by Randy Singer
When she saw him, she realized that Sean had apparently spent a lot less time worrying about what he was going to wear. He met her at the door of Kincaid’s wearing khakis, a black T-shirt, and flip-flops. He flashed a big white smile, carving dimples into the chiseled face, and shook her hand.
“I’ve got a place in the last booth in the back,” he said.
The restaurant had a classic feel with a dark-mahogany bar, chandeliers, and a spacious seating area. It seemed like they had stepped into a New York City restaurant in the 1930s.
They settled into their booth, and Sean was in no hurry to get down to business. Kerri didn’t push him. She had cultivated sources before. She knew the rules—keep them talking; get them to relax; build trust. When a source calls a meeting, they want to spill the information. Don’t push them or they might get spooked.
She followed her rules all the way through lunch. The only business they discussed was when Kerri lowered her voice and thanked Sean again for letting her see the Hassan rescue. She still couldn’t believe what had actually happened. Sean brushed it off, and her hopes about getting a green light to run the story faded.
When the bill came, Sean insisted on paying, and Kerri let him. She was still playing cat and mouse, waiting for him to glance around the restaurant, make sure the coast was clear, and give her the tip he had promised. Instead, he kept asking questions, just like he had during lunch, and seemed more fascinated with her life’s story than with sharing his confidential info. Had this all been just a ruse to get her to lunch?
“Are you doing reconnaissance on me?” she asked.
Sean smiled. The dimples again. “If I were, I would have had you drinking by now.”
“Not this girl.”
“Regardless, I already know everything I need to know.”
“I doubt that.”
Sean sat back with a smug look, his head tilted a little to the side, as if he were sizing her up. “Try me,” he challenged. “Ask me a question about you.”
Kerri wasn’t sure she wanted to play this game, yet she was curious. How much did he really know?
“What sports did I play in high school?”
He laughed, as if the question were too easy. “Basketball and soccer. You ran track until your senior year.”
She forced a smile, but the answer unnerved her a little. Why did he know these things?
“What was my nickname?”
This time the great Sean Phoenix hesitated. He put an elbow on the table, resting his cheek on his fist. He waited and stared, as if he could detect the answer in her brain waves.
“They called you Petro,” he eventually said, and Kerri felt her jaw drop. “But I’m not sure if that’s because of your nonstop motor on the soccer field or because you were smokin’ hot.”
Her face flushed. Enough of that game. “Why do you have all this information on me?”
The smug grin left Sean’s face, and the intensity Kerri had seen a few weeks ago in Manassas returned. He used his napkin to wipe the table in front of him, then carefully folded it and placed it off to the side.
“We wanted to make sure we could trust you, Kerri. So we did a little checking. I’m sorry if we went too far. Our guys are pretty compulsive.”
Sean paused, a cue for Kerri to tell him it was okay. Fat chance. She wanted the story, but she didn’t like the way Cipher Inc. pried into her life.
He was quick to pick up on her mood and began laying on the charm. He and his executives had vetted at least twenty different reporters. Kerri was head and shoulders above everyone else. Her integrity. The quality of her reports. Her commitment to her sources.
“You waited for Landon for two years,” Sean said. “A lot of women would have moved on.”
“And that’s relevant because . . . ?”
“Because we believe in loyalty. You’ve seen what’s at stake with some of our operations. We need people we can trust.”
Sean’s phone rang and he pulled it out, looked at the number, and hit Ignore. Nothing was more important than this, it seemed.
He pulled out a business card and wrote a name on the back. He checked his cell phone and added a phone number.
“This man is middle management at Universal Labs,” Sean said. “He learned that his company has been bribing doctors to prescribe one of their premier drugs for an off-label use. It added about two hundred million to the bottom line last year, and he’s given us the documents to prove it.”
Sean slid the card across the table to Kerri. “He wants to remain confidential, of course.”
“Of course,” Kerri said. Don’t they all?
She thought Sean was done, but there was more. “The number two guy at the FDA knew about this,” Sean said. “Turned his head. This source has the smoking-gun e-mail.”
Kerri was trying to play it cool, but he definitely had her attention. The background checks prying into her personal life suddenly seemed like a small price to pay. Her bosses would be drooling. They would want to run this story during sweeps.
“What do you want out of this?” she asked Sean.
He pointed to his chest and feigned surprise. Moi?
“Yes, you,” said Kerri.
“Our client is a competitor of Universal Labs. He’s trying to do things the right way. We just want this stuff to be exposed, to make sure everyone is playing by the same rules.”
Kerri could live with that. Confidential sources seldom came without their agendas. Sean’s motive was to help his client by exposing an unethical competitor. As long as Kerri knew the motivation, she could weigh that in judging the reliability of the information.
They talked for a few minutes about the source. How had Sean located him? Did the source have any axes to grind? That type of thing.
She thanked Sean for lunch. She promised him that both the source and Sean’s role in being the liaison would be protected. She couldn’t make any promises about when the story would run, and Sean said he understood.
But in her mind, she was already envisioning the teaser.
They were outside the mall, in the first floor of the parking garage, before Sean dropped the real bombshell. “I’ve got a friend at the NBC affiliate in D.C.,” he said. “I’ve talked to him about you. They’ve got an opening for an investigative reporter, and he thinks you might be the perfect fit. The salary’s 50 percent more than what you’re making now.”
Was he serious? D.C. was one of Kerri’s dream markets! Sean Phoenix was making her head spin. How did he know her salary?
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“You’d have to go through the interview process. But basically, if you want the job, you’d have a great chance. My friend is the station manager.”
Kerri suspected there was more to it than that. Perhaps Sean had hinted to the station manager that Kerri would be fed juicy stories by Cipher Inc. Perhaps Sean had something on the man. There were lots of red flags, including the thought of moving her family, but they were talking about one of the Big Four network affiliates in one of the most sought-after media markets on earth.
“I would need to talk to Landon.”
“Of course. But let me know something within the next week or so. Jobs like this don’t stay open very long.”
48
AFTER THE COURT HEARING on Friday morning, Landon went home and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. He made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and stopped by a 7-Eleven on the way to the office to grab an ice cream bar for dessert.
He was feeling good about the hearing but not looking forward to an afternoon of drudgery—boxing up files the firm had closed out in the wake of Harry’s death and taking them to the firm’s storage unit. He put the earbuds in for his iPhone, fired up the firm shredder, got out the boxes and packing tape, and started working.
For two hours, lost in his thoughts, Landon waded through files, boxed them up, and labeled them for closure. He made copies of the case files he had to send to other law firms—new lawyers hired b
y clients who had originally chosen Harry, not the firm.
With each file Landon prepared to close, he asked a single question: “Is there anybody in this case who wanted to kill Harry McNaughten?” By four o’clock, he had jotted down a dozen candidates on a yellow legal pad. He didn’t send those files to storage but kept them in Harry’s office until he could show the list to Detective Freeman sometime next week.
At four, he was joined by Rachel, wearing tight shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore sunglasses propped on her head. The conservative businesswoman who had appeared in court that morning was gone, and Beach Rachel had taken her place.
“Need some help?” she asked. “Brent and Parker are gone for the afternoon, and after what you did for me in court, I feel like I owe you one.”
Landon popped out an earbud. “You don’t owe me anything, but I could use the help. What’s Janaya doing?”
Rachel started picking up files. “Brent sent her home for the day. After this morning, he’s feeling pretty generous.”
Landon explained his system and set down his iPhone while he and Rachel continued packing the files they had organized earlier that week. The conversation flowed easily—first about the court hearing, then about Maddie, and finally about Rachel’s personal life. It was, according to Rachel, “pretty much a hot mess.”
The sun was streaming through the windows of Harry’s office, illuminating trails of dust floating around the room. Landon found himself studying Rachel, fascinated by her easy self-confidence. She had the kind of carefree attitude that Landon and Kerri had lost a long time ago. None of her personal problems seemed to affect her bubbly self-image. Landon’s DNA was wired for intensity; Rachel’s for enjoyment. And right now, Landon had to admit, she was making the mundane task of boxing up old files seem surprisingly like fun.
He found another case with a potential Harry-hater and wrote it down.
“What’s that?” Rachel asked.
“I’m putting together a list. Folks who might have wanted Harry dead.”
Rachel walked over and picked up the legal pad. She studied it for a moment, and her pretty face twisted into a perplexed look. “This guy gave me the creeps,” she said, pointing, “but I think he’s serving something like twenty years.”
“Maybe he’s got contacts on the outside.”
Rachel shrugged. She nibbled at a fingernail and studied the list some more. Deep in thought, she put the list back on the desk.
She picked up her water bottle and slouched in one of Harry’s office chairs. Landon continued to stuff files into boxes.
“Do you really think somebody wanted Harry dead?” Rachel asked.
“We’ve been through this. I don’t know.”
“Have you ever thought that maybe Harry knew something he wasn’t supposed to know? That maybe somebody wanted him dead not because they were mad at Harry but because they wanted to silence him?”
It seemed like a stretch to Landon. “Not really. Most of Harry’s files weren’t that interesting. It’s not like he was working the JFK assassination.”
Rachel took another swig of water and stood up. She walked over to where Landon was organizing files and hopped up on the desk, sitting a little sideways, a few feet away. “I think you need to be careful,” she said. The carefree lilt to her voice was gone. “If it was something he knew, and you take over that file . . .”
She stopped, her point made.
“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room,” Landon quipped.
She reached out and touched his arm. It made him stop and look at her.
“I’m serious, Landon. I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”
For a few seconds, maybe longer, neither of them said a word. Maybe it was the way Rachel had said it, the twinge of desperation in her voice. Maybe it was the sudden seriousness on a lighthearted afternoon. For whatever reason, Landon just stood there.
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
The moment passed, and Rachel dropped her hand. She got down from the desk and got back to work.
“You sure you don’t want to start Strach and Reed?”
“You mean Reed and Strach?”
“If that’s what it takes.” Rachel said it while leafing through a file, not even looking at Landon. He had a hard time telling if she was serious about the idea or not.
“I’ve often felt like I wanted to just start over,” Rachel said. “My career. My personal life. Everything.”
For Landon, the idea of a new firm had some merit. Yes, much of Rachel Strach’s personal life was a disaster. But she was also smart and a hard worker. Professionally, she and Landon got along well.
But the plan had a serious flaw. There was no way Kerri would agree to it. And days like this were precisely the reason why.
“Harry brought me to this firm,” Landon said. “I’d feel like a traitor if I left it.”
“I get that,” Rachel said. “I really do.”
///
His first mistake was agreeing to stop at Starbucks for coffee. They were on their way back from the storage unit, a few blocks away from Thirty-First Street, when Rachel asked if she could buy Landon a latte to thank him for being her lawyer that morning.
“I don’t drink that stuff,” he said.
“But I do,” Rachel responded. “So you can stop anyway to thank me for helping you pack boxes all afternoon.”
He didn’t put up much of a fight, certainly not the kind of fight that hindsight would later suggest he should have. He detoured a few blocks and parked his truck in the parking garage across from the Hilton. When they got to Starbucks, there was a line nearly out the door, and Rachel suggested an alternative. They walked another block toward the ocean and ended up in the bar area of the Catch 31 restaurant, surrounded by big-screen TVs and the bustling activity of a Friday night happy hour just getting started. They commandeered a booth from which they could see the ocean on one side and the outdoor fire pits on the patio on the other. Within earshot was a small gazebo where a band was unpacking and tuning their instruments.
Rachel’s latte turned into a light beer, and she tightened her ponytail holder. Landon noticed the muscles in her arms that she had put to good use all afternoon carrying boxes. She had held her own and refused to be treated like a girl. She was, thought Landon, tougher than she looked.
They talked naturally and good-naturedly. They made fun of tourists, and Rachel went on a roll about Parker Clausen’s books. They were over-the-top and cheesy, according to Rachel. The love scenes were especially ham-handed. Clausen had asked for Rachel’s feedback once, and after reading a few of his scenes, Rachel had brought in three Nora Roberts books and suggested that Parker read them. She spent the next three days trying to avoid getting cornered by Parker so she wouldn’t have to debrief the details of Nora’s romance scenes. “I think he even went to a romance writers’ convention one year,” Rachel said.
Landon was enjoying the banter but had the good sense to cut Rachel off at one beer.
“No ride home tonight?” she asked.
“You’re a quick study,” he said.
A waitress brought the bill, and Rachel handed her a credit card. When the waitress left, Rachel’s blue eyes turned soft. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think Brent and I have a chance at making it work? I mean, how do you and Kerri do it? You guys seem so committed to each other, and the whole thing about her waiting for you while you were in jail . . . It’s just so—” Rachel seemed at a loss for the right words, unusual for her—“so romantic. It’s a little like a twenty-first-century fairy tale.”
Landon had been getting restless. He was feeling guilty for being there, in a bar with a beautiful woman, much longer than he had planned. He loved being around Rachel because they were good friends and the conversation was easy. Still, there were boundaries he had promised he wouldn’t cross. Yet the q
uestion gave him an opening to talk with Rachel about Brent.
“I like Brent,” Landon said. “He’s a good lawyer and I respect him.” He hesitated. Comments like this next one had a way of backfiring. “But I think you can do better. A lot better.”
Rachel blushed. “You can’t prove it by my track record.”
Landon wanted to tell her she was selling herself short. She was smart. She was beautiful. She was fun to be around. But he didn’t say any of those things. She might take them wrong.
“If he’s really the one—you’ll know,” Landon said. “I know it sounds clichéd, but it was true for me and Kerri.”
“I don’t think it sounds clichéd at all. To me, it makes perfect sense.”
Rachel ran her finger along the lip of her glass. She studied the drink in silence, as if even looking at him would spark more electricity than either of them could handle.
After a few seconds, she looked up—less pensive, her voice lighter. “Tell me how you and Kerri met.”
///
Later that evening, after they had left Catch 31 and were walking on the boardwalk toward the parking garage, the conversation turned back to Rachel and Brent. Rachel claimed she needed Landon’s help to understand things from a man’s perspective. A few blocks from the truck, she took a step closer and placed a hand on Landon’s arm. “Thanks for not judging me for who I am,” she said. “I don’t have many people I can talk to like this.”
He gave her a ride back to the office and pulled up next to her car. He thanked her for helping with Harry’s files.
“You really do love Kerri, don’t you?” Rachel asked.
“Yes,” Landon said, without hesitation.
“She’s lucky to have you,” Rachel said. She sat there for a moment, looking at him, her blue eyes reading his thoughts. “I’d better go,” she said at last.
