Improper Influence Read online

  “That’s a little strange,” he allowed. “But I’m sure Sonny was just preoccupied.”

  “Cut the crap, Bodhi. You’ve caught three of the four myocarditis deaths. And I know you were there yesterday when Martinez came in. I saw your name on the log. When’s the last time Sonny made a cut? Everybody knows he’d rather not get his hands dirty. And then your office gets ransacked and you tell me to make sure I’m not followed. What’s going on?”

  Saul’s face was mottled red with anger. Bodhi could tell he felt like he was being jerked around and it wasn’t sitting well with him. He knew just how Saul felt.

  “I honestly don’t know. All I know is my files on those girls are missing. I went in and told Sonny yesterday and he seemed remarkably unconcerned. Now, this.”

  He saw no reason to mention his belief that someone was tracking his computer usage and Leo and Sasha’s insistence that he was being shadowed.

  Saul’s eyes widened. “What do you think Sonny’s up to?”

  “I don’t know that he’s up to anything. In fact, I don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on at work at this point, but whatever it is, I think it’s safer if you let me handle it.”

  Saul emitted another snort.

  “No offense, but you’re a little on the mild-mannered side to handle anything, don’t you think?”

  Bodhi smiled. “You’d be surprised.”

  Saul just shook his head, his disbelief palpable.

  “What do you say we do a lap? It’d be a shame to let this weather go to waste,” Bodhi suggested.

  He unfolded his long legs and rose without giving Saul a chance to decline. The shorter man fell into step beside him. They walked the first quarter mile in companionable silence.

  At the turn, Saul nodded to a harried mother carrying a girl of about four piggy-back style, while wearing a younger bald-headed baby of indeterminate gender in one of those front packs that seemed to be issued to new parents along with a squealing infant.

  “Good morning,” Bodhi said. “Looks like you have your hands full.”

  “And then some. She’s the one who wanted to take a walk, and look at her!” The woman jerked a thumb backward at her daughter, who giggled and swung her legs.

  She hoisted the girl higher onto her back. The movement jostled the baby, who let out a squeak of protest.

  The sound of tires squealing on pavement caught her attention, and Bodhi followed her line of sight to see a dark green Taurus peeling out from a nearby spot. It drove by so fast the driver was a blur.

  “Slow down, jagoff! There’s kids playing in here!” the mother yelled, as the car disappeared from view.

  She turned back to Bodhi and Saul, and they shared a disgusted head shake with her before continuing on their way.

  After they’d walked several feet away from the woman, Bodhi said in a low voice, “I think that car’s been tailing me, Saul. Whatever’s going on could get messy. You have a family. You should stay out of it.”

  Saul blinked at the news that Bodhi had a tail. “You think this is all about the myocarditis cases?”

  Bodhi stopped to face him. “Don’t you?”

  “Could be. Thought you said there was no evidence of foul play.”

  “That was my finding.”

  “So, what then ...”

  Bodhi didn’t want to lead him to any conclusion. He watched Saul’s face as the other man computed the information he had.

  Saul frowned. “A SUD cluster?” he said at last.

  “Possibly. But Sonny didn’t want to hear it. There are four dead women, all with the same rare cause of death, in a short span of time, and the medical examiner hasn’t mobilized an investigative field team.”

  “Yeah, he should have had guys beating the pavement days ago. It’s the first thing you do.”

  “I know that, and you know that. And Sonny knows it better than anybody. So why hasn’t he done it?”

  They looked at each other for a long, silent moment.

  Then Saul said, “Well, I’m not gonna let you twist in the wind. You need something, you let me know.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Bodhi clasped him on the shoulder and turned to walk back in the direction they’d come from. By unspoken agreement, Saul continued around the loop in the opposite direction. There didn’t seem to be any good reason to risk leaving together considering they didn’t know who might be watching.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Still wired from skulking around late into the night, Sasha was unable to sleep soundly. She was up well before the sun rose in the hazy sky. With Java nestled in her lap for company and several oversized mugs of strong coffee for fortitude, she plowed through all the documents she’d brought home to review before Connelly woke up.

  She deposited the purring cat on the couch and jammed a baseball cap onto her head, looping her ponytail through the back. Then she laced her running shoes and scribbled a note to let Connelly know she was dashing out to pick up bagels.

  She considered the car keys hanging on the peg beside the door for a second then shook her head. She needed to run, to clear her head, work her lungs, and shake off the unspecified dread that had settled in her chest.

  She pushed through the lobby door and cut through the parking lot, swiveling her head to check for a green Taurus. All clear.

  She ran down to Baum Boulevard, catching a wave of well-timed streetlights that enabled her to avoid that awkward jogging in place business runners did at red lights. When she reached the edge of the Einstein Brothers’ Bagels lot, she slowed to a walk and dug her money out of the tiny zippered pocket sewn into the side of her exercise pants.

  To her happy surprise, she’d managed to beat the Sunday morning after-church crowd. The deli was almost empty except for a couple working The New York Times crossword puzzle together at a table in the corner and a bleary-eyed father juggling what appeared to be two-year-old twins covered in yogurt.

  She ordered her bagels, lox, and cream cheese and scanned the headlines on the stack of newspapers on the wire rack by the counter while she waited for the extremely cheerful teenager behind the counter to get the order together. The lead story was the death of the fourth young woman, Mia Martinez. The small color headshot accompanying the article revealed a vibrant, smiling beauty just this side of adulthood. A larger photograph in the center of the page showed the Chief Medical Examiner, somber-faced and grave, addressing reporters at an impromptu press conference in front of his offices. The mayor stood beside him with an identical serious expression. The pull-out quote under the picture assured Pittsburghers that this most recent tragic death was in no way connected to the others. “People like to search for patterns, for reasons, but sometimes coincidences do happen. This is one of those times.”

  Could he be right? Surely he wouldn’t jeopardize the lives of an untold number of people in the city unless he truly believed what he said was true?

  “Miss—?”

  Sasha blinked and focused her attention on the voice. The girl at the counter holding out the paper sack and looking at her with some concern.

  “Sorry,” she said, flashing the girl a smile. “Got lost in thought. Have a good one.”

  During the short walk back to her condo, she continued to turn the medical examiner’s position over in her head. Just months earlier, the city had been targeted as the release point for a highly contagious, deadly virus. She and Connelly had helped the authorities prevent the release, and, in the process, she’d gotten a crash course in pandemics.

  She knew there was no danger of myocarditis sweeping the globe and killing millions of people, but the potential for a regional epidemic seemed like a real concern. And easily avoidable, to hear Bodhi tell it. So, why wouldn’t the Medical Examiner assemble an investigative team to run the issue to ground, just in case there was a connection?

  She took the stairs from the lobby to her floor and dug out her key. Inside, she was greeted by Java, who was mewing loudly and urgently.
>
  She set the bag on the kitchen island and scanned the first floor for Connelly, who rarely slept past six. But there was no evidence that he was awake, so she shushed the cat and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee.

  Java wound himself around her leg and continued to cry insistently.

  “I fed you already,” she told him but walked over to the corner of the foyer where his food dish and water bowl sat. She checked to see if he had eaten his breakfast. The cat followed, darting between her legs.

  “You have food, Java. What’s gotten into you?”

  He stared up at her and yowled.

  The sound sent a small shiver up her spine. The last time he’d made that shrill cry was the night she’d found him and his badly beaten former owner in a parking lot.

  Her heart sped up and she raced up the stairs to the loft bedroom to check on Connelly, not bothering to be quiet. Java tore up the stairs behind her.

  Their bed was empty and had been made with Connelly’s usual military precision. The door to the bathroom was open and ajar. Inside, the lights were off and the water wasn’t running.

  “Did he go out?” she asked the cat, wishing he could answer.

  Java looked up, his blue eyes dilated and wide, but gave no hints as to Connelly’s whereabouts.

  She told herself he had probably just gone for a run or to pick up milk or something, but the fine hairs on her arms prickled. There’d been too much danger in their lives not to assume the worst.

  She turned to go back downstairs to get her phone and call him.

  As she passed her walk-in closet, strong arms grabbed her and pulled her inside. Her attacker covered her mouth with one hand and pulled the door shut with the other.

  They were plunged into complete darkness. She couldn’t see anything but she knew his eyes had already adjusted to the lack of light. A temporary advantage for him.

  Her heart thumped like a drum in her ears. She forced herself to control her breathing.

  The man dragged her roughly toward the back of the closet and her face brushed against a row of suit jackets.

  She twisted her head, turning from one side to the other in an effort to free herself.

  One hand was clamped firmly over her mouth. The other pinned her wrists together and wrenched them behind her back, forcing her to turn at an awkward angle.

  She could hear his breathing, hard and fast. It was the only sound in the small space.

  On the other side of the closet, the cat cried and scratched at the door.

  Think.

  She ran through her available options.

  She could probably base her legs out and get enough leverage to bring a knee crushing into his groin. But she had good reasons not to use that maneuver.

  She could head butt him. But that would leave her with a nasty headache and the bumps and bruises would require some explaining.

  So she bared her teeth and sunk them into the soft, fleshy webbing between the thumb and ring finger of the hand over her mouth. She didn’t stop until she tasted his blood, warm and coppery.

  He yelped and jerked his hand away.

  “Connelly,” she said in the darkness, “let me go. I want to have breakfast.”

  She heard her fiancé’s familiar rumbling laughter. Then he released her arms and pushed the door open.

  She followed him out into the bedroom, where the cat rolled around at her feet purring in a spasm of apparent relief.

  Connelly thrust his injured hand toward her. “Why the heck did you bite me if you knew it was me?” he demanded.

  “You assumed the risk when you got the brilliant idea to ambush me,” she said over her shoulder as she headed into the bathroom.

  He trailed after her, grumbling.

  She turned on the water and let it run into the sink until it was warm.

  “How’d you know it was me, anyway?”

  She took his hand and put it under the water, trying not to roll her eyes. She’d barely punctured the skin.

  As she washed the bite mark with soap, she said, “We share a bed, Connelly. I recognize your smell and the way your body feels in the dark.”

  She rinsed his hand and patted it dry. Then she slathered it with antibacterial ointment and slapped a bandage on it.

  “There,” she said, admiring her handiwork. “Now can we eat?”

  “After I’ve said good morning properly.” He leaned over and kissed her.

  “So, you acknowledge jumping me and forcing me into a closet isn’t a proper greeting?”

  “I told you. You’ve been slacking off on the Krav Maga. I just wanted to make sure your instincts are still solid.”

  “And ...?”

  “And, I’d like to thank you for not kneeing me in the nuts.”

  “You’re welcome,” she deadpanned, “although, to be honest, I refrained mainly for my own sake. Let’s eat already. We have reception venues to tour.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sasha presented herself in Prescott & Talbott’s gleaming main lobby at seven a.m. on Monday. Her best shot at an uninterrupted conversation with Will would be before his employees started to arrive in force. Her best shot at convincing him to reconsider his decision about Naya and the potential conflict was a face-to-face chat. So she had, yet again, skipped her Krav Maga class over Connelly’s muttered objection.

  Her heels echoed as they clacked against the bright marble. She crossed the silent lobby space and noted with mild surprise that the receptionist was someone she’d never seen before. A blonde woman, barely out of her teens, greeted Sasha with an impersonal smile.

  “May I help you?”

  “Where’s Anne?” Sasha blurted.

  Prescott & Talbott’s morning receptionist had been a fixture for decades. She took one week’s vacation a year to go to Myrtle Beach with her family. But that was always the first week of August, never in May.

  The woman tilted her head. “Her daughter just had a baby, so Anne’s helping her out. And you are?”

  “Oh, sorry. Sasha McCandless.”

  The woman met her name with a perfectly blank expression.

  “Who are you here to see, Ms. McCandless?”

  “Will. Will Volmer.”

  A thin, shaped eyebrow crawled up the woman’s face. “You aren’t on Mr. Volmer’s schedule. What are you here regarding?”

  “Bread.” Sasha raised the foil-covered sourdough above the level of the credenza that fronted the reception desk.

  “Bread.” The left eyebrow crept up to join its mate just under the receptionist’s hairline. “I’ll call Mrs. Masters, his secretary, and see if he can see you.”

  “Great. Tell Caroline I have a loaf for her, too.”

  The receptionist ignored that and punched a number into her phone. “You can wait over there,” she stage-whispered, waving toward an arrangement of chairs.

  Sasha smiled. She’d almost forgotten about Cinco’s art chairs.

  Charles Anderson Prescott, V, better known as “Cinco,” had preceded Will as chair of the firm. An heir of the original Prescott, Cinco was a lousy lawyer, a so-so manager, and an art aficionado.

  He had commissioned a sculptor and a fiber artist to collaborate to create iconic chairs for the reception area of the firm’s lobby. The insanely expensive chairs were tall and angular. They were covered in snowy white slubbed silk—a fabric Sasha was able to identify thanks only to her recent forays into bridal boutiques. The chairs made a dramatic, not to mention unwelcoming, impression, just as they were intended to do.

  Sasha had been a second-year associate when the chairs had arrived. Cinco’s memorandum to the firm announcing the “chair installation” had included both a lengthy description of the aesthetic and artistic merits of his new acquisitions and explicit instructions that employees of the firm were not permitted to sit in the chairs. And as far as Sasha knew, no one—neither visitor nor employee—had ever dared to do so.

  She gave the receptionist an innocent look and lowered herself into the n
earest chair. Panic and disbelief flooded the woman’s face, and she whispered furiously into the phone.

  Sasha passed the next several minutes flipping through a marketing brochure that detailed Prescott & Talbott’s dominance in multiple practice areas and pretending not to notice the receptionist glaring at her. The back leaf of the pamphlet described the firm’s pro bono practice and community service programs. That was a new addition to the materials that could only have come from Will, who had been the firm’s main champion of giving back to the community long before he took over as chairman.

  Footsteps sounded along the corridor. Sasha glanced up, expecting to see Will’s secretary, but it was Will’s thin face that looked back at her. He suppressed a smile at the sight of her sullying Cinco’s chair and crossed the space with his arms open.

  “What’s this I hear about bread? Is Leo baking again?” he asked, as she slid off the stupid chair and submitted to a quick hug.

  “Nope. I made this batch all by myself.”

  Will seemed duly impressed.

  “Have you met our new receptionist, Jayne? Jayne, Sasha was a rising star here until she struck out on her own for bigger things.”

  Jayne smoothed her scowl into a smile. “It’s a pleasure.” She offered the tips of her fingers in a lame lady-style handshake that drove Sasha bananas.

  After shaking Jayne’s fingers, Sasha followed Will to the stairwell.

  “Stairs?” he confirmed.

  “Always.”

  “So, are Cinco’s chairs as uncomfortable as they look?” he asked over his shoulder, as they trudged up to the top floor.

  “More.”

  “Next time, do me a favor and spill a cup of coffee on one. Then I can justify getting rid of them. Eighty thousand dollars on chairs.” He shook his head.

  They continued on in silence until they reached the hallway outside Caroline’s office. As the managing partner of the firm, Will had a dedicated secretary who rated her own office outside his instead of a seat in a bullpen shared with three other secretaries.

  He pushed open the door to Caroline’s office.