Sasha McCandless 02 - Inadvertent Disclosure

by Melissa F. Miller

  Connelly stood at the kitchen island, plating the chicken and peanut noodles. He’d set the walnut dining room table he'd convinced her to pick up at an estate sale so they didn’t have to eat his lovingly prepared meals at the kitchen island. Two balloon glasses of red wine shone, reflecting the light from the candles that sat in the center of the table.

  "Better set another place," she said by way of greeting. "We've got company."

  "So I see," he answered, wiping his hands on the dish towel he'd tucked into his waistband. He came around to the small foyer and extended a hand, "Special Agent Leo Connelly, Department of Homeland Security."

  Hardly a social greeting, but, in his defense, he was addressing a disheveled wildman who was manhandling his girlfriend.

  Agent Stock eyed him coolly. Then he nodded and dropped Sasha's hand and shook Connelly's.

  "Agent Jared Stock. I'm with the Bureau. Domestic Counterterrorism."

  Connelly shot Sasha a look.

  "Also known as Jay," she explained.

  Connelly half-nodded with a knowing expression. "Let me guess. You're on the frontline of the nation's fight against ecoterrorists, specifically PORE.”

  "Correct. My assignment is—or was—to monitor their actions, particularly any planned violent protests or criminal activities they may engage in to raise money for their cause. As I explained to Ms. McCandless, the Springport sheriff's idiotic theory that I killed that judge poses some serious problems for my continued ability to perform undercover work and for a nationwide investigation into radical environmental groups."

  Connelly bobbed his head in understanding.

  Sasha narrowed her eyes and looked hard at Connelly. "Why don't you seem surprised by this development?"

  “The reason I went to my office was to run down a hunch,” he told her. “I thought ‘Jay’ might be a plant, but I was thinking Big Sky had placed him in PORE to stir up trouble. A source at the EPA CID told me that wasn’t Big Sky’s style. It occurred to me, though, that it is our style. So, I did a little checking. All the information I tried to access about PORE was locked down—DNTK—demonstrate need to know. Even when I called in a personal favor, I hit a brick wall. That smelled like someone had an undercover agent in place or, more likely, several undercover agents spread out throughout a network.”

  Stock frowned. “And what precisely is your need to know, Special Agent Connelly?”

  Connelly reddened.

  Before he could open his mouth and get himself in trouble, Sasha jumped in.

  “I reached out to Special Agent Connelly as part of my now-defunct investigation,” she lied.

  Stock raised a brow. “You thought the Federal Air Marshal Service would be the appropriate agency to help you track down an ecoterrorist?”

  He looked meaningfully at the table set for two to let her know he wasn’t buying what she was selling.

  She continued to spin her tale. “I thought perhaps he—you—had fled the jurisdiction and might be traveling by plane. As you may have surmised, Special Agent Connelly and I have a personal relationship. So, I asked him to put Jay Last Name Unknown on the TSA’s watch list.”

  Stock just stared at her.

  “But, I’m sure we broke some regulation. Why don’t you report it? Make sure you mention that you ambushed and handcuffed an officer of the court at gunpoint in that report.”

  He moved on.

  “So where are we now?” he asked.

  “Where we are now,” Connelly said, having made a full recovery from his earlier tongue-tied state, “is eating dinner. Pull up a chair.”

  Over mouthfuls of chicken and peanut noodles, washed down by a robust merlot for Sasha and Connelly and tap water for Stock, the three dissected Stickley’s story about the keys and his convenient discovery of the tapes and notes in Stock’s bag.

  Sasha was forthcoming about the fact that she thought Russell was clean but couldn’t be sure. She left out her conviction that Gloria was hiding something, and Connelly didn’t mention it.

  Stock wiped his mouth with his napkin and pushed back his chair. “Good eats. Thanks.”

  He looked from Sasha to Connelly and his prickishness fell away, replaced by anxiety. “Look, I’m up for a promotion. I can’t get tagged with a blown cover. Not now. I really need your help. I’ll do what I can to get you information on the QT. Okay?”

  “Of course,” Connelly said immediately, as Sasha knew he would.

  His ready agreement annoyed her, as she also knew it would.

  “Let’s start with this information,” she said. “I know Connelly’s contact said Big Sky was clean, but I’ve heard the oil and gas companies have to play ball with the county commissioners if they want to get the gas out of Clear Brook County. Can you pull background information on the commissioners? Start with Heather Price.”

  Stock furrowed his brow, “I have, of course. The Wilson family has had a hard time recovering from the scandal back in the 70s, but, by all accounts, Ms. Price has made good.”

  She furrowed her brow right back at him. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

  For all his pokes at Stickley’s intellect, Stock wasn’t exactly coming off as a genius.

  “Price is the daughter of Clyde Wilson, local businessman turned pauper.”

  “Wait. Heather Price is Wilson’s daughter?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Shelly Spangler, the town doctor, is her sister?”

  “Again, affirmative.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Rails to Trails Mile Marker 14

  Cold Brook County, Pennsylvania

  Tuesday evening

  Shelly checked her watch. Eight p.m. on the dot. She stood by her car at the trailhead and waited for Heather. Her sister was always late. As if Shelly’s tight schedule meant nothing.

  Shelly rubbed her hands together. It was too dark and too cold for a walk on the trail, but Heather refused to move their weekly power walks to a mall or the Y. She had always been an outdoorsy person, her younger sister’s comfort be damned.

  Stop it, Shelly told herself.

  Heather was the only family she had left. Their relationship, for all its faults, was her tie to her childhood. She sometimes wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to loosen that tie completely and let her youth, with all its sorrow and suffering, float off into the sky, far away.

  But, in the end, she couldn’t. She did love Heather. And she valued where she came from. She couldn’t dismiss how she’d grown up, despite the pain.

  High beams swept the parking lot as Heather sped in, bumping over the uneven ground, and came to a stop across two spots.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said in a not-at-all sorry voice, as she hopped out of her truck.

  She fell into step beside Shelly, and they walked onto the dark and empty trail.

  Shelly was glad for the tall lights that Heather and her fellow commissioners had voted to install every one hundred feet on the trail. She just wished they had been spaced a little closer.

  “How’s everything?” she asked, as they quickened their pace.

  Their goal was to cover three miles in under thirty minutes. The Wilson girls always achieved their goals.

  “Good,” Heather huffed, her arms pumping like pistons. “Business is good. I’m going to need to expand the fleet if the drilling keeps up like it’s been.”

  “That’s great,” Shelly said and meant it.

  She had no ownership stake in the trucking company, but under their arrangement, they each got a cut of all the money that flowed, directly or indirectly, from the fracking leases. That meant Shelly got a percentage of the take from the trucking contracts with the oil and gas companies, just as Heather got a percentage of the mineral leases Shelly signed. They carried their own expenses, so it didn’t matter to Shelly if Heather had to invest in more trucks, just like Heather didn’t care about all the hours Shelly spent filling out those blasted annual reports to the Orphans’ Court on all the properties. The o
nly expense they shared, and it galled Shelly to do it, was the cost of keeping Stickley cooperative. At least Heather footed the bill for Bob Griggs.

  “It is, and it isn’t,” Heather said now. “These oil companies need to slow down and start listening to public opinion somewhat. It wouldn’t take much. Sponsor the wellness fair. Or donate some books to the library. But, if they keep coming across as money-hungry outsiders, the tide is really going to turn.”

  That would be bad, especially now, because their newest venture was heavily dependent on fracking being around for the long term.

  Shelly felt her chest squeeze and reassured herself. Heather wouldn’t let that happen. Not out of any sisterly love, but out of her own self-interest.

  They reached the 1.5 mile marker and turned around. Shelly checked her watch. It was just a quarter after eight. They were ahead of pace. And she figured she had at least twenty minutes before the call came summoning her to the hospital. The timing was perfect.

  “You’re still planning to come to the grand opening, right?” Heather interrupted her calculations.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” she said. Although Café on the Square was Heather’s project, she’d already promised Shelly a cut of all the catering contracts she could manage to force down the oil companies’ throats.

  “Good. Wear something festive. The way some people are carrying on, you’d think we killed Bob instead of buying him out.”

  No, Shelly thought, you’d only kill him if you couldn’t buy him out.

  CHAPTER 31

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  Tuesday, 9:10 p.m.

  After Stock left, with a promise to dig further into the personal lives and business dealings of Heather Price and Shelly Spangler, Sasha and Connelly cleared the table. She rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher while he used the other side of the double sink to wash the cooking gadgets and array of pots and pans he seemed to need to create any meal, even one that came from the slow cooker. Not that she was complaining. The end result was fabulous.

  She ran a dish under the water, her mind on the water in Clear Brook County and the Wilson sisters.

  “You okay?” Connelly asked.

  “Yeah, just thinking.” She turned the faucet, stopping the flow of water, and slid the plate into the dishwasher. “All done. You want me to dry?”

  “No, I’m about finished, too. Grab your wine and relax. You can keep me company.”

  No need to ask her twice. She dried her hands and reached for her glass on the gleaming countertop. Gloria’s recipe box caught her eye.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Gloria sent some recipes home with me. I assume you wanted them?”

  He looked at her, puzzled. “I didn’t ask her for any. Her food was good, though. I’ll check them out.”

  He placed the last pot on the drying rack and wiped his hands on a towel. Then, he reached across her for the recipe box and looked inside.

  “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “Look.” He held the box out to her.

  She put down her glass and took the little cardboard box. Contrary to its name, it held no recipes. Just one mini-cassette tape marked “2.”

  She ran to her desk and fumbled in the top drawer, pushing paper clips and highlighters aside until she found her old handheld recorder. She hadn’t used it since college. No chance the batteries would still be good.

  Where was the charger? She shoved a box of envelopes to the side and rifled through the next drawer down.

  “Slow down,” Connelly told her. “It’s not going anywhere.”

  He was right, but she ignored him. Her heart was racing and her hands were shaking. This could be it. The key.

  “I can’t find the charger.” She could hear panic in her own voice and forced herself to speak more calmly. “We’re going to need to get batteries.”

  “Okay, the 7-11’s open. It’s a nice night. We can walk.”

  His deliberate calm was rubbing off on her. She felt her anxiety level falling.

  “Sure.”

  They were putting on their jackets when Sasha’s phone rang. It was Marty Braeburn, apologizing all over himself for calling so late.

  “It’s not a problem,” Sasha assured him, the phone jammed between her ear and her shoulder as she zippered her fleece jacket to her chin. Spring might come in March, but April in Pittsburgh still carried a chill.

  “I thought you’d want to know, Jed Craybill has been admitted to Clear Brook General. He’s incoherent and dehydrated. There’s no next of kin and his health care power of attorney names his late wife. The county’s going to step in. Dr. Spangler’s here. I assume you have no objection to her making his medical decisions?”

  The air went out of Sasha’s diaphragm, like she’d been gut punched.

  Jed had been fine—better than fine—just one day earlier. How could he have gotten into such bad shape so fast?

  “Thanks for calling, Marty. Mr. Craybill has a new physician. Dr. Alvin Kayser, a geriatric specialist here in Pittsburgh. Dr. Kayser and I are on our way. The county is not authorized to act on Mr. Craybill’s behalf, absent a verifiable medical emergency, in which case, I expect an ER doc to call my cell phone first. Are we clear?”

  She grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled Dr. Kayser’s telephone number on it from memory then shoved it into Connelly’s hands. He could get through to the doctor’s answering service and have him on the line by the time she was off the phone with Braeburn.

  Connelly nodded; he understood what she wanted him to do. He pulled out his phone and walked over to the window to make the call.

  On the other end of Sasha’s phone, Braeburn huffed. “A specialist from Pittsburgh? This is beyond the pale. I called you as a courtesy—”

  She cut him off. “A courtesy that I greatly appreciate. Now, I’m returning the favor, and letting you know I will raise holy hell if anyone up there takes steps beyond keeping my client alive until his doctor arrives.”

  “This specialist doesn’t even have privileges up here, I imagine. This is absurd!” He was sputtering.

  “Are you telling me the county hospital isn’t going to grant my patient’s personal physician the right to evaluate him and have him moved to another facility?”

  “Of course not. I just . . . Okay. Please get here quickly, though. I don’t know how much time he has.” Braeburn’s voice softened and took on a sad note.

  “We’ll be there as fast as we can. Thanks again for the call.”

  “You’re welcome. You should know I plan to make some calls and see if Judge Paulson’s replacement has been named yet. I’ll be requesting an emergency hearing.”

  “That’s fine, Marty.”

  She ended the call and joined Connelly by the window.

  “We’ll pick you up, sir.” He jotted an address on the sheet of paper Sasha had given him and hung up.

  “He’s getting dressed. Grab your stuff and let’s go.”

  He slid the phone into his pocket and hurried to the bedroom, where he kept a change of clothes and some toiletries.

  “Are you sure you can come back up there? I can handle it myself. I know you have a job of your own.” A job he seemed intent on jeopardizing for her.

  He took her by the shoulders. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on up there, but I know you aren’t walking into it alone.”

  She smiled up at him. “Let’s go, then.”

  They flew around the loft, throwing clothes and papers into bags. Sasha strapped on her backpack. Connelly carried their overnight bags. On his way out the door, he reached over the counter and grabbed the tape recorder and Judge Paulson’s tape.

  CHAPTER 32

  Clear Brook County General Hospital

  Wednesday morning, 12:30 a.m.

  Thirty minutes past midnight, Sasha, Connelly, and Dr. Kayser pulled in to the dark parking lot of Clear Brook County General Hospital. They’d made the four-hour drive in a little better than three and a half hours, thanks to Connelly.
Sasha had spent much of the tense drive with her eyes squeezed shut, as Connelly weaved around drivers who dared to follow the posted speed limits.

  The three stretched their legs and backs in the cold night air of the lot and then stepped into the blindingly bright lobby. The wide glass doors closed behind them with a soft pneumatic whine.

  Sasha blinked and took in the reception area. It was quiet, clean, and, as apparently was mandated by some regulation, just as relentlessly beige as every other hospital lobby she’d ever seen. Behind a high, faux-wood counter, a woman wearing green scrubs with an alternating teddy bear and heart pattern spoke in urgent, hushed tones into a hands-free telephone headset clipped to her ear.

  Sasha pitched her empty coffee cup into the recycling receptacle just inside the door and made a beeline for the desk, with Connelly and Dr. Kayser trailing behind her.

  It’s all in the presentation, she told herself. She worked up some moisture in her dry mouth and wet her lips before she spoke.

  “Excuse me.” She was glad to hear her words come out with some authority rather than as a squeak.

  The nurse or whatever she was sighed and looked up. She gave Sasha the “wait a minute” signal with her index finger and threw in a side of stink eye for good measure.

  “Don’t get the frozen shrimp,” she said into her tiny mouthpiece, “get the peeled and deveined stuff behind the counter—it’s on special. Make sure you use my bonus shopper card.”

  She imparted these instructions with an urgency that would have been impressive if it had related to a patient but that seemed disproportionate to a shellfish sale. She flipped through her Shopping Kart ad, making no move to wrap up her personal business.

  Great.

  Sasha squared her shoulders, stretched up on her tiptoes, and reached over the counter to depress the button and end the woman’s call.

  The woman’s head snapped back, and her dangly earrings swung wildly.