Irrevocable Trust (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller Book 6) Page 14

  He scanned the park’s small picnic area and saw no evidence of an ambush.

  He waited several minutes, willing himself to be patient as his excitement grew.

  Finally, at the appointed time, he stepped onto the gravel path and headed toward the wooden structure that housed the restrooms.

  As he reached the door, a tall, lanky man stepped out of the men’s room.

  Bricker’s surprise was two-fold. One, Slim Jim hadn’t timed the drop so as to avoid an in-person meeting. Sloppy. And, two, given the younger generation’s penchant for irony, he’d assumed anyone going by the name Slim Jim would be a short, rotund guy.

  He averted his eyes and studiously avoided meeting the man’s gaze.

  Slim Jim did the same.

  Bricker pushed open the metal door and entered the bathroom. The smell of overheated cleaning chemicals hit him in the face, but he supposed that out of the possible offensive odors he could have expected, bleach was the best of the bunch.

  Let’s get on with it.

  He scanned the row of stalls for feet. None. To be sure, he kicked in each door in the row, setting off a series of bangs as the doors clanged against the metal partitions separating the stalls, one after another. No one was standing on any of the toilet seats.

  Satisfied, he walked over to the metal paper towel dispenser closest to the entrance. As promised, it was empty of paper towels. He banged his fist on the unlocked compartment. It swung open. He reached inside and grabbed the package Slim Jim had left.

  The weapon had been wrapped up in several blue, plastic grocery bags emblazoned with the Giant Eagle logo and held shut with masking tape. It wasn’t particularly elegant, but it had gotten the job done.

  He ripped open the bags and tossed them in the trash then took a few seconds to briefly examine the gun before checking the safety on the slide and shoving it into the waistband of his pants. A Beretta Cougar. Compact, concealable, accurate. Perfect.

  He exited the bathroom. He could detect a bounce in his own step—the result both of his relief at once again being armed and his considerable pride at the efficiency and effectiveness of the larger prepper network. He couldn’t claim responsibility for all of its successes, of course. But he knew that he, and men like him, had created the foundation for the organization. And he was rightfully proud.

  He caught himself whistling as he hurried away from the rest area.

  He vaulted over the wall leading to the creek that tracked the highway above and rolled up his pant legs to wade in.

  Cool water rushed around his ankles.

  He waded back toward the downtown area and his makeshift camp.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  For all her eye-rolling at Connelly’s suggestion that Maisy would act like a stereotypical, scoop-hungry reporter, Sasha wasn’t remotely surprised when her friend and neighbor pulled out a notebook the moment she spotted them talking to the patrolman in front of the door to the condo.

  She was heartened, however, to see Maisy second-guess her journalistic instinct and stuff the notepad back into her bag before trotting over to join them.

  She shot Connelly a look as if to say ‘see, she has a soul.’

  “Darlin’, I’m so sorry about your place. Both of you,” she said in her juicy-as-a-peach Southern accent. She swooped in to give Sasha and Connelly each a tight hug.

  Maisy was one of those people who hugged like she meant it. She squeezed just a little more warmly and just a touch longer than most people. As a result, Sasha found her hugs to be almost maternal in their comfort. She filed that thought away under ‘things to remember if you adopt a half-dozen children: give good hugs.’

  She laughed aloud at herself.

  Maisy, Connelly, and the baby-faced police officer all eyed her with varying degrees of concern.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “You’re prolly in shock,” Maisy proclaimed.

  She feinted for the notepad again, and Connelly headed her off.

  “You’re right. She probably is. We can’t thank you enough for noticing the break in and securing the condo until the police arrived, but you don’t have to stick around. I know you have plans this afternoon,” he said in a sincere tone.

  “Don’t be silly. I called that boy and told him we could have our lunch date some other time. My girlfriend needs me, don’t you, sweet sugar?”

  Maisy turned her brilliant eyes on Sasha.

  “Honestly, I’ll be fine. I’m sure we’ll have lots of boring questions to go over with the police and my insurance agent. You go on and do something fun—hit a sale at Banana Republic. I’ll catch up with you later,” Sasha promised.

  Maisy drooped visibly.

  The uniformed officer shuffled his feet. Sasha could see the wheels turning as he searched for a legitimate-sounding reason to keep Pittsburgh’s most attractive news personality on the scene just a little bit longer.

  Sasha looked more closely at him. Dark, closed-cropped hair, dark eyes, full lips. He was definitely Maisy’s type, if a touch on the young side.

  “Actually, why don’t you see if Officer ….”

  “Tryorus, Ma’am. Dan Tryorus.”

  “Officer Tryorus can give you an official statement while Connelly and I poke around inside. Maybe you could file a short piece? I mean, if it’s a slow news day. I doubt a routine break-in in Shadyside will merit coverage.”

  Maisy brightened.

  Officer Tryorus was torn between performing his duties and flirting with the bombshell who was gazing up at him expectantly. “Well, uh, actually, I wouldn’t call it a routine kind of situation. But it might be a good idea if you and Agent—uh, Mr., uh, Agent—Connelly took a look around and let me know if anything seems to be missing. I’ll stay posted right here at the door.”

  Connelly suppressed a grin at the police officer’s blatant excuse to hang around with Maisy, as well as his awkward manner of address. Clearly, Maisy had already filled in the young officer as to his law enforcement background. Lord knew what she’d told him about Sasha.

  He started through the door then stopped short. “You’ve confirmed the premises are vacant, right?”

  Officer Tryorus dragged his eyes away from Maisy long enough to snap to attention and answer.

  “Yes, sir!” he barked. “I personally checked in every closet and under every piece of furniture. The perpetrator’s long gone and the scene is secure, sir.”

  “Thank you, officer.”

  Connelly rested a feather light hand on Sasha’s back and gently guided her into the condo.

  She was glad for his touch because when she saw the destruction of their home she stumbled backward, and he was there to catch her.

  The thoroughness of the mayhem took her breath away for a moment.

  Every chair was upturned, the leather sliced open. Smashed picture frames were piled atop leather-bound legal books, their onionskin pages torn out and scatter across the floor.

  In the kitchen, the cabinets hung open. Glasses had been swept off the shelves and gone crashing onto the tile, where slivers of various sizes glinted in the light. The colorful ceramic dishes they’d brought back from their honeymoon in Costa Rica had been tossed onto the heap. Shards of the festive indigenous pottery stuck out from the debris at menacing angles. A row of coffee mugs that had been hanging on hooks over the sink had been scattered across the counters.

  A sob caught in her throat. Connelly rubbed her back.

  “The noise must have been spectacular,” she managed.

  “I’ll bet. It’s lucky Java was at the house with the Bennetts,” he observed.

  It was a blessing. A terrified house cat cowering in a corner would only have made the scene more painful.

  “We’re never going to be able to tell if anything’s missing.”

  “Nothing’s missing,” Connelly told her.

  “How can you be so sure? Look at this mess.”

  “Exactly. Look at this mess. This isn’t the handiwork of someon
e who was methodically looking for something. Someone—and let’s not pretend we don’t know who it was—did this in a rage.”

  She knew he was right.

  The desecration was too absolute, too personal to be anything other than a message from Jeffrey Bricker.

  “Let’s go look at the bedroom,” she said.

  Her throat was dry and tight, and it burned when she spoke. Her voice sounded strangled to her ears.

  Connelly grabbed her hand, interweaving his fingers through hers, as they mounted the stairs to the loft bedroom, the space where they shared their most intimate moments.

  If anything, the mess was worse up there.

  Their comforter was shredded into long strips. Down covered the room as if there’d been an indoor snowstorm. The wrought iron candle holder that had hung on the wall above the headboard was bent into a twisted mass in the corner of the room, its votive holders scattered in every direction. The heavy silk bedclothes were hacked into pieces and tossed in a pile.

  A quick peek into the bathroom confirmed more of the same.

  Smashed glass bottles of perfume joined overturned shampoo and body wash bottles on the floor, their contents poured out and mixed together in an eye-wateringly fragrant slick of liquid. Towels formed misshaped mounds in every corner of the bathroom. Pain relievers and allergy medications rolled underfoot like miniature marbles.

  But it was sight of her the master closet that forced her to finally release the tears she’d been fighting back.

  It wasn’t the fact that her entire wardrobe of suits, jackets, sweaters, and dresses was slashed and ruined, hanging haphazardly from hangers or thrown on the ground, that broke her down so much as the intimacy of the attack on the items she’d worn. Almost as if he’d imagined her skin as he’d stabbed, cut, and hacked his way through her closet.

  Connelly’s clothes were in the same condition, his neat rows of color-coordinated shirts and ties strewn across the floor, ripped and ruined.

  “Hey,” he said with obviously forced joviality, “I guess it’s a good thing you dragged along seventy-million pairs of shoes with you after all.”

  She faked a laugh even though she could tell he was as worried and angry as she was.

  His olive skin had paled almost to white, and he was doing that tense, jaw-clenching thing he did.

  “Why did he do this?” she whispered, asking the question more to herself than to Connelly.

  But he looked up from the pinstriped suit he was trying to salvage and locked eyes with her.

  “He wanted to do two things: send us a message and vent his rage,” he said analytically.

  “Well message received. What rage specifically are you talking about, Mr. Special Agent? I can tell you have a theory, Connelly. When are you going to realize I can read you just as well as you read me, hmm?”

  The tension around his eyes melted, and he managed a brief grin. But it didn’t last long.

  “The personal nature of the vandalism, the invasion of our space, the viciousness of the destruction—they’re all indications that he’s reacting to what he perceives as our invasion of his personal space. He wants us out of his kids’ lives.”

  She nodded. “But he’s getting sloppy. What’s the term—decompensating?”

  Connelly’s face was grim.

  “He may be. Bricker’s hallmarks have always been organization, control, and precision. Even the violence of the attack on Allison isn’t completely out of character. But, this … this is uncharacteristic.”

  Sasha’s pulse raced just under her skin, so fast that she felt faint. If Bricker was falling apart, what would that mean for the kids?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Friday

  Sasha twisted the wedding band around on her finger, while she waited for the coffee to brew. In the predawn gloom, she could just make out the thin ring of metal. She replayed the words Connelly had spoken before slipping it onto her finger.

  Were they partners—in good times, in bad, for better or worse—or not?

  Of course they were, she chided herself. But what did that mean now, in practice, in light of what he’d asked to consider?

  Java slunk into the room, creeping low on his belly, as if he could sense her tension. He wrapped himself around her ankles.

  She knelt to pet him. As she scratched the spot between his ears, the image of her engagement ring, hanging by a ribbon around his neck, popped into her mind.

  Darn you, Connelly.

  Of course she wanted children. Maybe. But six of them? At once?

  The coffee maker beeped. She stood and filled her oversized mug. She inhaled the deep, satisfying scent of fresh coffee, hot and strong, and took a long swallow.

  Her tired eyes burned from lack of sleep.

  Java mewled and turned to face the door, his tail swishing expectantly.

  A moment later, Sasha heard footsteps in the hallway.

  She rested her mug on the counter and waited.

  Connelly padded into the room, barefoot and shirtless, wearing nothing but his blue and white striped pajama bottoms.

  The side of his face was lined with a red pillow crease. He blinked in the dim light.

  “There you are. It’s not even five o’clock,” he yawned.

  “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Are you worrying about the hearing tomorrow?”

  “No.”

  “Thinking about the damage at the condo?”

  “No.”

  She fixed her eyes on his.

  He waited.

  The room was so quiet she could hear the soft tick of his wristwatch.

  Finally she found her voice.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About kids.”

  He reached for a coffee mug and filled it before responding.

  “You mean about adopting the Bennetts?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at her closely. “That’s a big decision.”

  She arched a brow at the obvious statement. “You think?”

  A slow smile spread across his mouth. “Yeah, kinda. So what are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking. I mean, six kids?”

  “They’re great kids.”

  “Connelly. There are six of them.”

  His gray eyes grew serious. “I know, Sasha. And they’re unlikely to get to stay together if they enter the system. Imagine losing your mother, effectively losing your father, and having what’s left of your family split up like a litter of puppies.”

  She could feel tears building behind her own tired eyes.

  “I know.”

  “Well?”

  She looked at her husband for a long time, for what felt like days.

  She had the hard-won ability to will herself not to cry—a skill she’d learned as the youngest of four children and the only girl. For once, she didn’t employ it.

  She leaned her head against Connelly’s chest and let her hot tears fall. She was scared, and confused, and worried.

  Finally she whispered, “I don’t know.”

  He smoothed her hair with his warm, strong hand. She listened to the steady beat of his heart under her cheek.

  “You don’t have to know now. Just give it time and the answer will come,” he whispered back.

  She closed her eyes and nodded, but she didn’t understand how he could be so sure.

  “Sasha?”

  “I heard you. I’m trying.”

  He tipped her chin up and pierced her with his soft gray eyes.

  “I know.”

  Then he covered her lips with a kiss that promised no matter what she decided, he’d be there.

  And then someone was tugging on the hem of her shirt.

  She wiped her tears from her cheeks and glanced down.

  Calla grinned up at her and thrust a brown hairbrush and a ponytail holder into her hands.

  “Will you do my hair, please? I want a braid like the princess in Frozen.”

  Sasha excha
nged glances with Connelly over the girl’s head. His puzzled shrug told her that he was as clueless about Disney princess hairstyles as she was.

  “Um, sure.”

  She took Calla’s small, warm hand and led her over to the table and chairs in the breakfast nook.

  “While you’re doing Calla’s hair, I’m going to jump in the shower and then make sure Cole and Brianna are awake,” Connelly said.

  She nodded as he left the room and focused on separating Calla’s fine, silky hair into sections.

  “Tell me again where you’re taking Cole?” the girl asked in her tiny voice.

  “Cole is going to come to court with me and Leo to talk to a judge about some grownup things,” she explained. Over my strenuous objections.

  “Cole’s not a grownup.”

  “That’s right. He isn’t, is he? But he’s almost a grownup. And now that your mom is gone, he feels like he should help take care of grownup stuff for your family.”

  She threaded the sections into a braid, careful not to tug too hard. She could still remember how her head used to smart when Valentina would attack her curls, beating them into submission with a brush and then twisting them into tight pigtails.

  “Oh. Because our dad’s a bad guy, right?”

  Sasha froze with the brush dangling mid-air.

  How was she supposed to answer that one?

  “Um, your dad did some bad things. Do you remember him?”

  “No.” Calla’s voice was matter of fact.

  “Oh.”

  She resumed braiding.

  “Is Naya going to come over and watch us?”

  “She has a test today, so Uncle Hank is going to come over instead, okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s great! He lets us have chocolate cake for breakfast!”

  “Wow, that sounds … sugary.”

  Calla giggled.

  “Are you done? Can I see?”

  Sasha twisted the elastic band around the bottom of the braid and stepped back to admire her handiwork.

  “Yep, all done.”

  She picked up the girl and carried her over to the microwave so she could see her reflection. Calla flipped the braid over her shoulder and squealed.