jarod’s laugh was not kind.  "You heard me.  I’m just a temp.  I could forget about what I saw…if the price were right."

 "Are you trying to blackmail me?"

 Silence.

 "Are you still there, Alstadt?"

 "Yes."

 Morrell sighed.  "What do you want?"

 "I don’t want to be a temp anymore, Mr. Morrell.  In fact, I don’t want to work for quite some time.  Why don’t we meet, and, well, we can discuss things."

 "That sounds like a good idea."  The lawyer brightened.  This temp wasn’t so smart after all.  "Why don’t you come to my house, I think you know where it is."

 "No, I don’t think so."  Jarod answered.  "Meet me at the clinic tonight at 7:30.  And bring your boss."

 "What do you mean, my boss?"  Morrell spat back defensively, exactly what Jarod had expected.

 "Solomon.  He’s the one that dreamed up this whole scheme, isn’t he?  Tonight, 7:30, both of you."  Perched twenty feet off the ground on the utility pole down the street from the Morrell home, Jarod  tapped the button on the hand-held phone and terminated the connection.  A moment later he released it and was pleased to hear the sound of Arthur Solomon answering his brother-in-laws call.

 "Art, it’s Geoff.  We’ve got a problem."

****

 It was still light out at seven in the evening when Amanda pulled into the parking lot of the Alzheimer’s Treatment Center.  The building and those surrounding it had that special kind of emptiness found only on a Sunday in a business area.  One other car was parked in front of a law office further down the street, but other than that, the area looked deserted.  She sat in her car, recovered from the airfield earlier in the day, and waited, watching the slowly growing dusk.

 Her mind had wandered, thinking over the events of the past two days and wondering about her family, when she was suddenly and convincingly drawn back into the present by a metallic click just behind the open window of the car.  She looked back, startled, and stared directly into the barrel of the same gun that had hunted her once before.  Behind it, Geoff Morrell’s face split in a knowledgeable grimace.

 "You," he snarled.  "You’re the one who broke into the system, aren’t you?  What’s your name, Teague, that’s it.  So this is your plan, you and your boyfriend?  You want to blackmail me?"

 Amanda looked at him, terror in her eyes.  Of all the things she had not wanted to see again, that gun was at the top of the list and the hatred in the man’s eyes was close behind.

 "Get out of the car," Morrell demanded, waving the gun in front of her.  She complied as quickly as possible.

 He threw a key ring at her and nodded toward the nearby service door to the clinic.
"Open up the door and get inside, before your boyfriend shows up."

 "Too late."  With a barely controlled aggression, Jarod swung a softball bat into the back of Morrell head, sending him crumpling to the ground, moaning incoherently.  He reached down and pulled the gun from the lawyer’s relaxed grip.  "Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s not safe to point guns at people."

 Amanda looked back at Jarod gratefully.  "I was wondering when you were going to make your move.  Is he okay?"

 Jarod gently rolled the man over, checking the half-closed eyes.  "He’ll be all right, just stunned. I think we should get him inside, though, before he get his bearings."  He handed the bat back to the woman.  "You can put that back in your trunk now.  I’m just happy you didn’t take up bowling instead."

****

 Raymond Carmichael walked up to the front door of the clinic, keys in hand.  As he reached to unlock the door, another figure walked toward him.  He recognized it quickly.  "Art, what are you doing here?"

 Solomon stepped toward the door with some trepidation, his glance moving back and forth across the parking lot.  "I was just about to ask you the same question.  Have you seen Geoff?"

 The doctor shook his head.  "You mean he’s here too?  What is going on?"  He turned the key in the lock and opened the door for his brother-in-law to enter the darkened lobby, then followed.  "My wife got a call from Pettigrew’s lawyer, what does he have to do with this?"

 The lights of the lobby suddenly flashed on, startling both men.  Jarod walked out from behind a nearby wall, the lawyer’s gun in his hand.  "Good evening, gentlemen, thank you for coming.  I’m afraid Mr. Morrell had an accident, he’s waiting for you in the Radiology Room."  He waved the gun toward the stairwell.  "If you would, please."
 Both men glanced at each other but finding no answers there, followed Jarod’s request and descended to the basement level.

 "Who are you?"  Carmichael asked as they walked down the carpeted hallway.

 Solomon was quick to answer.  "He’s an ex-employee, turned blackmailer, that’s what he is."

 "Really, Mr. Solomon, that’s a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it, given what you were willing to do to the good doctor here."  Jarod followed them through the waiting room and into the brightly lit and lead-lined radiology theater.  On one side of the room a booth stood to shield the technicians, on the other side the bulky CT scanner sat, looking like a foreshortened tunnel.  On the table leading to it, the lawyer lay securely strapped, his mouth covered in surgical tape, his eyes wide and pleading to the two men who had just walked in.  He struggled in vain as they watched.

 Jarod reached into his pocket and pulled out half a dozen cable ties.  "If you would, Doctor, please tie Mr. Solomon’s hands behind his back."  This done, Jarod pushed the gun into the back of his belt and took the remaining ties, fastening the doctor’s hands securely.  "Now, gentlemen, if you would have a seat."

Motioning to the two secretary’s chairs that look conspicuously out of place against the wall,  he used one last cable tie each to secure them to their seats.  Then he walked casually behind the booth and returned with a heavy rubber apron.  He put the strap around his neck and loosely tied the belt, then pulled the gun out again.  "Lead apron," he confided with a smile.  "Wouldn’t want to catch any stray radiation, would I?"

 "What are you planning on doing?"  Carmichael’s voice was high, his eyes never leaving the lawyer strapped to the glass table.  "What do you want?"

 Jarod leaned against the booth casually.  "Well, I was going through all of the billing records for this clinic, and I noticed that PremiaMed was being billed for so many x-rays that their customers simply weren’t getting.  Not very nice of you, Doctor."

 "I don’t know what you’re talking about!"  The words were excited, but lack conviction.

 Cocking his head to one side, Jarod paused.  "Wrong answer, but," his voice was cheerful as he walked toward the lawyer. "Maybe we can get a better one out of Contestant Number Two."  He pulled the tape of his mouth without care.  "What do you say, Mr. Morrell?"

 "Go to hell."

  Jarod frowned.  "Maybe that hit you took did more damage than I thought."  He pushed the table back until the lawyer’s head was completely inside the maw of the CT scanner.  "Let’s find out if there’s anything serious to worry about."

 Walking back toward the booth, he flicked switches, dimming the room lights and turning on the interior lights of the scanner.  A low pulsing sound filled the room.

 "Doctor, I’m not too familiar with this model," Jarod called from behind the lead wall.

"How long do you leave it on when it’s switched to high?"

 The doctor squirmed violently.  "You idiot, we’ll all be exposed!"

 Jarod peeked out again.  "Oh, don’t worry, you’ll all get your turn."  He disappeared again and a loud buzzing sound filled the room.  Solomon squeezed his eyes shut as if to ward off the rays, Carmichael writhed in his chair and Morrell screamed.  The sound continued, longer and longer, then suddenly ceased.

Once again, Jarod came out from behind the booth and walked toward the CT scanner and the whimpering Morrell.  He tugged on the straps holding down the man’s arms, then leaned over him, closer to his face.  "Ready to talk yet?"

 "You’re insane!" the lawyer screamed.  "You’re going to cook my brain."

 Jarod frowned and shook his head.  "The way I see it, PremiaMed and all of its customers have paid for hundreds of x-rays that no one got.  I’m just giving them what the paid for.  Unless, of course, you’d like to tell me something."  He glanced over at the other two men, both of them wide-eyed in horror and fear.  "Anyone?"  Jarod asked, but was answered with silence.  "Oh well," he sighed, walking back to the booth.  Once again the buzzing sound filled the air.

 "What do you want?  I’ll tell you anything!"  The words coming from inside the scanner could barely be heard above the noise.

 When the buzzing had died down again, Jarod once again returned to the side of the glass table.  "You were saying something?"

 Morrell sounded close to tears.  "I found the records, I knew that they were fraudulent, but Carmichael made me swear that I wouldn’t tell any one, for my sister’s sake.  It was Carmichael, he was behind it all."

 "You son of a bitch."  The doctor tried to launch himself from the chair, momentarily forgetting that he was attached to it.  He fell back with a lurch.  "You lying son of a bitch.  This was your idea, yours and Solomon’s, I just went along for the ride."

 "Now, Raymond,"  The VP’s voice was as soothing as possible, given the conditions.

"Geoff and I have done all that we could to cover for you, but this young man has figured it out."  He turned toward Jarod as the doctor stared at him, dumbfounded.

"I’m sure my brother-in-law has the funds to make it worth your while to forget this whole matter.  Come now, name your price, let’s negotiate like reasonable people."

 Carmichael stared at the man, his mouth open, then switched his gaze to the lawyer on the table and back again.  "You, too?  What do you mean, ‘cover for me,’ we’ve been in this together from the beginning.  Are you trying to make me out to be some kind of patsy?"

 "Ray, really, your scheme has gone on long enough.  You’ve gotten yourself caught, now it’s time to pay the piper."

 "Pay the piper be damned!  I’m not going to sit here and let myself be covered in radiation, and I sure as hell am not going to pay this guy off so the two of you can walk away from this scot-free."  He glared up at Jarod.  "Go ahead, call the police.  He’s right; this has gone on long enough.  I admit I was part of the plan, but so were these two.  Solomon came up with the idea, Morrell hired the computer geek, they were the ones to put it all together.  I’m not about to take the fall for either of them, so go ahead and call the cops."  He glared around the room, seething.  "I’d be happy to tell them a thing or two about PremiaMed’s VP and counsel."

 Jarod smiled broadly, casting his glance over his shoulder.  "Did you get all that, Misty?"

 Amanda walked out from behind the booth, grinning.  "I’ve got the audio, we can check the video in a second, but I think that this will be more than enough."

 The two men sitting in the chairs stared.  Morrell twisted in the straps, trying to see who belonged to the new voice.  "Is that what this was all about, a confession?  You fried my brain for a stupid confession?"

 "Oh, you don’t have to worry too much about that."  Jarod once again stepped behind the boot, returning with a large cardboard shoebox, a small hole cut in the top.  He pushed his index finger into the hole and the buzzing started again, this time obviously coming from the box.  "It’s amazing what a few lights, a door buzzer and an old box can do, but I don’t think that the effect will be permanent.  Besides, I know a certain neurologist who will probably be in a cell close to you for quite a few years."

****

 They stood in Amanda’s driveway while nearby, Jason and Brian attempted to push one last duffel bag into the back of the quirky little car.  She held Jarod’s hands loosely in front of her, looking up into his down turned face.  "Are you sure you don’t want to come along with us?  I owe you a toasted marshmallow."

 Jarod shook his head and smiled.  "The offer is tempting, but I need to be moving along, and you need some quality time with your boys.   I will take a rain check, however."

 "You started out my husband, then Morrell calls you my boyfriend, now you don’t even want to spend a couple days with me.  I guess this relationship is kind of going downhill, isn’t it?"  Her voice was teasing but then she grew solemn.  "Honestly, Jarod, I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me, for us.  I don’t know how I can ever repay you."

 "Just continue to be the kind of mother that you always have been to those two," he said, glancing over at the boys.  "That’s payment enough."

 Amanda reached up and hugged him tightly.  Kissing her on the cheek, he turned  to walk toward his car.  "You know, " she called after him, "if you ever stop running,
there’s a place for you here."

 He looked back.  "Flirting again, Misty?"

 Her eyes twinkled.  "Always."

 He grinned and climbed into the car, starting it, then rolling down the window. "Monday night, our favorite board?"

 A broad smile lit up the rest of her face as she watched him pull away.  "I’ll be there.
 
 

Copyright 1999 by Author