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as he ran into the bedroom. He stared, horrified, at Caitlin.
    “Mal, we can keep her, just for a little while. I'll care for her. She's done nothing wrong.”
    “You dumb twit,” he said, pushing her onto the bed. “Every cop in the city will be looking for this kid.”
    She felt herself wheezing now. The way she always did when Mal's voice got hard. She fumbled around her purse for her inhaler. It was always there. She never went anywhere without it. She'd had it just last night. Where the hell was it now?
    “I cared for her, Malcolm,” Michelle said again. “I thought you'd understand....”
    Malcolm pushed her face in front of the child. “Yeah, well understand this.... That kid is gone, tomorrow. You make it stop crying. Stick your tits in its mouth, put a fucking pillow over its head. In the morning, the baby's gone.”

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 16
    CHARLES DANKO didn't believe in taking unnecessary chances; he also resolutely believed that all soldiers were expendable, even himself. He had always preached the gospel:
    there's always another soldier.
    So he made the call from a pay phone in the Mission Dis-trict. If the call was interrupted, if the call was discovered, well, so be it.
    The phone rang several times before someone picked up at the apartment. He recognized the voice of Michelle, the wonderfully coldhearted au pair. What a performance she'd put on.
    “I'm proud of you, Michelle. Please don't say anything. Just put Malcolm on. You are a hero, though.”
    Michelle put the phone down, and Danko had to choke back a laugh at how they obeyed his orders.
    It was priceless and it said so much about the human con-dition. Hell, it might even explain Hitler at Munich. These were very smart people, most of them with graduate degrees, but they rarely questioned anything he told them.
    “Yeah. It's me.”
    He heard Malcolm's cheerless voice. This boy was brilliant, but he was truly a killer, probably a psychopath; he even scared Danko sometimes.
    “Listen to me. I don't want to stay on too long. I just wanted to give you an update - everything is working beau-tifully. It couldn't be better.”
    Danko paused for a couple of seconds. “Do it again,” he finally said.

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 17
    A MAMMOTH LOGO in the shape of an interlocking X and L stood atop the brick-and-glass building on a promontory jutting into the bay. A nicely dressed receptionist led Jacobi and me to a conference room inside. On the paneled walls, articles and magazine covers featuring Morton Lightower's glowing face ran the length of the room. One Forbes cover asked, CAN ANYONE IN SILICON VALLEY STOP THIS MAN?
    “Just what does this company do?” I asked Jacobi.
    “High-speed switches or something. They move data over the Internet. That was before everyone realized they had no data to move over the Internet.”
    The door to the conference room opened and two men stepped in. One had salt-and-pepper hair and a ruddy com-plexion, a well-cut suit. Lawyer. The other, heavy and bald-ing, with an open plaid shirt. Tech.
    “Chuck Zinn,” the suit introduced himself, offering a card to Jacobi. “I'm X/L's CLO. You're Lieutenant Boxer?”
    “I'm Lieutenant Boxer.” I stared at the card and sniffed. “What's a CLO?”
    “Chief legal officer.” He bowed apologetically. "This is Gerry Cates, who helped found the company with Mort.
    “Needless to say, we're horrified around here.” The two men took seats, as we did, around the conference table. “Most of us have known Mort since the beginning. Gerry went to Berkeley with him. I want to start by promising the full coop-eration of the company.”
    “Are there any leads?” Cates inquired. “We've heard Caitlin is missing.”
    “We're doing everything we can to follow up on the baby. We were told the family had an au pair - who's missing. Any help you could give in finding her?”
    “Maybe Helene could help you out. Mort's secretary.” Cates