Irrefutable Evidence

  IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Melissa F. Miller

  Brown Street Books

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Melissa F. Miller

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Brown Street Books.

  For more information about the author,

  please visit www.melissafmiller.com.

  Brown Street Books ISBN: 978-1-940759-06-7

  Cover design by Clarissa Yeo

  CHAPTER ONE

  July 30th

  The heat from the flames warmed Nino Carlucci’s face. He took another big step backward, further into the shadows, and watched the blaze feed on the oxygen in the hot night air and gain power.

  For a thick brick building, the old factory was going up faster than he’d expected it would. He scanned the deserted street. The timing was in that sweet spot. Three-thirty in the morning. Too late for all but the most die-hard partiers, especially on mid-week night. Too early for even the earliest bakers, truck drivers making deliveries, and diner waitresses who pulled the breakfast shift. By the time someone happened by and called it in, there’d be nothing left for the firefighters to save.

  He stood for another several minutes, mesmerized by the dancing fire. It was beginning to roar and whoosh as if it were a living thing. Then he blinked, snapped himself out of the trance, and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

  He punched in ten digits and reached an answering machine. He waited for the beep then left a two-word message.

  “It’s done.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Five weeks later

  All Sasha McCandless wanted was a cup of coffee. Well, not just any cup of coffee. What she wanted was a very hot, very strong cup of Steel City Roaster’s Nicaraguan SHG—whatever that meant. But what she got was a sheepish smile and an apologetic shrug.

  “I told Jake you were gonna kill me, but I’m out of Steel City Nic.”

  Sasha tilted her head and considered Riley’s statement.

  “That’s fine.” She scanned the menu board behind the counter, “Let me have the Steel City Black.

  “We’re out of that, too.”

  “Gold?”

  “Out.”

  From the pained smile frozen on Riley’s face, she could tell the new girl’s coworkers had warned her that an undercaffeinated Sasha was an unhappy Sasha.

  “Okay, look, just give me whatever you have.” She handed her travel mug across the counter.

  Riley filled it and handed it back warily. “So, um, this isn’t super fresh, okay? Like, these beans have been sitting around awhile. They’re left over from before Jake switched over to serving Steel City’s coffees exclusively.”

  “Duly noted.” She smiled in an effort to convince the young woman that she really wasn’t that frightening, despite what her fellow employees might have told her.

  She made her way out of the coffee shop and mounted the stairs to her law office, scanning her phone for emails as she walked. She paused at the top of the stairs to sip her coffee and nearly spat it out on the hall carpet.

  “Ugh, yuck. What is this?” She screwed up her face at the bitterness.

  Naya, law student and legal assistant extraordinaire, paused outside her office and balanced a stack of file folders on her hip.

  “Oooh, they got you, too, huh? Good thing Jake’s not charging us for that swill. I’d have to file some kind of false advertising complaint.”

  It was, in fact, a good thing that Jake provided his tenants with free coffee—otherwise the Law Firm of McCandless & Volmer, P.C., would likely show a loss on its operating statements.

  “I’m sure they’ll have the Steel City stuff back in stock tomorrow, but yeesh. I think I’ll call Connelly and ask him to brew a pot at home and bring us over a thermos.”

  Naya laughed. “Oh, the glamorous life of a double secret agent slash househusband.”

  “Right? What are you working on?” she nodded at the armload of files.

  “Will’s meeting with the former CFO in that financial fraud case next week to prepare him for his deposition. I’m putting together the exhibit binders.”

  “Is he going to take you to the client meeting?”

  “Hasn’t mentioned it.”

  Sasha made a mental note to suggest to her partner that he do exactly that. Naya was nearly halfway through her law school coursework—they’d be doing themselves and her a favor if they started treating her like a lawyer.

  “He will,” she assured Naya with a wink.

  Naya bumped open her door with her hip. “Just make sure you call me when Leo shows up with some drinkable coffee.”

  Sasha typed out a text pleading for said coffee as she walked the short distance to her own office. She was facing down a morning of responding to requests for interrogatories in a class action defense case. Doing it without sufficient coffee was out of the question.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  She was combing through her client’s latest 10-K statement to confirm that none of the airline’s answers to interrogatories conflicted with representations made in the company’s publicly filed financial statements when Connelly poked his head into her office.

  “I come bearing caffeine.”

  She saved her place in the financial statement and crossed the office to greet her husband properly.

  “I love you,” she said, snatching the thermos out of his hands while he leaned in for a kiss. Jake, the owner of the coffee shop on the ground floor and her landlord, followed Connelly into the room.

  “Oh, hey, Jake.”

  “Hi. I’m really sorry about the coffee. I was hoping to just use the stuff I had on hand from before I went with Steel City Roasters and give them a chance to regroup. Now it looks like I’m going to have to scramble and find a new supplier. I didn’t want to do that, but …” He scratched his neck and looked around, ill at ease.

  She felt equally awkward. “Oh, jeez, Jake, it’s not your fault. It’s just coffee, anyway.”

  The two men’s faces registered identical skeptical looks—cocked heads, arched brows, and mouths twisted in disbelief.

  “Just coffee? As far as I can tell, that stuff’s your lifeblood,” Jake responded.

  Connelly nodded unhelpfully in agreement.

  “Well, sure, but I mean it’s not the end of the world if you run out of the good stuff for one day.”

  Jake glanced down at his feet.

  “It is just one day, right?” She managed to keep the panic out of her voice.

  Jake cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about that. It looks like we may not be getting a new shipment of beans for a long time—indefinitely, actually. That’s why I’m looking around for a new supplier. But I was thinking maybe you could help, legally?”

  “Maybe. Grab a seat and you can tell me about it.”

  She poured herself a cup of the coffee that Connelly had brewed and handed him the thermos. “Would you mind running this over to Naya while Jake and I chat? She’ll skin me alive if I don’t share it while it’s fresh.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t want that to happen.” He winked at her.

  She stretched on the tips of her toes to give him one last kiss.

  “Thanks.”

  He nodded a goodbye to Jake and closed the door behind him as he left.

  She took the seat across from Jake.

  “So tell me about your problem. Is it a contract dispute?” She held her face blank and waited, expecting to h
ear a story about a requirements contract gone bad—or worse yet, some tale of woe about how he did business with Steel City Roasters on a handshake, with no written agreement.

  He blinked. “No, no, nothing like that. Pete and Tamsin—the couple behind Steel City—are really diligent. They’re awesome to work with. And, as you can tell from tasting their coffee, they’re committed to delivering a high-quality product.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Did you hear about the big fire in the Strip this past summer?”

  She searched her memory. She’d spent most of August and half of September handling a commercial lease dispute for a client headquartered in New York. Between the weekly trips to Manhattan and the expedited docket they’d ended up with, she hadn’t opened the Post-Gazette in weeks, maybe months. At best, she’d skimmed The New York Times headlines on her phone, which, not surprisingly, hadn’t covered a fire in Pittsburgh’s Strip District.

  “Sorry, no.”

  “It was all over the news. The Dried Goods Building was destroyed.”

  “The Dried Goods Building?”

  “Yeah. You know those abandoned warehouses and factories—not right on Smallman, but down closer to the river? The Urban Redevelopment Authority made a big push to get new businesses in there. They even turned a couple into loft apartments. Anyway, the Dried Goods Building housed all commercial tenants. I guess at one time it was a warehouse for, uh, dried goods. It was empty for years and years. But then someone bought it and renovated it. Pete and Tamsin leased space on the first floor for their roasting business. There was also an art gallery, an artisanal cheese shop, and a woman who spins pet fur.”

  “She spins pet fur? Into what?”

  He shrugged. “No idea. That’s what her sign said. I never went in to any of the other places, just Pete and Tamsin’s.”

  “Okay, sorry. Got a little distracted there. So this fire destroyed the entire building?”

  “Yeah, which is astonishing. It was a big old solid brick structure—it took up the entire block. But it went up so fast, they weren’t able to save anything. It’s just a shell. Pete said it’s scheduled for controlled demolition next week because it’s not structurally sound.”

  “That must have been some blaze. Was anyone hurt?”

  “No. It happened in the middle of the night, thank God. But all the businesses lost everything, including Steel City Roasters.”

  “They haven’t set up shop, at least temporarily, somewhere new?”

  “They can’t afford to. Here’s the thing—the fire started in their space. They have no clue why or how, but everyone else’s insurance company covered them right away. Pete and Tamsin’s insurer denied coverage, even though the fire inspector said the cause wasn’t suspicious and at least some of the other tenants have the same exact policy with the same insurer.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Right. So the last time I saw Pete, he said they were looking into suing their insurer to get coverage. Otherwise, they really can’t keep the business going.”

  Not a chance.

  Insurance coverage litigation. Sasha felt the bile rising in her throat. Of all the areas of the law that seemed to be designed solely to keep high-priced lawyers fully employed, there was none more soul-crushing than insurance coverage litigation. She knew lawyers at Prescott who were working on active cases that had started when she was still in college.

  She sipped her home-brewed coffee, which was pretty darned good. But it wasn’t Steel City Roasters. Jake’s eyes were pinned on her, unwavering, slightly pleading. He’d tied his fortunes to the roasters’ by going exclusive. His business was going to falter, too, especially if he kept serving the pitiful excuse for coffee she’d gotten that morning.

  She sighed and handed him a card. “Tell them to give me a call.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  FBI Agent Nino Carlucci pressed himself against the back wall of the corner drugstore and scanned the alley. Clear, except for a couple of teenaged kids, who should have been sitting in school somewhere but were slouching their way toward the deserted playground, the distinct smell of weed wafting in their wake.

  He fumbled in his pocket to locate the burner cell phone, pulled it out, and hit the autodial.

  On the third ring, a precise female voice answered the phone, all good manners and impeccable breeding. “Charlotte Cashion.”

  “It’s me.”

  The Assistant U.S. Attorney’s voice changed, the placid tone replaced by adrenalized excitement. “Is something happening?”

  “Maybe. There’s a meeting tonight. One of the bookies—old lady by the name of Margaret D’Alivette—she passed. They’re gonna carve up her territory. I’m driving Peaches.”

  “A woman bookmaker?”

  “Yeah. She ran numbers out of her house from the time her kids were little in the 60s. Used to sell Tupperware as cover. Pretty lucrative, from what I hear.”

  “The original work from home mom, eh?”

  “I guess. Anyway. The meet’s at Trixies’ in the Rocks at eight-thirty.”

  “Pardon?” The velvet voice was back.

  He rolled his eyes. He was risking his life every time he dialed Cashion’s number. The least she could do was get with the program. “Trixies. It’s an organization-run strip club in McKees Rocks.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you have time to get a wire in there?”

  It was her turned to get irritated. “You know that’s not how it works.”

  Before she could launch into some lengthy explanation of Fourth Amendment law, he said, “Whatever. Meeting’s at eight. I’ll be outside sitting in the car, so if you want to know what’s happening inside, you’ll have to figure out some other way.”

  He ended the call and jammed the phone back into his pocket. He took a minute to just stand there and let his heart rate return to normal. Then he strode past the pharmacy and ducked between the brick walls of the pizzeria that delivered both pies and street drugs if you called the right number and the private club where Peaches, the underboss he drove for, was enjoying an antipasti plate and a glass of grappa that could probably serviceably pass for paint thinner. He rapped twice on the windowless steel door and ducked inside when it opened.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Laura Yim chewed the last bite of her six-inch veggie and cheese on wheat sub and balled up the Subway wrapper. She aimed it toward the trashcan over her left shoulder and made a perfect shot. She was one hundred and sixteen of one hundred and twenty for the year for shots made with the refuse of dinners at her desk, which said more about her claims load than her basketball prowess.

  She reminded herself that if she cleared just eighteen more cases by the end of the month, she’d qualify for her performance bonus and be in the running for the top producers’ trip to Arizona. Not that she had any strong affinity for the Southwest, but it had been thirty-one months, three weeks, and two days since her last vacation. But who was counting?

  She finalized the decision letter on the Martin claim, hit print, and stood. She arched her back to stretch, tight from a long day of sitting and then hurried through the maze of cloth-backed cubicles to grab her printout from the printer. As she passed by Jim Moraine’s desk, he popped his head up over the half-wall.

  “Yo, Yim.”

  She turned, pasted on a smile, and waited for Jim’s insult de jour.

  “You eat yet?”

  “I did.”

  “Too bad, I thought maybe we could get takeout from Canton City. You could teach me how to use them chopsticks.”

  Canton City Chinese food was perhaps the least palatable takeout option in the Garden City area. Not to mention, she had it on good information that they added MSG to their MSG.

  “Bummer. Maybe next time. I hear you can order off menu. If you want the special, make sure you say ‘bahk guai’ when you call in.”

  Jim nodded. “Bahk guai,” he repeated.

  “You got it.” Her Cantonese was pretty rusty, but
she recalled enough to coach Jim on how to call himself a white devil. She suppressed a smile and turned to walk away.

  “Yim?”

  “What?”

  “If you want to clear claims faster and move up to the big leagues, I can give you some pointers.”

  “I’m doing okay, Jim.”

  “Young thing like you, you should be out clubbing with your girlfriends, not sitting in here night after night. Take it from me, I’ve been in the top producers’ club for eight straight years.” He waved his hand over the row of cheap Lucite awards lined up on his lone shelf.

  She bit down on her lower lip to prevent herself from asking how he’d managed that feat. In contrast to the massive piles of papers, folders, and files that cluttered every square horizontal spot in her workspace, Jim’s cube was spare and nearly devoid of documents.

  He seemed to sense the unasked question because he rested his elbows on the short wall and leaned forward. “You gotta be strategic, Yim. Fire, claim paid. Vehicle damage, ditto. Keep your powder dry to deny the expensive stuff—old ladies with cancer, mold claims, that kind of thing. Your closed claims percentage goes up, and even though you’re paying out more claims, they aren’t the high-dollar ones. Medical stuff, environmental crap, that gets pricy fast and can destroy your stats.”

  She stared at him unable to respond to his blatant admission—no, boast—of fraud against their employer and their insureds.

  He nodded, “You don’t gotta thank me. You’re a hard worker, kid, you just need to work smarter.”

  Finally, she found her voice. “Got it. Don’t forget, ‘bahk guai.’”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mid-December

  Leo rolled over and threw his arm around … nothing. He opened one eye. Java purred in his ear. Sasha’s side of the bed was empty, the sheets cold. Ditto the bottom of the bed, where Mocha should have been snoring and chasing squirrels in his dreams. He blinked at the bedside clock and sat up.