by Dan Alatorre
Bree smiled. “How about a thousand dollars for taking the meeting, and another thousand when you agree to my proposition?”
“How about I take the grand and we negotiate the rest after I hear the proposition?”
“Fair enough. Meet me at the coffee shop next to Hollywood Fitness down the street.”
“No, too many people go there this time of day.”
“It’ll be fine, trust me.” Bree checked the rearview mirror. “Nobody’s going to recognize me.”
She ended the call and pressed the accelerator, launching her silver BMW toward Hollywood Fitness.
* * * * *
Tyree handed Abbie a paper cup of water. She took a sip and sat down on the stage steps at the front of the Esturiano building. Sergio paced back and forth nearby.
Nudging Lavonte, Tyree pointed to a rundown picnic table on the far side of the parking lot. “Let’s move over there.”
Big Brass glanced at Abbie and lowered his voice. “If we go over there, we won’t be able to hear anything.”
“Yeah. We have phone calls to make, so let’s get busy—over there.”
“Man.” Lavonte huffed. “You awful bossy to a brother. Awful bossy.” He picked up a stack of the parking citations. “Probably expect me to start running errands for you, soon. Want me to go fetch your dry cleaning? Get your car washed? Ain’t happening!”
Tyree narrowed his eyes. “Can you just make some phone calls? When the firm makes money, you get paid—so this is important.”
“Important, maybe.” Lavonte strutted across the parking lot. “But them two’s about to spill some juicy stuff, and we gonna miss it.”
“Life’s full of conflicts, baby.” He pulled out his phone and dialed Lieutenant Davis’ number. “Like right now, I’m busy setting up for an event that I’m actively trying to get shut down.”
* * * * *
Abbie took another sip of water, sitting with her knees together and her arms wrapped around them. Sergio walked up to her.
“I’m not upset, Abbie,” he said. “But you have to level with me. For Pete’s sake, you’re supposed to be defending me in my termination case and you’re . . . you’re—you’re drugged out!”
She winced. “This is you being not angry?”
“Okay. I’m calm.” He held his hands out. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She set the paper cup down and stared at the ground. “Twenty-five percent of lawyers qualify as problem drinkers. Did you know that? The rest of the population is around five percent. All the top law firms in the country are stocked with type-A overachievers, fresh out of law school and looking to claw their way to the top. They’re all so ready to get in front of a judge and wow the world with their eloquent oratory, but instead they find themselves spending a zillion hours a week proofreading documents for the high-ranking partners—if they’re lucky. The unlucky ones fare much worse.”
She turned her gaze to the empty street. A banner announcing the debate fluttered in a gentle breeze.
Sergio knew to let her take her time. Confessions come in pieces.
“When I started at my firm, everybody drank.” Abbie looked at Sergio. “It was a badge of honor to go all day at the office and then go ‘til two in the morning at a bar or club. Especially for the women. But the next day, you have to climb out of bed and do it all over again. And on the weekends. Pretty soon, you’re thirty-five and you can barely get out of bed in the morning, but you still have to log your billable hours. I knew a guy who knew a guy. He said I could get a little help to stay awake and focused. So I went where he told me to go and met the guy.”
Sergio nodded. “Lavonte.”
“Big Brass, the pride and joy of Lakeland.” Abbie put her head in her hands. “Fast forward two years, and I’m taking five pills a day. I never missed an appointment at work, never got a negative performance review. Suddenly, I was looking at making partner—it was in my grasp. Another year, maybe less, and I’d get the brass ring. But I was struggling. I was eating pills like they were candy and I felt like I was dying—or soon going to. Then, the Morton case came along, and I got assigned to it.” She looked up, shaking her head. “What luck. The muscle manager for the guy I buy my drugs from. I tried my best to get out of it, but you can’t turn down an assignment—the partnership is on the line. But Morton knows who I am. He knows I’m buying drugs from his people in Lakeland. I was on pins and needles for weeks. Every day, I’m taking depositions for the case, just waiting for one of his character witnesses to recognize me or for my own name to come up somewhere.” Reaching down, she picked up the cup and took another drink. “I wrapped up his case the best I could, and as soon as it was over, Morton’s bosses were all over me, pressuring me to come work for them.” She raised her eyes to his. “They said if I didn’t, they’d expose me and my drug habit to my firm, the news, everywhere. Then, my career and my future—my life—it’s all gone. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
“So.” Sergio scratched the stubble on his chin. “Morton and his two gorillas weren’t kidnapping you because he was upset. He was planning on taking you to your first day of work as a mob lawyer.”
“First day of indentured servitude is more like it.” She shook her head. “There was no way. No way. While I was working Morton’s case, my eyes were opened. I thought I was alone with my little drug problem, but talking to him, seeing that world, it was everywhere. Lawyers, doctors, college students. Anyone looking for an edge. It’s all over the Port of Tampa, with the dock workers. I already felt like I was close to bottoming out, but after I saw how many lives they were affecting—and ruining—I checked myself into a drug rehab outpatient program. I paid for it myself, in cash, so my firm didn’t find out, but I got myself cleaned up.”
Sergio folded his arms and stared at the ground. That was a tough line to take. Kicking a drug habit doesn’t work for most people. Plenty will relapse when they resume the activities they needed the drug for, like working long hours or studying late; partying, for some, and relaxing for others. But Sergio had seen drug addicts of all varieties, and Abbie didn’t look like one. She just looked scared, and for good reason. If Morton’s bosses wanted her as their lawyer, they were going to get her as their lawyer. One that couldn’t say no—or who they thought couldn’t.
But Abbie stood up to them.
“What about the DEA thing?” Sergio said. “The undercover sting operation.”
“After the case ended, I made a confidential call to a friend at DEA.” She looked him in the eye. “The op is real, I promise. They need a guy to go inside, and they’ll use the information to take the whole smuggling ring down. That’s why, when your case hit the docket, I grabbed it.”
“Because an unhappy cop on his way off the force fit with how the drug runners had done it before. Makes sense. What about renouncing my partner and the department?”
“That was only to help sell it.” Abbie clasped her hands in front of her. “I didn’t think Morton and the higher-ups would believe you otherwise.”
“Yeah, well . . .” He looked away. “I’m not crazy about people lying to me. I’d prefer to go to lunch and not have mob guys interrupt it by kidnapping my dining companion.”
“I was desperate. I couldn’t tell you the truth because I was afraid you might report me. But Morton and his thugs were after me, and I needed help. That’s all. I only . . .” Her voice wavered. “I needed somebody to help me.” Abbie wiped her nose and blinked hard, tears forming in her eyes.
“Okay, okay,” Sergio whispered. “Don’t . . . don’t do that. I’m still going to help you.”
Sniffling, Abbie looked up at him. “You will?”
“Yeah. I said I would last night, so I will.” Groaning, he took a seat next to her on the steps. “Just don’t make me regret it.”
“Last night, you said you already regretted it.”
“Then, don’t make me regret it more.” He laughed. “Man, when you said people were angry with you, you weren’
t kidding. But since I have an idea of what it’s like to be faced with your career going away, let’s just play it straight with each other from now on. You’re a lawyer. Stay with that. Leave the part about cooking up schemes to people who do that for a living.”
“To who? You?”
“Oh, no. Not me. But I might know a guy who knows a guy.” Sergio smirked. “For now, let’s keep things simple. We’ll leave your car in the police impound, so if anyone from Morton’s gang is watching, they’ll figure you already flew the coop. Let them think that. And let’s give the police a couple of days to do their job, and not jump headfirst into this DEA thing. I think we can keep you safe and maintain a low profile for that long. What do you say?”
Abbie slowly extended her hand. “Pinkie swear.”
Lifting his hand, Sergio linked pinkie fingers with her. “Good. Now sit tight for a second.”
He got up and crossed the parking lot to where Tyree and Big Brass were making phone calls.
Tyree glanced up as he approached. “So?”
“She says she’s clean,” Sergio said. “I believe her.”
“Good.” Tyree looked at Lavonte. “What do you think?”
Big Brass shrugged. “She ain’t been around Maxx’s lately. She could be getting hooked up through someone else, though.”
Lavonte appeared to have straightened up his act. No mohawk, no facial tattoos, no muscle shirts. Big Brass looked like a respectable citizen. Sergio looked him over. “You still pretty tight with Carmello and those guys?”
Keeping his eyes on his pile of traffic citations, Lavonte put a finger to the phone number displayed on the top ticket, and tapped the corresponding digits on his phone. “That life is ancient history for me, baby. Why?”
“Oh, no reason.” Sergio stretched and rubbed his eyes. “I wonder if Lieutenant Davis knew Abbie had a drug problem when he agreed to let her work my defense case.”
“Can’t worry about that now.” Tyree set a stack of parking citations in front of Sergio. “We’re having to leave a lot of messages. Most of these people probably work nine-to-five. But we reached a few that were willing to talk. How about mounting up and visiting a few in person?”
“Sure.” Sergio picked up the tickets and thumbed through them. “I can do that.”
“Better fill your car up with gas first,” Big Brass said. “They’re all over the place.”
* * * * *
The Hollywood Fitness parking lot was nearly empty, but that was probably due to the holiday season. Usually, there were a lot of fitness freaks who hit the gym at all hours of the day, seven days a week.
Throwing her straight, long brown locks over her shoulder, Bree reached over to access her glove compartment. She rifled through an old purse she had stored there, to find the proper membership card. Locating it, she exited the vehicle and went around to the trunk.
Her pink athletic bag was stocked full of the necessities she’d need this morning: a change of clothes, soap, makeup, and a big, colorful scarf. She wrapped her head in the scarf, put on her sunglasses, and headed toward the front door.
Hollywood Fitness was a glamorous place, for a workout center. The walls were painted in bright colors; the carpets were vacuumed every day, twice a day. Treadmills had large, touch-screen TV monitors, fans with air conditioning, and wifi to coordinate with other running enthusiasts who were online. Spinning classes had pop music on a DJ-quality Bose stereo system, a 360-degree, moving mountain landscape projected onto the walls, and a never-ending stream of young, well-toned coach-trainers who pushed the cyclists to peak performance.
There was a juice bar, a coffee bar, and a whiskey bar, covering all the bases for whatever type of fluid replenishment members desired after a workout.
The lobby area was every bit as high tech. Bree Barclay adjusted her sunglasses and passed through the entry, walking past the large Christmas tree and stopping at the front desk. The athletic young man greeted her with a smile but wouldn’t address her by name until she scanned her membership card.
He would act as if he didn’t need the monitor to tell him who the customers were, but he did. The facial recognition craze hadn’t worked its way to Hollywood Fitness yet.
Holding out her membership card, Bree Barclay waved it under the laser scanner. When the name on the card appeared on the monitor over the scanner, the desk clerk smiled wider and greeted her by name.
“Good morning, Ms. Palmer.”
The name Marla Palmer disappeared from the monitor a moment later, along with the image of Bree.
Walking past the desk and heading to the ladies’ changing rooms, the desk clerk’s words echoed in Bree’s ears.
“Good morning, Ms. Palmer.”
Bree smiled to herself. “Not yet, but after a quick touchup, I will be.”
Chapter 32
Checking the time on her phone, Bree Barclay strutted out of the gym as Marla Palmer, wearing a pair of slender jeans and a silk blouse. The simple application of a curly brown wig and a change of clothes, and she was somebody else—and she had all the credentials to prove it. Marla had her own residence, her own car, a driver’s license, library card . . . different friends, a different look, and different habits—the works.
Having washed her face and reapplied her makeup, Bree was ready to meet her friend from the Blumenthal campaign and then get the rest of her—and Marla’s—busy day started. She walked quickly but not too quickly. Determined, as always, but not hurrying.
No reason to have potential witnesses testify that I left in a rush.
There was no reason to be hasty. Everything was happening according to plan.
Bree mentally reviewed her schedule.
Meet with Jeri. Rush to the condo to check on Rossi. Back to Addleson campaign headquarters for the morning meeting. Then, sometime in the afternoon, swing back by the condo and deal with disposing of Rossi’s friend. The thug’s body can’t stay locked in the guest bathroom tub forever.
After that, go by my house and grab a shower so I’m ready for the campaign’s evening telethon—and, hopefully, another late night with the next mayor of Tampa.
The warm feeling was replaced by a tinge of fear that rippled through her system. She opened the driver’s door of her silver BMW, second thoughts washing over her.
What if the Rohypnol wore off and Rossi woke up—and discovered the throw rug in the middle of the living room?
Bree climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. It was unlikely Rossi would wake up and immediately start looking around. The blood had been cleaned from the carpet. The body was locked away.
Bree pulled into traffic, heading toward Blumenthal’s campaign headquarters and the coffee shop down the street from it. She stopped at a red light, tapping the steering wheel.
Rossi won’t wake up, and he won’t remember anything when he does. The Rohypnol sees to that. With the dose I gave him, he’ll be unconscious until tonight. And he isn’t the type to go randomly looking under a rug.
But if he did . . .
She gripped the wheel, staring straight ahead.
So what? He wouldn’t move it, and if he did, he’d see a bleach stain.
So what?
“Rossi won’t remember anything.” She gazed at the dashboard, her eyes wandering, unfocused. “He didn’t after Ft. Brannon and he didn’t after Atlanta. He remembers what you tell him to remember. That won’t change now.”
She checked her phone again. Plenty of time for everything.
But the sooner I get Rossi on board with the next step, the better. Even he won’t be able to be duped too many times.
The car behind Bree honked its horn. She flinched, pulling herself out of her schedule and glancing up at the traffic light.
It was green.
Bree took her foot off the brake and put it on the gas pedal, easing the BMW into the intersection. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she glared at the driver in the car behind her.
If you only knew who you were honking a
t, maybe you’d think twice.
A thin smile crossed her lips. The ants crawled under her skin and up her spine as she imagined the driver in her crosshairs. The urge to shudder swelled within her.
The whole city’s scared to death of the sniper, buddy, and you’re honking at her in traffic.
Shuddering, Bree rolled her shoulders and refocused on traffic.
Maybe I’ll start carrying my AR-15 around on the passenger seat and teach people some manners. It doesn’t all have to be from a long distance.
* * * * *
Bree turned the steering wheel and pulled onto West Cypress Avenue, her phone to her ear as she left a message for Jaylee. “Next, we’re still looking for that order of signs. That’s Tate Printing, the shipping clerk is Danielle. The number’s on the folder on my desk. After that, we need to have one of the volunteers—”
The recording beeped, ending the call.
Frowning, Bree hit redial. When the machine answered, she picked up where she left off. “One of the volunteers needs to follow up about the food for tonight’s telethon. Publix on Westshore will have the party platters ready by six p.m., and there’s a bunch of chips and sodas under my name. Mr. Addleson will make an appearance to shake hands, but he’s slated to stop by the Mayor’s for a drink before that, and possibly an appearance at police headquarters afterward, so if anyone asks, just tell people he’s coming. That should about cover it. Sorry to ramble on, sweetie. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
She ended the call and drove onto the parking lot of The Beanery, a small, boutique coffeehouse. Parking her BMW in the far corner, she pulled down the sun visor and opened the mirror, checking her appearance.
The wig was looking good. The makeup was . . . adequate.
It’ll do for now. The fluorescent locker room lights at the gym never have the same effect as natural sunlight.
Sitting back, Bree checked the time, tapping her fingers as she scanned the few outdoor tables to determine which would be best for her meeting with Jeri.
In the cupholder, her phone rang. The screen displayed: unknown number.
That didn’t bother her; most calls she received for the campaign were from numbers she didn’t know.