She gripped her sleepy daughter with fingers that promised never to let
go again. Amy had no way of knowing how close she had come to losing
her mother this night. If the blade had veered one inch the other way?
If Sidney’s mother had recognized her daughter a second too late? But
the little girl would never know that. Sidney Archer certainly did,
however, and it made her squeeze her daughter to her breast as tightly
as she possibly could the car and planted a bear hug around his
daughter. The big man was shaking severely too after this latest
nightmare. His wife joined them and they stood in a small circle,
clutching each other tightly, each of them silent. Though the snow soon
covered their clothes, they didn’t budge; they were just holding on.
The man had managed to free his vehicle and then ran over to the
Pattersons’ house, where it was still quiet. A minute later the house
was quiet no more as the sideboard was slowly raised off the floor and
then violently hurled away with another crash and splintering of wood.
Scales painfully stood up with the aid of his colleague. The look on
his battered face made it abundantly clear that it was indeed fortunate
for her that Sidney Archer was not presently within his deadly reach. As
he went back to retrieve his knife he noticed the piece of paper Sidney
had dropped–Jason’s e-mail message. Scales picked it up, studying it
momentarily. In another five minutes he and his associate had made
their way to the damaged car. Scales picked up his cellular phone and
punched in a speed-dial number. It was time to bring in reinforcements.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
At two-thirty in the morning, a highly agitated Lee Sawyer drove to the
office through a snowstorm that threatened to hit blizzard status by
that afternoon. The whole East Coast was being assaulted by a major
winter storm system that threatened to hang around until Christmas.
Sawyer went directly to the conference room, where he spent the next
five hours going over every aspect of the case, from the files, his
notes and memory. His main goal was assembling the case as he now
understood it into some semblance of logic. The problem was that not
much made sense, chiefly because he was not certain whether he was
confronted with one case or two: Lieberman and Archer together, or
Lieberman and Archer separately. That’s really what it boiled down to.
He jotted down some new angles that occurred to him, but none of them
seemed all that promising. Then he picked up the phone and dialed the
lab asking for Liz Martin, the technician who had performed the
Luma-lite exam on the limousine.
“Liz, I owe you an apology. I’ve been letting this case get to me a
little bit and I took it out on you. I was out of line and I’m sorry.”
Liz smiled. “Apology accepted. We’re all under pressure. What’s up?”
“I need your resident computer expert skills. What do you know about
computer tape backup systems?”
“Funny you should ask. My boyfriend’s a trial lawyer and he was just
telling me the other day it’s the hottest topic in the legal sector
right now.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, tape backups are potentially discoverable in litigation. For
example, an employee writes an interoffice memo or e-mail that contains
damaging information about the company. The employee later erases the
e-mail and destroys all hard copies of the memo. You’d think it was
gone for good, right? Nope, because with tape backup, the system might
well have saved it before it was erased. And under the rules of
discovery, they may have to turn it over to the other side.
My boyfriend’s firm advises clients that with documents created via
computer, if you don’t want someone else to ever read it, then don’t
create it.”
“Hmmm.” Sawyer thumbed through the papers in front of him.
“Good thing I still opt for invisible ink.”
“You’re a relic, Lee, but at least you’re a nice relic.”
“Okay, Professor Liz, I’ve got another one for you.” Sawyer read her the
password.
“That’s a pretty good password, isn’t it, Liz?”