The Lazarus Trap by Davis Bunn Page B

The thunderheads rolled and boomed their way down, ready to devour the higher buildings.
    Val entered the diner and took a booth from which he watched the first drops strike the glass by his side, big as bullets. They dimpled the glass and chased the pedestrians to an even faster pace. Further memories rained down, a jagged-edged deluge. Val could no more halt the torrent than he could the thunderstorm outdoors. He ordered the first thing that caught his eye on the menu and remembered how, four months earlier, he had caught one of his most trusted employees with her hand in the honey jar.
    Marjorie Copeland was a single mom, abandoned by her former husband soon after she had given birth to a severely handicapped boy. The child was now ten. The day nurse cost almost half her salary. Marjorie clung to her job with desperate fervor because she needed the medical. Since his divorce, the two of them had shared a silent bond over life’s raw injustice. That morning four months back, Marjorie had looked more rumpled and exhausted than usual. Val laid out what he had discovered, hoping against hope she could show how he had gotten everything wrong.
    Instead, Marjorie had shut and locked his door, drawn the blinds over his inside window, and asked him to cancel his appointments and hold all calls. Then she laid it out for him. How someone had been dipping into the company’s pension fund. Gradually siphoning off the employees’ retirement money into a series of false accounts and dummy investments.
    Soon as the shock had eased, Val had supplied the name behind the scheme. “Terrance d’Arcy. He did this.”
    Marjorie had nodded slowly. “You’re probably right.”
    â€œNo probably about it. I can smell his hand all over this.” The certainty opened like a poisonous bloom. “I have to stop him.”
    â€œIf you go public,” Marjorie said, “I’ll kill myself.”
    â€œDon’t talk insane.”
    â€œTake that pension away from me, and I have nothing to live for.” She had the fathomless gaze of one already dead. “I’ve checked carefully. The money is gone, Val. And there’s nothing definite to pin it on anyone.”
    â€œThat’s still no reason to talk about suicide.”
    â€œIsn’t it? I have got to keep my pension. Otherwise my boy is going to be imprisoned in some concrete cage for the rest of his life.” Her eyes were so drained of hope their color was a lie in physical form. “I want to take what’s mine. That’s all. Not one cent more. Just let me get out and then you can do whatever you please.”
    â€œI can’t believe you’re planning to steal from our company.”
    â€œIt’s not stealing and it’s not my company.” Emotional exhaustion had pounded her voice to a toneless drone. “They owe me.”
    â€œHow much are we talking about?”
    â€œI’ve worked this out. If I live to the median age, my pension payment would be a million three. Down in Costa Rica that would take my son through a long, full life.”
    Then she waited. Not saying it. Just letting him taste the unspoken for himself.
    Val tried to push the thought away. “I’ll find a way to pin it on them.”
    â€œI don’t think so. I’m good at my job. You know that. I’ve checked. All we’ve got is a drained pension fund and false trails that lead nowhere. So you get some minor evidence, so what? There will be a lot of suspicion and maybe some talk. They’ll have four hundred million and change to hire the best lawyers. Sooner or later they’ll skate.” She let him mull that over, then added, “There is another alternative.”
    He glanced at his watch. Twenty-three minutes past nine on a Tuesday morning. Marking the time when he went from dedicated employee to criminal. “I’m listening.”
    â€œYou caught me because I can’t do this cleanly on my