Imminent Peril (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller Book 10)

by Melissa F. Miller

  “Don’t know her. Do you?”

  “Nope. But our hearing’s tomorrow at one thirty. So I guess we’ll get to know her together.”

  “Great. Thanks for taking ownership of getting it done. Can you come to Will's office with me for minute? I need to tell you both something.”

  Naya threw her a questioning look but said, “Sure.”

  They headed toward the end of the hall. Sasha paused at Caroline's workstation. “Is he in there?” Sasha asked.

  “Yes.” Caroline answered without looking up from her typing. “Go ahead in. I don’t mean to be rude; I’m just trying to catch up. He had me working on his inserts to your brief all day.”

  Sasha smiled to herself. Will may have joined the twenty-first century by doing his own legal research, but it sounded like he was still dictating his briefs.

  She peeked through his open door. “Can Naya and I come in for a second?”

  He waved them in. “Of course. Do we have a brief on file?”

  “We certainly do. It’s been assigned to Judge Zarelli for a hearing tomorrow,” Naya said.

  “Good draw. She’s very fair—and laidback, for a federal judge. What time?”

  “One-thirty.”

  He nodded and steepled his fingers in thought. “We should all call it a night early and get some rest. Sleep is as important as any other preparation.”

  Sasha nodded. There was a time when she’d have laughed off that advice and pulled an all-nighter. But that time was many briefs ago.

  “Agreed,” she said. “But first, I need to talk to both of you. I have an update on Prachi Agarwal.”

  Will looked over the top of his reading glasses. “Oh?”

  “Connelly is with the Pittsburgh police. They went to interview a man who they thought might know something about her disappearance.” There was no good way to say the next part, so she just said it. “She's dead. She was killed.”

  Naya gave her a careful look. “Does that mean they've got the guy who did it?”

  “No, afraid not. They got the guy who disposed of her body. He claims he was hired by someone who calls himself the Knitter. He fixes corporate problems.”

  “You mean corporate problems like not being able to deliver a database on the agreed date?” Naya asked, pulling a face.

  “Probably that kind of corporate problem,” Sasha agreed.

  “And one way a person might propose fixing such a problem could be to set up the other party’s attorney on a criminal charge to divert everyone’s attention from the deadline,” Will posited.

  “It’s not outside the realm of possibility. And, when that failed, Prescott threatened to sue me civilly.”

  Naya said what they were all thinking. “So, they tried to silence Prachi Agarwal and failed—now she’s dead. They’ve tried to silence you and failed …”

  A long silence followed.

  “Right,” Sasha said in a resolute tone. “Let’s not panic. The police are on it. They’re going to go interview Steve Harold to see if he can give them anything on this Knitter person.” She handed Naya the paper on which she’d written the fax number. “They’d like you to send them the picture of Kevin Marcus and his fraternity brothers.”

  Will jerked his head. “Surely you don't think Kevin’s wrapped up in this? Granted, taking on the representation was in poor judgment, but …”

  Sasha chose her words with care. “I think he probably represented Steve Harold as a favor for a fraternity brother, and that’s the extent of his involvement. But maybe that fraternity brother is connected to the Knitter. There've been too many coincidences.”

  He sighed. “I suppose that’s true.”

  She went on, “The police officer who’s working with Connelly put in a request for a squad car to park in front of the office. But we should probably all be a little extra careful until they find this guy.” She didn’t want to scare them, but she did want them to be vigilant.

  Naya nodded, wide-eyed. “Let me go send this picture to Leo so the cops can get this guy off the street.” Naya folded the sheet of paper into fourths and left.

  Sasha trudged back to her office to highlight the statutory provisions she wanted to commit to memory before the hearing. She’d have a copy of the full statute with her, and the motion and brief cited the relevant portions, but judges were human beings. And human beings tended to trust people who sounded like they knew what they were talking about. Being conversant—or even better, fluent—with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act was the first step in convincing Judge Zarelli that she was right about the need for an injunction. Once they had an injunction, Naya could start the not-so-fun process of blowing up the deal.

  She stared dully down at the words, wishing she had time to take a walk and recharge her brain. She checked the time. No walk. She had to wrap this up before it was time to leave for her anger management class. She couldn’t afford to take a breather. She plunged back into her reading.

  She was so intent that, when Will rapped on the frame of her open door ninety minutes later, the noise startled her. She jerked her head toward the doorway. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.”

  “You didn’t. I was just concentrating,” she reassured him as she capped her pen. “Do you need something?”

  “I’m getting ready to leave for the day. Naya and I thought we’d walk out together. Are you going home soon? We’ve had a long couple days. You should get some rest. Besides, you shouldn’t be here alone.”

  “I’ll be leaving in a bit. I’m going straight to anger management.”

  He frowned at her answer. “I don’t think—”

  “Will, I’ll be fine. Honestly.”

  He held her gaze for a long moment. Then he exhaled. “Of course. And I know you’re well equipped to protect yourself. But, given your current situation … well, here.” He crossed the room to hand her a printout of a case.

  “Is this for the argument?”

  “No. It may be relevant to your personal situation.”

  She tilted her head and gave him a puzzled look.

  “Read it,” he urged her.

  “Um, sure. I’ll review it tonight. Thanks” She slipped it into the outside pocket of her bag.

  “Get some rest,” he reminded her.

  “Have a good night,” she answered absently, her mind already back on her argument.

  34

  The crisis management consultant was standing under the awning of a shuttered corner market across the street from the probation center office when he saw Sasha McCandless-Connelly striding purposefully toward the building. She walked like a woman who wanted to communicate she wasn't easily intimidated and had places to be.

  He lowered his head but followed her into the building with his eyes. As she disappeared inside, his cell phone rang. It was Charles Merriman.

  “Yes,” he answered in a clipped tone.

  “The sale may be blowing up. Sasha McCandless-Connelly just filed papers in federal court asking a judge to prevent us from shipping our products out this week. She claims it could cause irreversible harm to the public, as well as financial harm to her client, if our shipment goes out.” Merriman's voice shook with rage or worry or panic.

  Probably a combination of all three, the consultant decided.

  “That's troubling,” he empathized in an effort to calm the client while he came up with a solution.

  “I thought she was out on leave.”

  “Evidently, she decided to cut it short. Given—”

  “Evidently,” Merriman snapped.

  “Don't interrupt.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “As I was saying, given that our efforts to neutralize her haven’t had any lasting success, I recommend a more permanent solution.”

  “Permanent? No, no, that’s not necessary. We’ve reached out to Ned and his team at Recreation Group. We’re going to meet with them at their offices tomorrow morning to try to work out a business resolution that obviat
es the need for a hearing in federal court. It’s a long shot, but maybe we can even salvage the deal,” Merriman stammered.

  Business people, the consultant thought in disgust. “None of the measures we’ve taken have stopped her from interfering with your deal. She’s a human cockroach—an arrest didn’t stop her; being on probation hasn’t stopped her; the threat of civil litigation and the loss of her livelihood hasn’t stopped her. You may want to have her eliminated.”

  “Have her eliminated?” Merriman echoed, scrambling to create a meaning for the word other than its plain meaning.

  “Correct, eliminated.” He didn't have time to dance around while his client feigned struggling with a moral quandary.

  “If you're suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, absolutely not.”

  “It’s your decision, of course. I'll just note that a dead lawyer can't make any arguments—winning or losing.”

  “And then what? She’s just one lawyer. Recreation Group will hire another one. Are you going to kill them all?” Merriman sounded disgusted.

  The consultant stifled a laugh. Here was a man who was willing to falsify or circumvent federally required test results to ship an unsafe children’s product to the market; a man who was comfortable with trumping up an employment infraction to intimidate a would-be whistleblower into silence or risk the loss of her visa; and, it must be said, a man who had hired him to make his problems go away however he saw fit, so long as the company and its leadership didn’t have to get their hands dirty. This particular moral high ground was built of quicksand.

  Now and then, in his line of work, the consultant had to gently coax his clients to the correct conclusion, gradually over time. But time was a luxury they didn’t have in this particular instance.

  “It's your company. And it's your problem,” he said bluntly. “I have no doubt that my proposed solution will silence her. If you decide to implement it, you know how to reach me. If not, good luck tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t call to ask you to … you know. I called to see if you had any idea how Sasha McCandless-Connelly could have learned that there’s a problem with our product. Prachi Agarwal’s the only one who knew.” Merriman’s tone was accusatory.

  A dark, seething anger took hold of the consultant. That’s how the two women were connected. They’d met at their anger management class, and somehow the lawyer had pried the information out of the scientist. He punched his fist into his thigh.

  “I have some idea,” he answered through clenched teeth, staring hard at the door to the probation office.

  “Well, if you’ve been sloppy, it’s cost us quite a lot,” Merriman shot back. “I expect a refund.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. If Prachi Agarwal confided in Sasha McCandless-Connelly, it wasn’t as a result of my work. I don’t have time for this nonsense. Goodbye, Charles.”

  “Wait!”

  “Yes?” Perhaps Merriman had worked through his moral dilemma after all.

  “Dr. Agarwal—she wasn’t eliminated, was she?”

  The consultant didn’t respond. He ended the call and leaned back into the shadows to wait for the attorney.

  The sun was low in the sky but hadn’t yet set when Sasha walked out of the community probation office with Lani. She waved goodbye to the girl, who sulked into the passenger seat of a car that sat idling under the ‘No Parking’ sign with its blinkers flashing.

  Out of curiosity, she craned her neck to get a glimpse of Lani’s foster mother. Then she hurried to the corner and crossed the street. She walked with purpose. Outwardly, she looked like a person who was alert and aware of her environment. But, in truth, it was window dressing, illusory. Her overtired mind had been wandering all day, she was raw and rattled by the news of Prachi’s death, and she felt wrung out and overwrought after having spent an hour grappling with her emotions under the watchful eye of Karen Hogan. She needed to eat one of Connelly's home-cooked meals, listen to her children's laughter, take a long hot shower, and collapse into bed. She’d be fresh and ready to gear up for the hearing when the sun rose.

  Busy planning out her night, it took her longer than it ordinarily would've to realize someone had fallen into lockstep with her on the other side of the street. She glanced over and spotted an unassuming-looking guy in a nice suit. Probably just another urban commuter on his way home, she tried to assure herself.

  But something about the way that his measured step matched hers so precisely planted a seed of unease in her stomach. She veered sharply and ducked into Trader Joe's parking lot, just as she was about to walk past it. She glanced over. The man was on the other side of the traffic circle, and cars were flowing by.

  She darted into the grocery store and grabbed an arm basket. Although she didn't need anything in the store, putting some distance between herself and the man immediately alleviated her anxiety. She was probably being paranoid about the man, but now that she was here she might as well pick up a few things. She wandered up and down the tight aisles, tossing dark chocolate-covered pretzels and almond-stuffed olives into the basket. She ended up in the dairy aisle, so she picked up a glass quart of milk even though she didn't know whether they were running low or well supplied with Fiona’s favorite beverage. On a whim, she picked out some avocados.

  There’s a reason Connelly does the shopping, she thought, as she stood rapt, surveying the granola section. Tropical fruit and ancient grains or dark chocolate and berry? Motion at the end of the aisle interrupted her nut-and-grain-based reverie. She jerked her head away from the granola display just in time to see a white guy in an expensive suit turn the corner.

  Her anxiety came rushing back. He's not the only white guy in a suit in Shadyside, she told herself. But there was no reasoning with the pit of her stomach. She hurried to the front of the store, using the racks of fresh-baked bread to shield her from his view. She peered at him through the whole-grain rolls.

  No, that was her white guy in a suit. She recognized his gait. And now that she was getting a closer look at him, she recognized his face, too. But from where? She couldn’t think. Not with the way her heart was thudding in her chest and her pulse was thrumming in her ear.

  Keep it together. It’s still light. You’re two blocks from home.

  She raced to the express register and started piling her random assortment of food on the conveyor. She smiled tightly at the chattering cashier, peeled off two twenties, and left without waiting for her change and receipt.

  As she approached the exit, she glanced up at the convex mirror hanging above the doors. She didn’t see him behind her. You lost him, she assured herself. All the same, she shifted one bag to each hand to balance her load and half-jogged through the parking lot.

  Stupid, careless, rookie mistake.

  The consultant realized he was shaking with anger at his failure. He couldn’t believe he’d allowed her to make him. He should have stayed a pace behind her. He’d been distracted by the call from Merriman, but there was no excuse for incompetence.

  He took a breath and reframed the event. Perhaps it was good that she’d seen him. Worrying about who he was and why he was following her could knock her off balance and interfere with her ability to concentrate on the upcoming hearing.

  Marginally calmer now, he checked the map on his phone and traced her likely route. When he’d first been contacted by Playtime Toys to deal with their Sasha McCandless-Connelly problem, he’d done comprehensive research into her background, as was his usual practice. She had an unusually high public profile thanks to her propensity for getting into trouble, but finding her home address had been a challenge. Apparently after some long-lost relative had tracked them down, she and her husband had made arrangements to remove that information from the Internet. But, like anything else, it remained available—for a price.

  Despite having paid a tidy sum to acquire her home address, he hadn’t yet paid her a visit. He’d viewed the information as his ace in the hole and, frankly, assumed she’d be more vulnerable
at her office than at home.

  Given her grocery store visit, however, she was clearly headed home, not back to work. He doubted he’d have access to her once she was inside her house, but it was worth taking a look. He set off toward the McCandless-Connelly residence as darkness fell.

  When he reached her street, he circled the block and walked along a narrow, bumpily-paved alley behind her house. He didn’t stop, but slowed his pace, as he strolled by her back fence. Two tricycles in the backyard. A wooden playhouse. An iconic red wagon, its handle resting against the trunk of a leafy tree. A retriever burying a stick. The sound of music floating through an open kitchen window. He noted it all and filed it away for later.

  35

  Leo eyed the random assortment of groceries that Sasha dumped on the kitchen counter. “I didn’t know you were stopping at the store. I’d have asked you to pick up a bunch of cilantro.”

  She turned from the refrigerator, still clutching the wholly unnecessary milk she was trying to shoehorn into a spot. “Do you want me to run back out?”

  “Nah. I improvised. You have just about enough time to change before dinner if you want to get out of your work clothes.”

  “Or I could set the table,” she offered.

  “That’s what the minions are for.”

  She laughed and disappeared upstairs to change while his miniature kitchen staff rushed in to help with setting the table. He sincerely hoped that the unbreakable glass plates she’d found at some cafeteria supply store were, in fact, unbreakable. Only one way to find out, he figured.

  After dinner, which was the usual organized chaos of two new-to-utensils eaters and a dog who was smart enough to lurk under the table for falling food, they tucked the twins into bed and headed into the kitchen to clean up. It was her turn to pick the music, so he just tuned out the soundtrack to whatever musical was playing. She hummed along and sang softly as she rinsed dishes and loaded the dishwasher.