Page 39 of Too Old for Love

“I burned it.”

“Good.”

“No, Michael. Not good. I could smell the toner while it burned. Whoever sent it had printed it less than an hour before delivery.” Michael lowered his voice.

“You need to shut everything down.”

“If I shut it down abruptly, every hospital sees the missing traffic. Every claim we rerouted becomes a trail.”

“Then erase the trail.”

“With what? Abigail wrote the masking routines. Samantha controlled the shell accounts. They’re corpses, Michael.” His eyes hardened.

“Use Everest.” Alice stared at him.

“Everest Marshall hates me.”

“She hates Med-Tech. She doesn’t know Med-Tech is you.”

“She suspected enough to give up easily when fired or at least leave peacefully when she was fired.”

“Then give her a reason to come back.”

“You mean lie to her.”

“I mean survive.”

A guard tapped Michael’s shoulder. His time was over. As he stood, he fixed Alice with the look he had used in boardrooms when a decision had already been made.

“There’s a backup mode under the old claims server,” he said. “Ask Everest to rebuild the audit layer. Tell her it’s for a compliance review.”

“And if she finds what’s underneath?”

“Make sure she doesn’t.” Michael walked away without touching her again. At the far wall, another inmate waited to enter. Sean Quinn smiled as though he had been listening.

Sean had aged elegantly in prison. His silver hair was combed back, his posture straight, his eyes amused.

“Your husband was always too blunt,” he said after they sat.

“And you were always too pleased with yourself.”

“Confidence is a courtesy. Panic makes everyone uncomfortable.”

“Abigail and Samantha are dead.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“At my age, death is rarely surprising. Timing, however, can be interesting.” Alice leaned closer.

“Did you order it?” Sean laughed once, softly.

“If I had ordered it, dear Alice, there would be no photograph.”

“Someone knows,” she said.

“Someone always knows. The useful question is how much.”