Legal Heat

by Sarah Castille

  Katy gave her a sympathetic smile. “I know what it’s like to have your partner cheat on you. My ex had so many affairs I lost count. Each one hurt more than the last. But I didn’t leave. We had two children and I didn’t want them to grow up in a single-parent family. It wasn’t until I finally got the divorce that I realized what a mistake I had made. He never really loved me. You don’t hurt the people you love. Like you, I wish I’d left him sooner.”

  “Maybe you loved him.” Tears slid down Martha’s plump, rosy cheeks and she dabbed at them with a tissue.

  Katy swallowed. “Maybe I thought I did. But now I know what real love is, and that wasn’t it. Not even close.”

  Martha pulled into the parking lot at Jericho Beach. For a few long moments they sat and watched the container ships and freighters sailing into Burrard Inlet.

  “You’ve been really great,” Martha said. Her eyes fixed on the beach in front of them and she took a deep breath. “Better than I ever expected a lawyer to be. You went out of your way. You put your life on the line. You’re a good person. Maybe the regulators will listen to you.”

  She pulled a baggie from her purse and handed it to Katy.

  “What is it?”

  “The key to Martin’s desk in the lab. He gave it to me when he gave me the list. His journals are in the bottom drawer. I’m pretty sure no one will have found them because the desk is used for storage. You’ll be able to bring Steele down with the information in those journals. Hi-Tech too.”

  Katy’s eyes widened. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “You would have had to disclose the existence of the key to Hi-Tech. Isn’t that how the discovery process works?”

  “Yes that’s true. But we could have requested copies of the journals.”

  A bitter laugh escaped Martha’s lips. “You have no idea how companies like Hi-Tech work. Those journals would have disappeared the minute they knew they existed.”

  “Why now? If you’re leaving, it doesn’t matter if it benefits your case.”

  Martha’s faced tightened. “Martin died for those journals. He was a good friend to me and I betrayed him in the worst way. I want Steele to pay. I want Martin’s death to mean something.”

  Katy offered the baggie back to Martha. “I don’t think…”

  Martha waved her hand away. “Please. Take it. Bring Steele down before anyone else gets hurt.”

  Claire.

  Mark stared at the photograph on the credenza beside Steele’s desk. The eight-by-ten glossy had to have been taken after Claire left. Her long hair had been cut—no, hacked—into a short bob and she was pale and drawn. So unlike the bubbly vivacious girl he had met on the day he and Tony had opened Carpe Noctem.

  She was standing at the bow of a motor-yacht, holding up a bottle of champagne. Claire loved champagne, but she wasn’t smiling in the picture. Not a real smile. Not a smile from her heart.

  She wasn’t smiling in any of the pictures. So many pictures. So much unhappiness. No wonder Steele had never invited him to his office. The credenza was like a shrine. To Claire.

  His Claire.

  How long had she and Steele been together? Had Steele been there when she died, or had she really overdosed alone in the East Side alley where the police had found her body?

  “You’re an hour early.” Steele leaned back in his cream leather chair as Mark made a quick visual sweep of the office for more photos. Three times the size of Mark’s corner office, Steele’s sanctuary at Hi-Tech’s head office on Broadway, was a tribute to corporate minimalism. Big glass desk. Glass credenza. Meeting table with four black chairs. Wall-mounted flat screen television. Cream leather couch. Bar in the corner. No clutter. No books. A few papers on the desk. It could have been a show suite.

  “I need to speak to you before Katy gets here with the settlement agreement. I thought we could work something out.”

  Steele shrugged. “There’s nothing to work out, unless of course she didn’t get the agreement signed, which may be a possibility because Saunders wasn’t home when I called.”

  Mark gritted his teeth. “If she doesn’t get it signed, I want to offer—”

  Steele cut him off with a bark of laughter. “There’s nothing you have that I want. Nothing you could offer me to change my mind. If she doesn’t bring me the signed agreement, let’s just say I haven’t made up my mind whether reporting the conduct of two scheming, disreputable lawyers to the Law Society is enough to make up for your betrayal.”

  Mark’s heart skipped a beat. “You wouldn’t—”

  “But if she does get a signature,” Steele continued, “then the case settles, everyone goes home happy and we all keep our secrets. I’m good at keeping secrets. From the look on your face when you walked in, I take it you never knew about me and Claire.”

  Mark gritted his teeth. “What did you do to her?”

  Steele gave him an amused glance. “Nothing she didn’t want me to do. Everything a man does with his woman.” He leaned forward, his eyes glittering. “And all the things you wouldn’t do.”

  With a roar, Mark lunged over the desk and grabbed Steele’s shoulders. But Steele’s seated position and heavy frame made him awkward to move. He pushed his chair back, forcing Mark to release him.

  Mark staggered back. The wire in his ear shifted and he put his hand up to readjust it. Had James heard the conversation?

  “I deserved that,” Steele said, pulling his chair back to his desk. “I should have told you I was with her, but I knew you wouldn’t continue to represent me, and despite all your faults, you’re a damn good lawyer.”

  Mark grunted and tried to clear the red haze from his vision.

  “I still miss her,” Steele said wistfully. “I cared about her a great deal.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Mark snarled. “If you cared about her, you would have pulled her out of the drug scene. You must have known she had an addictive personality.” Drugs, sex, smoking, coffee. Claire never did anything in half measures.

  Steele shrugged. “She made her own choices. They were just the wrong ones. Except, of course, when she came knocking at my door. She knew life was precious. Too precious to be wasted on someone who didn’t love her. She was my kind of girl. I told her that the first time you introduced us, and I let her know my door was always open.”

  Mark clenched his fists. If not for the wire, and the need to get the evidence to implicate Steele, his hands would already be around Steele’s throat.

  Steele looked over at the credenza and sighed. “But you didn’t come here to talk about Claire. You came to save your kitty. Unfortunately I need that agreement signed tonight. The product launch is on Monday and I don’t want anything to detract from the revolution I’m about to unleash on the world. Hi-Tech has to be the epitome of a well-run, transparent, charitable company that treats its employees well and its shareholders even better.”

  Mark swallowed. If he could keep Steele talking, he might be able to uncover the evidence James needed to make an arrest.

  “She should be here shortly,” he said. “Why don’t we have a drink while we wait?”

  Steele raised a brow but pushed back his chair and walked over to the bar. “Attack me one minute and drink with me the next. I can’t keep up.” He poured two shots of whiskey and handed one to Mark.

  He took the tumbler Steele offered. “Maybe I know which fights are worth fighting.”

  “Maybe you do. Maybe that’s why you let Claire go.”

  Mark swallowed his anger and tried to redirect the conversation.

  “So what is the revolutionary wonder drug?”

  “We’re close enough to the launch that I can tell you,” Steele said. He perched one hip on the bar and sipped his bourbon. “It’s called Libidex and it has made it through all the proper regulatory channels. Everything has been documented, stamped and approved.”

  “Libidex?”

  “Drug of the century. Ostensibly it’ll be for erectile dysfunction, bu
t in reality, it increases libido and improves sexual performance ten times better than the leading competitors. Basically it’s a sex drug. We expect its recreational use to far outstrip any legitimate medical application. In our trials, men were able to go all night without even the slightest diminishment in performance.”

  Mark wished James would make a sound. Cough. Hiss. Whisper. Anything to let him know the wire was still working. He tasted his bourbon, waiting for a signal. He had never liked bourbon. The smooth, sweet taste of smoky oak and molasses reminded him of burnt toast and honey, the only breakfast his mother had ever made.

  No sound. Not even a crackle. He couldn’t wait any longer. He gave Steele an appreciative nod. “Impressive. What about side effects?”

  “It has a few kinks,” Steele said. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

  Mark looked out over Burrard Inlet. Clouds had gathered over the mountains on the North Shore sending wispy fingers of rain down to the city below. “Did you work them out in clinical trials?” He kept his voice light and casual, although inside his pulse raced.

  Steele narrowed his eyes. “When a drug is as important as this one, we pull out all the stops to ensure the clinical trials go smoothly and the regulators get the…assurances they need.”

  Damn. Not even close.

  Steele checked his watch. “Your kitty should be here in about forty-five minutes and I have some business to attend to before she arrives. I’ll send Gordon in to keep you company.”

  Double damn. Steele wasn’t taking any chances. He was clearly suspicious of Mark’s motives for arriving early. So much for his plan to sneak away and take a quick look around. With Gordon in the room, he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  And when Katy arrived, neither would she.

  Katy typed her name on her letter of resignation and sent it to the printer. Thank God no one was in the office tonight. She could leave it on Ted’s desk and disappear. After all the partners had done for her, she didn’t want to damage the reputation of the firm, or drag them into a scandal. Once Steele made his call to the Law Society, all hell would break loose.

  But more than that, she didn’t want to stay. Ted’s bargain with Mark was as much a betrayal by him. Even if he let her stay, she knew she would never forgive him.

  She retrieved the letter from the printer and signed her name on the firm letterhead for the last time. Katherine Sinclair. Not Hughes. She had never taken Steven’s last name, much to his annoyance. Maybe the next time she signed a professional letter her name would be at the top. Wouldn’t that be something? Run her own firm. Be her own boss. Answer to no one.

  She dropped the letter on Ted’s desk and returned to her office to pack up her boxes. Not much personal stuff. Pictures of the kids, law books, the pen Ted had given her when she had won her first trial. Her legal files had all been transferred to colleagues when she had been in the hospital so there was no reason for Ted to hold to her to her notice period. Not that he would. Ted hated notice periods. He had paid off every departing employee to avoid having them linger around the office.

  Only one file remained on her desk. Saunders v. Hi-Tech.

  She picked up the file and took it down the hall to Ted’s office. Just before she reached Ted’s door a white card slid out and fell onto the carpet. Her access pass to Hi-Tech. She must have forgotten to return it on her way out of the document review this morning.

  She flipped the card over and an idea formed in her mind. Crazy. But what did she have to lose? Steven had the kids for the weekend; she had no job and she was about to be sanctioned by the Law Society. And Mark? She’d lost him too. But maybe she could take down Steele. For Martha and for herself.

  She could see justice done after all.

  Lana watched Katy load boxes into her car in front of her office building. One hell of a lot of work to be taking home. Was she planning to stay up all night? She turned the key in her Jetta, wincing as it struggled and gasped for air. Finally the engine turned over with a cough.

  Poor Jetta. She still didn’t have enough money to pay for an overhaul. Double agents didn’t get double pay. Instead, they got a double dose of James hollering into the phone that she should be honored to be performing a public service. She had weathered the storm. Tossed out a few jokes. His temper had cooled quickly, as she knew it would. Such a sexy voice. So damned hot. He could yell at her any day, especially if he turned all soft afterwards and mumbled he’d pay her from his own salary.

  How sweet was that?

  Too bad she had been hit hard with a big dose of conscience and turned down his offer. The Jetta might have been purring like a kitten instead of wheezing like freight train.

  She glanced behind her and snorted when she saw Matt slumped against his steering wheel, fast asleep in his patrol car. She had become friendly with the surveillance officer when they discovered they were both watching the same person.

  Tsk tsk. Someone was going to get in trouble. Their long phone discussion about her past boyfriends must have put him to sleep.

  She grabbed her cell, intending to give him a wake-up call when Katy jumped in her vehicle. Damn. One bar of power left. And she didn’t have her charger.

  Katy pulled out onto the street and Lana floored the accelerator. She couldn’t waste her battery on Matt. She had to report to Mr. S or she wouldn’t get paid. He had called her yesterday with a special assignment. He wanted hourly text updates on Katy’s location for forty-eight hours. Triple pay. She might be a double agent but she wasn’t going to pass up a good opportunity.

  She blew Matt a kiss in the rearview mirror and followed Katy down the road and over the Burrard Street Bridge. Rain pattered on the windshield. She turned on the wipers and peered through the smear at the flash of red in front of her. Time to replace the wipers too.

  Katy turned onto Broadway and travelled down the street, following the route they had taken this morning. When she finally turned into Hi-Tech’s parking lot, Lana frowned. She couldn’t possibly be visiting her client this late at night. Maybe she had to drop something off. Katy entered the building. After ten minutes, Lana picked up her phone and sent a text to Mr. S.

  Subject has just entered Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals on Broadway.

  She sent the message and the phone beeped twice and shut off. Damn. Hopefully Mr. S didn’t have any questions. She didn’t want to piss him off. He didn’t seem like a forgiving kind of guy.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Katy’s heart pounded as she crept through Hi-Tech’s clinical lab, using the tiny flashlight attached to her keychain to light her way. Any minute now she expected the security guards to rush in and grab her. She had been incredulous when they had let her in after she had shown them her business card and the access pass and spun a story about how she’d left her purse in the document room this morning. Martha’s story. Of course it might have helped that they’d been told Steele was expecting her in half an hour.

  Determined as she was to bring down Steele, she wasn’t prepared to do anything illegal. She would find Martin’s journals, smuggle them downstairs to the document room, and then put them into the box of documents she had copied this morning. The box had been too heavy to carry and Steele’s secretary had promised to courier it to her office on Monday. She couldn’t be accused of theft if the documents were freely given. If anyone caught her in the lab, she could just say she had lost her way going to Steele’s office. Dicey, but do-able.

  Too bad Ted would have the fun of uncovering the secrets in Martin’s journals.

  She dragged her fingers through her hair. She was taking a gamble by assuming Steele had not already found Martin’s lab books and a bigger gamble trusting a client who had withheld information from her.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Katy froze. Blood pounding through her veins, she ducked under a battered wooden desk covered with books, boxes and papers. The door creaked open. The beam of a flashlight shone around the room, and then the door banged shut. A routine check. Relieved she slid
out from under the desk. Martin’s desk. It had to be. There were no other wooden desks in the lab.

  The key Martha had given her fit the lock on the bottom drawer. She unlocked it and found a stack of notebooks with Martin’s name penciled neatly across the front.

  Her lucky day. She grabbed the notebooks and stuffed them into her briefcase.

  Now to get to the document room.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Although he wasn’t surprised to see Gordon with a gun, he couldn’t help the exclamation escaping from his mouth when Gordon pointed the gun at him.

  Heart racing, he looked over at Steele, now perched on the edge of his desk. Until seconds ago, everything had been going as smoothly as things could go for a prisoner in Steele’s palatial office. Steele had gone to make his calls. Gordon had joined him in the office. They’d had a drink, shared a few war stories, watched a few minutes of the news on Steele’s big screen TV. Steele had reappeared and asked Gordon to step outside. When they returned, Steele had a grimace and Gordon had a gun.

  Steele folded his arms and sighed. “Your kitty is here and she’s been very naughty. Overly curious. Like you.”

  Mark’s gut twisted and time seemed to slow. What had she done?

  “Where is she?” he growled.

  Steele smiled but his dark eyes were cold and hard. “So selfless. So caring. Your life is in danger and you’re thinking about her. Such a shame you didn’t care as much about Claire. Maybe she would be alive today.”

  Fist raised, Mark took a step toward Steele. Gordon cleared his throat and waved him back with the gun.

  “I tried to protect you,” Steele said. “I purposely did not give you all the information about the settlements with the cleaners because I knew you would see them for what they really were. And what did I get in return for my efforts? Nothing. You wouldn’t follow my directions. You wouldn’t hire an investigator. You wouldn’t keep your mouth closed or your eyes shut. You wouldn’t even warn that kitty away.”