Imminent Peril (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller Book 10)

by Melissa F. Miller

  Harold gulped nervously and wiped his hands on his faded jeans. “Right, sure. Sorry. You hired me to do a job, and I did it. I baited your woman lawyer into getting physical and I let her clean my clock.” He rubbed the angry, red bump on the bridge of his nose as if remembering the strike he’d taken.

  “That's right; you did. And you collected a handsome sum for your work. I then offered—and you accepted—a supplemental fee to serve as the named plaintiff in a lawsuit. I don't understand the issue, Mr. Harold. This is some of the easiest work you'll ever do. There’s no danger; no risk of broken bones or internal bleeding; you’re not outside in the weather. All you have to do is sit at a table and answer some questions. Not to mention, you're being represented, on my dime, by some of the finest lawyers in the city.” He finished his lecture, leaned back, crossed his arms, and eyed his laborer.

  “No, man, you don’t understand. Her lawyer went and talked to my old lady.”

  “Your wife?”

  “My ex, Gina. I’m still tight with the landlord—I pay her rent and all. Lefty said she had some black lady at her house yesterday. He asked her about it, and she said she was the lawyer for some chick who kicked my ass.” He frowned.

  The consultant didn't want to focus on his emasculation, so he moved along. “Okay, that’s to be expected in litigation.”

  “You don't understand. Gina, she’s bitter. She'll say things that might—”

  “Is she aware of our arrangement?” The consultant’s mind clicked as he began the cold calculations. Was he going to have to get rid of Steve Harold's ex-wife as well as the doctor? If this kept up, Dutch was going to have to name his next boat in his honor.

  “No, no, nothing like that. We’re not on good terms, I don’t talk to her unless I have to. I don’t tell anybody about my work,” Harold hurried to reassure him.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “We were together when I started my side hustles. She knows I’ve worked with some, uh, characters.”

  “Are you telling me your ex would have told the McCandless woman's lawyer about your insurance fraud work for the Giavone family?”

  “Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. I mean, I think she would’ve. She’s a snake.”

  “That is less than ideal,” the consultant agreed.

  “Right, we gotta pull the plug on this lawsuit—fast. Your fancy suits downtown say this claim doesn't have any teeth, anyway … uh, sir.” He hurried to add the honorific lest he get in trouble for being disrespectful.

  The consultant appreciated the effort. In addition, his assessment was true. The case was weak, but it had done its job and had gotten her out of the firm. The arbitration had been delayed. All that remained was figuring out her connection to Prachi Agarwal. And the lawsuit wasn’t going to help in that regard.

  “Sir?” Harold asked tentatively, jerking him back to the present.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Harold jumped at his sharp tone.

  The consultant exhaled through his nose. A display of anger was a display of weakness, he reminded himself. He waited until he could speak in a perfectly calm, neutral voice. Then he said, “I understand your concern, Mr. Harold. I agree that we’ll have to change course. I just hope it’s not too late.”

  Relief washed over Harold's craggy face. Then a new worry bloomed in his eyes. “Are you gonna want your money back?” he asked haltingly.

  As if that money weren’t already long gone. “No. Keep it. In return, I'll expect your continued silence.”

  “Totally. I won’t say a thing. Can I buy you drink?” Steve Harold gestured toward the bar.

  “No. I’m leaving. But your next one’s on me. I appreciate your honesty.” He clasped Harold’s shoulder. Then he tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the table.

  He pushed his way out of the musty bar and stood on the street, taking in a long breath of the fresh, evening air. This assignment was starting to be more trouble than it was worth. And all the trouble seemed to lead back to a single source: Sasha McCandless-Connelly.

  23

  Sasha laced up her running shoes and pulled her hair back into a low ponytail.

  “I'm going for a run,” she called toward the kitchen, where Connelly and the twins were baking banana bread for breakfast.

  “Have fun,” he called back. The twins were too busy measuring flour and smashing bananas to even look up.

  She jogged out the door and down the stairs. It was one hundred percent true that she was going for a run. It also just so happened that the path she’d mapped out would take her past Prachi Agarwal’s address in Bloomfield, less than a mile and a half from her own home.

  As she ran toward Liberty Avenue, she raised her face to the early-morning sun and let the light wash over her. It was early enough that if Prachi wasn’t missing, Sasha’d be liable to catch her before she left for work. But she had little expectation that she’d find her at home. She was gone. Sasha could just feel it.

  Stop that. You sound demented, she told herself.

  She maintained a steady pace until she reached Amelia Street. Then she slowed to a jog and rehearsed her cover story to account for how she happened to be in Prachi’s apartment building.

  As she pounded up the stairs to the third floor, she acknowledged to herself that her fabricated story was sort of thin. Okay, terribly thin. It probably didn’t much matter though. In the unlikely event Prachi was there, Sasha imagined she’d be glad to see a friendly face.

  What if Naya’s right, though, and Prachi’s in on it?

  She batted that worry away and paused in front of Apartment 3B to catch her breath. Then gave a gentle knock at the door. She strained to listen closely but heard no activity on the other side.

  She waited a moment, and then she knocked again, louder this time.

  “Prachi?” she called softly. “Dr. Agarwal, it's me, Sasha, from anger management.”

  Nothing.

  More out of reflex than out of hope, she tried the doorknob. To her considerable amazement, it turned in her hand—unlocked.

  She resisted the urge to thank her good fortune and barrel inside. Instead, she stood outside the door and considered the various reasons why Prachi’s door might not be locked—most of them bad.

  Accordingly, when she did creep across the threshold, she did so on full alert, scanning the apartment for an ambush or worse. The air was still and quiet, and a quick canvas of the small space confirmed it was empty. She closed and locked the door behind her—she saw no reason to let any other would-be visitors take her by surprise.

  Then she clasped her hands together behind her back as though she were in an art museum and inspected the visible areas of the apartment inch by inch. Touching the doorknob and lock had been unavoidable, but beyond that she planned to limit her search to what was in plain sight. Now that her fingerprints were in the county’s criminal database, it would behoove her to be cautious.

  The apartment was sparkling clean and spare, which seem to fit what little she knew about its occupant’s personality. The kitchen counters gleamed; no dishes sat in the drying rack; everything was in its place. The tea kettle resting on the stove struck a slightly discordant note; it was badly dented, the metal crushed in as though it had taken a bad tumble at some point. She turned in a slow circle. The only other item that seemed out of place in the kitchen was a bound journal that sat open on the small oak table against the wall.

  She walked over to it and peered down at the page. Her heart skipped as she read the words, once and then again, trying to assign them some meaning other than the most obvious. Her hands shook as she took her iPhone from the armband she used while running.

  She pulled up her camera app and leaned over to snap a picture of the note.

  Then she did one more circuit through Prachi’s entire space: hallway; bedroom; bathroom; small living area; and back to the kitchen. Nothing else caught her eye. In light of the note, she wished more than ever that she could open drawer
s, cabinets, and closets. But she restrained herself. Even though she could craft a reasonable story about having become friendly with Prachi that would explain away her prints if the issue ever arose, the story would be perjurious. And she didn’t need to compound her crimes.

  So she gave the apartment a final backward glance, unlocked the door, and let herself out, using the hem of her tank top to wipe down the doorknob and lock.

  Although she'd run at a decent pace on her way to Prachi’s, she ran home even faster—at a virtual sprint—fueled by anxiety at what she’d seen and worry over what to do next.

  24

  The twins worked together building either a castle or a train yard or possibly a castle/train yard. Mocha slept curled up on the hearth. Java stretched out on the back of the couch. Leo tried to enjoy the after-dinner domestic bliss, but his wife’s incessant squirming beside him proved to be a distraction. He glanced over at her, but her eyes were still fixed on her book.

  She hadn't turned the page in several minutes, though, so he felt sure he wasn't disturbing her reading when he leaned over and said, “What's wrong?”

  She lifted her head. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Sasha—”

  She tilted her head toward the twins as if to say, ‘We can talk about this later; when they’re asleep.’

  “They aren’t paying the slightest bit of attention to us. Talk to me.”

  She marked her page and closed the book. Then she twisted her body toward his on the couch. “Okay, don't be mad,” she began with a small sigh.

  He wondered why it was that when his wife started a story that way it never ended with ‘I went a little crazy at an end-of-season sale’ or ‘I committed us to dinner with my family without checking with you first.’ No, in Sasha McCandless-Connelly’s world, ‘don't be mad’ invariably preceded some tale of impending doom, murder, or mayhem. But then, that was part of her quirky charm.

  “I won’t be mad,” he promised as he steeled himself for whatever news was to come.

  She rewarded him with a tiny smile. “Thanks. So, you know how I had lunch with Mickey Collins yesterday?”

  “Sure. Although we didn’t really get a chance to talk afterward—how’d it go?”

  “Aside from the fact that he was reluctant to be seen in public with me because my reputation precedes me in the Pittsburgh legal community, it was fine.”

  Ouch. Although she didn’t say much, he knew she was struggling with her current status. As long as he’d known her—and for years before they’d met—she'd been the golden girl, the rising star. It had to be tough for her to accept that people were looking askance at her. “I’m sorry, babe.” He patted her arm.

  “Thanks. I know there’s nothing I can do about it now. But eventually the truth will come out.”

  Something about the way she said it made him pause. “What truth is that?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I'm pretty sure I’m caught up in something I don't fully understand.”

  “You think this because of your lunch with Mickey?”

  “Yes. And a visit from Naya. And something that happened on my run this morning.”

  He leaned back, stretched his arm along the back of the couch, earning a baleful look from the cat, and said, “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  She cut her eyes over to the twins. He followed her gaze. They were still fully occupied by their architectural wonder. She blew out a breath.

  “Okay, let me start at the beginning. Mickey said Prachi Agarwal came into his office for a case evaluation on Monday morning. He told her she had a solid claim, and she left in a good mood. He hasn’t heard from her since then, and she didn’t mention leaving town. But then she missed anger management class.”

  “Right. I’m with you so far.”

  “Mickey also said he got a weird phone call yesterday, right after I called him about meeting for lunch. Some man called and started asking questions about his representation of Prachi Agarwal.”

  Leo frowned. “Someone from her office, maybe? Trying to get out in front of a retaliation claim.”

  She shook her head no. “The man identified himself as an Agent Pataki from Homeland Security.”

  He searched his memory bank but came up blank. “Never heard of the guy, but that doesn’t mean anything. The Department of Homeland Security is a big umbrella; there must be a thousand agents that fall under it in some capacity—probably more.”

  “I figured. He told Mickey he worked with immigration.”

  “ICE?”

  “Mickey said he didn’t mention Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Patrol. He just generally waved his hand at immigration. And he really pressed Mickey about Prachi in a way that made alarm bells ring. Mickey told him to get a warrant and hung up on the guy. But the idea that somebody’s poking around looking for Prachi doesn’t sit well with me.

  “Me neither,” he agreed.

  “But there’s more. Mickey gave me Prachi’s home address in case I wanted to check on her.”

  “Uh-oh. Did you?”

  She shot him a look. “I would have stopped by yesterday, but when I got home from lunch you guys were at music and movement class, and Naya was sitting on the front porch waiting for me.”

  “And what did Naya have to say?”

  “She spent her morning interviewing Steve Harold's ex-wife—in case Prescott does file its BS complaint against me, she and Will are preparing a defense.”

  “And?”

  “And the former Mrs. Harold didn’t have anything nice to say about her ex. One of the things she told Naya stood out, though. He is—or was—a professional stuntman.”

  Leo pursed his lips. “So presumably he knows how to take a punch—or avoid one.”

  “We had the same thought,” she said approvingly. “But his ex-wife also said he stopped doing stunts in movies and television because he found an industry that paid better. Turns out, crime does pay.”

  He shook his head. “You lost me,” he admitted.

  “Criminal fraud scams. Insurance fraud, mainly. You know the thing where one car cuts off a target car on the highway and causes the driver to hit its partner car? Steve Harold would be in the car that got hit and would end up with whiplash or a broken wrist or whatever. He also did some slip and falls in grocery stores and department stores. That sort of thing.”

  “This sounds like a fairly low-level criminal enterprise,” he observed.

  “I know. Naya said his ex-wife called him more of a freelancer. He did work for various mob families or gangs, but he basically worked for the highest bidder. I’m not saying he's a criminal mastermind, but it sounds like he’s for hire to anybody with a big enough bank account.”

  He still wasn’t entirely sure where she was going with this. “Do you think somebody hired him to get into a fight with you?”

  She gave a little shrug. “Maybe. It's not unthinkable.”

  “It’s pretty far-fetched. Think of all the moving parts involved. He’d have to know you were going to be at the bar. He’d have to know that there would be women there he could harass. He’d have to know that you would play Good Samaritan.”

  “Naya and I talked about this. I called Maisy and suggested we meet at that bar. I called from Jake’s while I was waiting for my coffee. Anybody could have heard me.”

  “You think somebody was hanging out in Jake’s just hoping to eavesdrop?”

  “I think it’s possible. I do stop in every afternoon. The rest would be easy. That bar is a hot spot—there was pretty much guaranteed to be somebody there he could hit on who wouldn’t appreciate it.”

  “And anybody who knows anything about you—or has access to Google—would know you’d step in.”

  She made a sheepish face. “Probably.”

  “But that means Playtime Toys had Steve Harold waiting in reserve.”

  “Right.”

  “And that seems like a lot of trouble to go through to—what, get a postponement of
the arbitration hearing?”

  “Which is why I think I’m caught up in something bigger. And so is Prachi Agarwal.”

  He studied her drawn, tense face. “What happened during your run?”

  “So I happened to run past her apartment building—”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Fine. I deliberately planned my route to go to her apartment.”

  “Was she home?”

  “No. But her front door was unlocked …”

  He briefly closed his eyes. He opened them and gave his wife a look. “Listen, Sasha—”

  “I know it’s trespassing. But I consider her a friend, sort of. And I’m worried about her. So I just went inside to check on her.”

  “Tell me you didn’t touch anything.”

  She drew herself up. “Jeez, Connelly, I’m not an idiot. I didn’t open any drawers or closets or go through her stuff. I did touch the doorknob, obviously, but I wiped it down with my shirt.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” he mumbled. “So did you find anything?”

  “The big thing I found was that her house was completely clean.”

  “Well, she's single and has no kids,” he said, looking around their living room which was a jumble of toys, baskets of folded laundry waiting to be carried upstairs, and sections from Sunday’s The New York Times, which now seemed to take them nearly the entire week to read. “Or pets, I’ll bet,” he added, just as a tumbleweed of Java/Mocha fur drifted gently along the hallway, skimming the hardwood floor.

  “Sure, but this goes beyond single-living-alone-woman clean. Think more like sparkling. Spotless.”

  “Some people have that personality. A scientist/computer genius would seem to be a likely candidate for fastidiousness.”

  “I suppose. Because everything was so clean and orderly, the one thing that was out of order really stood out.” She took out her phone and pulled up the picture she’d taken of the note. She handed it to Leo.

  He squinted at the image, reading what could only be fairly described as a suicide note. His heart thudded in his chest. He read it again. “This is bad.”