Sometimes Quickly

by Anne Laughlin

  “I’m reading the Southern writers now—O’Connor, McCullers, Lee. They mesmerize me.” Lisa blinked several times, perhaps trying to give a come hither look but succeeding only in looking like a bug had flown into her eye.

  “Land’s sake,” Morgan said, grinning at her.

  “Don’t mock me, Morgan. Just fill Danni in on this problem of yours. I know you’re worried about your new girlfriend.”

  Morgan was worried but also focused and calm. She didn’t know where Laura was or what kind of shape she was in, but she did know that unraveling the mystery of the product sabotage was the best way to love Laura now.

  “I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon doing some research,” Danni said, “and I think I have a starting point for us. I got onto LexisNexis and read about the approval process at the FDA for new drugs and medical devices. From what I’ve been able to piece together, Laura’s product would radically shorten the time that process takes, faster than the accelerated process they already have in place. That time reduction would mean a lot to drug companies in terms of profitability. Any company that can make that happen for Big Pharma is in line to make a lot of money.”

  Morgan nodded. “I know all that, more or less.”

  Danni shifted through some printouts. “I then started going back through the industry media to try and catch reports about possible competitors. There were several articles on Laura’s company, some really good press on her innovations.”

  Morgan felt pride for what Laura had done. There was no way she was going to give up on making it a reality. “I’m just starting to understand how big a deal this is. To the industry, and also to Laura. It’s her whole life.”

  Danni pulled a sheet of paper toward her. “There was mention of at least two companies that were attempting to develop similar software. One of the companies is now out of business. The other, West Line, LLC, is still in business, and as of six months ago was reported to still be in development.”

  “Any idea how far along their product is?”

  “The article only indicated that Laura’s was further along. The press was keeping an eye on the race to see who finished first,” Danni said.

  Morgan was quiet for a moment. “Here’s what I don’t get. It would seem logical that West Line is the top suspect for the sabotage. They stood to gain the most. But isn’t it too obvious? Wouldn’t West Line hesitate to do something that would lead back to their door?”

  “It’s all about proof, Morgan. It’s not a blatant act of sabotage if no one can find any evidence against you.”

  “I know Laura had a number of experts in after the first incident, and no one could find any evidence of tampering.” Morgan felt discouraged. “Does this kind of thing happen a lot?”

  Danni gathered her papers and slid them into a file. “More than you’d believe. Industrial espionage is big business. I’m looking to sign up a few computer whizzes so I can handle some of the investigations myself.”

  Morgan stood. “Well, I’m not going to be the one who discovers anything on a computer, but I can try to shake a few trees at West Line. Where are they located?”

  “New York City,” Danni said.

  “That’s where I’m going, then. Why don’t you give me that file and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  Morgan left their house and reached for her phone as soon as she was in her car. There’d been no call from Laura, though she hadn’t really expected one. She hoped she’d soon have good news to leave on Laura’s voicemail. She had no idea how she’d come up with the evidence. She’d follow her instincts, as she always did.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Friday, January 12

  Peg walked through Hell’s Kitchen, looking for Jenna Clark’s address. Allison had forwarded it to her after Danni managed to dig it up. Though much gentrified over the years, the part of the neighborhood she found herself in didn’t strike Peg as the least bit upscale. It harked back to the old days—scruffy, a little dangerous. It didn’t look like Jenna had prospered since their days at the U.S. attorney’s.

  She found the medium-sized apartment building. It was mid-afternoon. If Jenna was working, there wasn’t much chance she’d be home, but Peg leaned on the buzzer anyway. A raspy voice barked back from the intercom.

  “Jenna? It’s Peg Ryan. I don’t know if you remember me—”

  “Third floor,” Jenna said, and the door clicked open.

  Peg climbed the dark stairs to the third floor and walked down a hallway of flaking wallpaper and burned out bulbs. A door opened, and a woman who’d once been Jenna stepped out. She’d aged noticeably. She looked much older than Peg, though she knew she was quite a few years younger. Her skin was sallow and seemed to be stretched across her face, leaving deeply furrowed wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. She looked like she had scurvy. Peg had a hard time remembering the attractive young woman she’d once been drawn to.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Jenna held a cigarette in her hand, completing the picture of a woman intent on slowly killing herself. Peg didn’t know what to make of it. She stopped in front of Jenna and extended her hand.

  “I know it seems strange that I’m here,” Peg said. Jenna ignored her hand and took a drag on her cigarette. “I’m in New York for a couple of days and wanted to see how you’re doing. There were a few things unfinished when we last saw each other.”

  Jenna turned and walked in the room. Peg closed the door and followed her into a studio apartment. It was as grubby as the building. Broken blinds, decrepit furniture, and a startling messiness to it that brought back memories of how she used to live herself. There were other signs of that connection—empty bottles on almost every surface, overflowing ashtrays, clothes strewn about, a tall pile of dishes in the sink. The place smelled rancid. Peg stood in the middle of the room, far away from the couch that was the only seating available.

  Jenna grabbed a beer from the fridge but didn’t offer one to Peg. “Unfinished? You’re not talking about the night you passed out on me, are you? Some hotshot lover you turned out to be. Is that what you’ve come to finish?” Her voice was caustic, devoid of humor. The very idea made Peg wince.

  “No, I think that time has passed us by.”

  “Yeah, I’d say.” Jenna leaned against her kitchen counter. “I suppose I should offer you a beer.”

  “No, thanks. That’s something that’s changed. I quit drinking after I left the office.”

  “Yeah, you were a real drunk. I didn’t think you capable of quitting. More for me, I guess.” She threw her head back and drank.

  “One thing I wanted to ask you about is your son,” Peg said.

  Jenna looked at her for a moment. “He died.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m sure that was a terrible time for you.”

  “He died when he was ten. Left me all alone. Nana was dead, too.” She walked around Peg and sat in the one uncluttered spot on the couch. She didn’t make room for Peg.

  Peg’s cell phone rang and she saw it was Allison. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I have to take this.”

  “Of course you do, because you’ve always been important that way.” She got up and headed back to the refrigerator. Peg walked over to the window, so grimy she could barely see out, and connected the call.

  “I’m at Jenna’s right now and can’t stay on the phone. Do you have anything for me?”

  “I have a hello for you,” Allison said. “I guess you’re all out of those.”

  “Sorry. Hello. It’s a bit stressful at the moment. What’s up?”

  “I’m glad I caught you, since you need to know this right now. Johnny just called me back. One of his guys in New York remembered the Lanzitos making this hit. One of that guy’s guys was able to lead him to the Lanzito member who bought the information. He’s serving a term for something unrelated. The first guy went upstate to visit the man and got a description of the person who sold the witness location information. It sounds like it’s Jenna.”

  �
�What? What was the description?” Peg snuck a look at Jenna, who was back on the couch, cleaning her nails with a knife.

  “He said she was someone who worked in the prosecutor’s office and had a sick kid.”

  “Shit.” Peg sighed. She’d never wanted it to be Jenna.

  “It’s hard to tell what qualifies as good news in this mess,” Allison said.

  “I’m pretty sure this isn’t good news. Listen, I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as I can.” She hung up and walked back to the couch. She looked down on Jenna.

  “Was that your girlfriend checking up on you?”

  “It was. She’s like that.”

  Jenna looked up at her. “That doesn’t seem like the kind of woman you’d hook up with.”

  Peg moved to the other end of the couch and perched on the arm. “It took some getting used to. But she makes me face things head on, which makes me a better person.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “If you say so.”

  “No, it’s true. Here’s an example. Remember how Braddock heard me telling you about Scarpelli’s location?”

  Jenna’s transparent face looked cautious. “I remember.”

  “I never stopped protecting you, Jenna. Braddock blackmailed me to keep the whole thing quiet. I didn’t want the FBI to think of you as a suspect. So I left my job and paid him a chunk of money.”

  Jenna’s face was sour. “So you were a noble drunk, is that what you’re saying?”

  Peg was ad-libbing as she tried to work Jenna. “Not at all, though you have the drunk part right. Earlier this week, I heard from Braddock for the first time in all these years. This time his blackmail has more teeth in it. Two million dollars spread over a year’s time, which is a lot of money even for a spoiled law partner like me.”

  “Have you paid him anything?”

  “Not yet. My girlfriend, Allison, got the whole story out of me and together we worked out what my options are. One advantage I didn’t know I had was Allison used to work with organized crime clients. She called a contact of hers to try to find out who exactly sold the info to the Lanzito family. Obviously, if that turned out to be Braddock himself, we’d refuse to pay any blackmail.”

  Jenna sat forward, grabbed a cigarette from the table and lit it. “What did Allison find out?”

  Peg continued as if she were telling the most innocuous of stories. “That’s what she just called to tell me. It’s information that changes everything for me.” She stared at Jenna for a moment. “Do you want to tell me yourself what it is?”

  “How the fuck would I know?”

  “You’d know because it was you, of course. The guy who bought the information described someone who could only be you.”

  Jenna started to look outraged and then relaxed her face into a mask. She didn’t speak.

  “You’re not denying this?” Peg asked.

  “I’m not denying or fucking admitting anything. I don’t even know what this would mean if the FBI thought it was me. What could they do after all these years?”

  Jenna had dulled over the years, but she wasn’t stupid. Peg carefully played her. “I don’t really know. It’s possible you could be prosecuted. All I know is what this means to me. I’m going to meet Braddock in a couple of hours and tell him I won’t be paying his blackmail. After that, I’m going to the U.S. attorney and let him know my part in this, and yours as well. I’ll lose my law license. We may both be prosecuted. But it’s the right thing to do.”

  Jenna went to the kitchen and poured herself something from a bottle. “You’d do that just because a mafia guy got hit over twenty years ago?”

  “Yes, and more importantly because a U.S. marshal was wounded in the process.” Peg stood and walked toward the kitchen. “My only regret is I put off doing this because I was protecting you. You and your sick little boy. What a joke. I will take responsibility for my part, but you are the one directly responsible for this happening.”

  Jenna’s glass trembled in her hand. She looked childish, on the verge of tears. “You can’t do this. You’ll ruin me.” Peg wondered if pushing someone from the curb to the street constituted ruining them.

  “I don’t think you’ll be prosecuted.”

  “I won’t survive prison.” She slugged down her drink and poured another.

  “We’ll both have to see how it plays out, Jenna. I’m not going to stay quiet now that I know what you did.”

  Jenna moved swiftly toward her sleeping alcove. “Wait a sec. I have to show you something.” Her bed was draped off with Indian beads, which clacked as she passed through them. Peg turned to gather her coat and bag and look at her phone. When she looked up again, Jenna stood in a wide stance holding a gun on her, both hands wrapped around the grip, almost as if she’d done so plenty of times before.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Peg said. For some reason, she didn’t feel any fear. “This is the worst possible thing you could do. Allison knows I’m here. If something happens to me, you can bet she’ll have the cops on you in a flash.”

  Peg saw from the look on her face that her argument meant nothing to Jenna. She was beyond caring about anything. She knew she was going to shoot the moment before the gun exploded and a bullet ripped into Peg’s shoulder, sending her flying backward. Another bullet hit the floor inches from her head. A moment later came a third shot, and then all was quiet. Peg waited in complete silence before raising her head to look. Jenna lay on the floor, the dirty white carpet growing scarlet around her, her small revolver still pointed at her head.

  *

  Allison sat at her kitchen table and clutched her phone in her hand. She stared at the display. It’d been two hours since she talked to Peg. She was worried sick.

  There was no one to call to moan about it with. Her friends couldn’t be told the story. Her mother would have a heart attack if she heard what her new girlfriend had dragged her into. Allison would have been in the middle whether Peg asked her to be or not. Peg was her person. Of course she was there for her. But the trouble right now was that she wasn’t exactly there. They were in different cities and anything could be happening to Peg. She could be under arrest, for all she knew. What if she started drinking from the stress? The wait was intolerable.

  The phone rang and nearly flew out of Allison’s hand. She didn’t recognize the number, but it was a New York exchange. “Allison Mitchell,” she managed.

  “Hi, babe. It’s me.” Peg’s voice sounded strained, almost slurry.

  “Peg? What in God’s name is going on?”

  “I only have a second before I have to go.”

  “Go where? Have you seen Braddock?” Allison tried to keep the impatience out of her voice.

  “Here’s the thing. Jenna shot me.” Peg sounded like she was giggling when she said it.

  “What!”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, my God,” Allison said. She felt slightly hysterical.

  “And she killed herself after she shot me.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “So I haven’t been able to talk to Braddock.”

  “Where are you? I’m on my way.” Action. That calmed her, always.

  “Allison, you don’t have to come all the way here.”

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that. Where were you shot?”

  “Right shoulder. They gave me morphine.” Peg sounded calm.

  “Sounds like it. What hospital?”

  “St. Vincent’s Midtown. I have to go. They’re wheeling me into the ER.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there soon. What about police? Were they there?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll tell you everything when you get here. I love you.”

  “Love you too, darling. Don’t die.”

  “It’s a shoulder wound,” Peg said.

  “I’m not taking anything for granted. See you soon.”

  Allison rang off. She sat for a moment, thinking there must be someone she could call. She felt they were all alone in this mess. She th
ought of Morgan, who might know the most about this sort of thing. She picked up on the first ring. Allison told her about the shooting and some of the story behind it, and that she’d be getting the next flight out.

  “I’m already in New York,” Morgan said. “I’ll head over to the hospital now.”

  “Why are you in New York?”

  “Another long story, but I’ve got some drama going on as well. I’ll tell you about it later. I’ll call as soon as I find out what’s happening to Peg.”

  “Thanks, Morgan. I feel better knowing you’re there. Don’t let them cuff her to the hospital bed.”

  After hanging up, Allison threw some things into a bag, and raced out to O’Hare. She counted on those hourly flights to LaGuardia.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Saturday, January 13

  Camille hit the pause button on her TV remote and answered her ringing cell phone. The image of two women in bed remained frozen on the screen. She was watching Desert Hearts because the professor character reminded her of Allison.

  “Bardon,” she said as she picked up her glass of wine.

  “It’s Tim. There’s a problem.”

  “What else is new? There’s always a problem. Let’s hear it.”

  “Braddock just called me to let me know things went haywire yesterday in New York. Somehow, Ryan discovered the woman who had sold the witness information and confronted her. She got shot in the process.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Camille sprang to her feet and started pacing excitedly. “Please tell me she’s dead.”

  “No, not dead,” Tim said.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” was all Camille could think to say. She nearly crushed her wine glass with frustration. Ryan got all the breaks. She probably looked like a hero to Allison, while she sat in Chicago, fading further into Allison’s past. “There goes any chance of blackmailing her.”