“We hear that a lot. About wanting a lawyer. This,” Nikki said, waving the gold shield, “allows us to do whatever we want. For instance, if I suddenly get the crazy urge to find out if you wear boxers or tighty-whities, this shield will let me march into your house and go through your dresser drawers. Not that I would ever want to do that, I’m just saying. Now, we want Amalie Laurent Moss’s medical records. Hit the keyboard, Doc.”

“I will do no such thing. A doctor’s records are sacred. I will tell you nothing. It goes under patient-doctor privilege. Even a court order won’t make me tell you.”

“You sure about that, Doctor?” Annie asked. “Or are you protesting because Amalie Laurent Moss’s records are not in your computer since you did not want anyone to know about those little visits out to Glenwood Drive? We can just take the whole computer with us when we leave. Oh, did I mention you will be going with us?”

Symon Mattison licked at his bottom lip. Clearly, he was agitated, and he also clearly did not know what to do. Finally, he came to some kind of decision and nodded.

“We know you like going to the White House. We know your wife likes to boast to her fellow bridge players that she gets invited there. We get all that. What we don’t get, Dr. Mattison, is why you did nothing to stop the abuse. Amalie Laurent, she doesn’t like to be called Moss these days, is prepared to testify against you. She said you did what her husband told you to do. You could lose your license; your new trophy wife, social climber that she is, will divorce you; and your children will become outcasts. That is the reality of what you are looking at. Ask yourself if your friendship with Lincoln Moss is worth the loss of all you hold dear,” Annie said.

“Has something happened to Amalie?” Mattison asked nervously. “I haven’t seen her in over five years, maybe longer.”

“Are you asking us if he killed her? That’s always been your fear, right. Still, you did nothing. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? He finally did it, that kind of thing.”

“There was always an excuse, a reason given by Amalie herself for her injuries,” Mattison whispered. “Lincoln said if I ever told anyone, he’d ruin me. I kept a separate file on Amalie.”

“To cover your own butt, right?” Nikki bellowed.

“Yes, but for Amalie as well. I knew in my heart someday that this might happen.”

“You could have reported him anonymously,” Myra said.