Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) (4 page)

“Take a nap,” he suggested.

She wasn’t tired. She’d brought
along some reading material, but it had remained in the bag at her feet. The
truth was, she’d agreed to come along on the drive because the point of renting
the lake house was to spend time together, away from their respective jobs and
other commitments. She figured she could spend time with Connelly in the front
seat of his SUV as easily as she could curled up under a soft blanket in front
of a fire.

So, here they were. Nearing the
hour mark in their together time on the road.

It had been a quiet forty-five
minutes. It was funny: they’d been so comfortable together for a year. But
then, Connelly’s move—and the way it had come about—had pried them apart,
leaving an open space between them, where before there had been none.

The distance confused Sasha, and
she wasn’t sure how to bridge it.

“What’s so important that they’re
dragging you into the office on a Friday night, anyway?” she asked.

As she heard the words aloud, she
winced. It sounded accusatory, when she intended only to make conversation.

Connelly flicked his eyes toward
her, then back to the road. “Corporate espionage, apparently. I don’t have any
details and couldn’t share them if I did.”

She understood. Of course, when
she
hadn’t been able to share information with
him
because of
attorney-client privilege or other confidentiality issues, he had never been
quite so understanding. Water under the bridge.

She waited a moment then said, “I’m
not trying to tell you what to do, but, if I were you, I would loop in your
in-house counsel now.”

Connelly bobbed his head. “That’s
probably a good idea.”

He hit the Bluetooth connection
and said, “Call general counsel.”

“Dialing general counsel,” the
tinny, computer voice reported.

While the phone rang, Sasha stage
whispered, “Make sure you tell him I’m in the car, so he knows the conversation’s
not protected by privilege.”

Connelly rolled his eyes.

“Oliver Tate,” a rich, tenor
voice boomed through the SUV’s speakers.

“Hi, Oliver, it’s Leo.”

“What can I do for you, Leo?” the
man responded immediately, his voice betraying a hint of impatience.

Connelly cleared his throat and
said, “Before I get to that, I want to let you know I’m in the car, so I have
you on speakerphone. I also have my … friend in the car, and she tells me that
means this conversation isn’t privileged.”

Tate’s voice took on a note of
amusement. “Would this be your lady friend, the lawyer from Pittsburgh?”

Lady friend?
Sasha
swallowed a giggle.

Connelly flushed pink and said, “That’s
right. Sasha McCandless.”

“Hello, counselor,” Tate said.

“Hi,” Sasha responded.

“With Ms. McCandless’s admonition
firmly in mind, let’s get down to business,” Tate said.

“Sure thing, and I’m sorry to
bother you on a Friday evening, but Grace called me to report a possible
corporate espionage issue,” Connelly said.

As they neared the town of
Frostburg and began their climb up the mountains, the temperature dropped, and
the wind howled. Sasha hit the button to activate her seat warmer. Connelly
must have seen her from the corner of his eye because he raised the temperature
on the dashboard control.

Tate was silent for a long
moment. Then he repeated, “Corporate espionage?”

“Yes, sir,” Connelly responded.

Tate exhaled loudly.

Connelly waited.

“That’s not good, Leo.”

“No, it’s not,” Connelly agreed.

He looked at Sasha, as though she
might have something to add.

She shrugged at him.

“ViraGene is behind this.”

“We don’t know that, Oliver.”

Tate snorted. “
I
know it.”

“I understand where you’re coming
from, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions until we have all the details,”
Connelly cautioned.

“Nonetheless, I think the facts will
bear me out. Keeping in mind that Ms. McCandless is listening; do you have any
details you can share?” Tate asked.

“I really don’t. Even if Sasha
weren’t here, I don’t know anything beyond what I’ve said. Grace didn’t want to
discuss it on the phone, which was the right decision. I’m on my way back to
town from Deep Creek now. I can meet you in the office in two, two-and-a-half,
hours,” Leo offered.

“That won’t work. I’m in Jackson
Hole. I’ve got a little place in the mountains,” Tate said.

Little place in the mountains.
Sasha was fairly sure that was inside the Beltway code for ‘luxurious ski
chalet.’

Leo and Tate fell silent,
considering their next steps.

Tate spoke first.

“I’d really rather not interrupt
my vacation, particularly since this isn’t the sort of issue I’d handle
personally.” His tone was equal parts sheepish and defensive.

Sasha twisted her mouth into a
smile. That was the upside of being an in-house lawyer: instead of ruining Tate’s
ski vacation, this little emergency would end up ruining the weekend for some
unsuspecting associate at whichever outside firm Tate retained to handle it.

As if he were reading her mind,
Tate went on, “Unfortunately, over my objection, our new legal budget froze
rates for all of our legal services providers. The unintended consequence of
that brilliant cost-saving measure is that all of our work gets pushed down to
some baby lawyer who can’t find his bar card with both hands and a flashlight.” 
Tate guffawed.

Sasha rolled her eyes.

Leo’s hands tightened on the
wheel, making his knuckles go white. He was getting agitated.

“So, how do you propose we handle
this, then?” he asked in a neutral voice, masking his annoyance.

Tate thought for a moment. Then
he said, “Ms. McCandless, you handle complex commercial litigation, don’t you?”

Sasha’s stomach dropped as she
realized where Tate was going with this.

“Excuse me?” she managed.

“Your firm handles trade secret,
breach of contract, unfair competition—those sorts of matters—does it not?”
Tate answered.

Sasha shook her head as if he
could somehow see her through the phone.

“No. Well, yes. But, I absolutely
do not handle criminal matters. And corporate espionage has the potential to
veer into the white collar crime area,” she said.

Leo frowned at her.

She hurried to add, “I’m
flattered to be considered, of course. It’s just a firm policy that I really
cannot bend.”

Will not bend
, she
thought.
Not ever again
.

Tate was undeterred. “That
practice limitation shouldn’t matter. If any crime has been committed here, we’d
be the victim, not the actor. You’d simply have to interface with the
authorities.”

He was right, of course. But,
still. Sasha had vowed not to leave her comfort zone again. She was a civil
litigator, not a comic book superhero. Corporate espionage sounded exciting,
and she’d had too much excitement in the past eighteen months. She wanted to
focus on the mundane aspects of practicing law: responding to discovery
requests; taking depositions; putting together doorstop-sized briefs in support
of motions for summary judgment. No intrigue. No adrenaline. No nightmares.

“That’s true,” she said, “but, I’m
not a member of the Maryland bar.” It sounded like a weak excuse, even to her.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” Tate
assured her.

She looked at Connelly. He was
looking back at her, a pleading expression on his face.

She couldn’t.

“Mr. Tate, as much as I
appreciate the offer, I don’t think it would be a good idea,” she said.

Tate exhaled audibly.

“Listen. I don’t care that you
and Leo are involved, okay? That doesn’t bother me. What
will
bother me
is having to tell my thirteen-year-old twins—who I’ve pulled out of school for
the week—that we have to cut our trip short. And what will
really
bother
me is dealing with their horrible mother when she finds out I am going to want
to rejigger our visitation schedule yet again. I don’t have any litigators in
our legal department—they’re all regulatory lawyers and patent folks—but they’ll
give you whatever support you need.” He spoke in a firm tone that made clear he
would brook no argument on the subject.

Sasha was prepared to argue
anyway, but Connelly put his hand over hers. He caught her eye and mouthed the
word ‘please.’

She stopped.

Connelly rarely asked her for a
big favor. Or anything, really. The last request he’d made of her was that she
marry him (maybe, that part still wasn’t entirely clear) and move to D.C. to be
with him. She’d fumbled that question pretty badly. Couldn’t she just take the
stupid case, appease Tate, and show Connelly that she was willing to put his
needs first every now and again?

“Great,” she mumbled. “I look
forward to working with your people on this.”

Leo blew a kiss her direction and
turned his attention back to the road, all smiles now.

She looked out the passenger
window while he said his goodbyes with Tate. Her mouth went dry, a hard lump
lodged itself in her throat, and a knot took up residence in the pit of her
stomach. All signs that she had made a mistake. A bad mistake.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As Sasha hurried
alongside Connelly through the hushed corridors of the sprawling Serumceutical
complex, she tried to shake off her conviction that getting herself involved in
her boyfriend’s company’s corporate espionage problem had been a mistake. She
told herself this matter was in her wheelhouse: complex commercial litigation—a
business dispute between competitors, by the sounds of it. She’d cut her teeth
on unfair competition and interference with contractual relations cases as a
baby lawyer at Prescott. And yet, she couldn’t deny the very real queasiness
that she’d been fighting ever since she’d agreed to do it.

Connelly stopped in front of a
frosted glass door. A nameplate on the wall announced this was his office. He
waved his company ID card in front of a card reader mounted on the wall beneath
his name. A red light flickered and a
beep
followed by a mechanical
click
indicated the door had unlocked. As he pushed it open, he turned and looked at
her closely.

“You okay?”

She nodded and swallowed. “Yep.
My stomach’s a little upset, that’s all. Your driving being what it is.” She
threw him a grin.

He narrowed his eyes as though he
didn’t buy her story, but then he smiled back at her and waved her into the
office ahead of him. “After you, Counselor.”

Sasha stepped past him and into the
office. The motion-sensing lights came to life, and Sasha looked around. The
room fit Connelly. It was understated and warm. The furniture was Mission
style: solid, sturdy, yet attractive. A brick red carpet anchored a seating
arrangement, and a large photograph of the Sedona Red Rock Mountains, mimicking
the red of the carpet, hung over the sofa.

“Nice office,” she said.

“Thanks.” Connelly moved over to
the desk and pushed a button on his phone. “Grace helped me decorate it,” he
said as the ringing of a telephone sounded through the speaker of the phone on
his desk.

Grace was the woman who had
called Connelly’s cell phone earlier in the day. She’d also helped him pick out
his office furniture?

“Grace?” Sasha asked.

“You’ll meet her in a moment; she’s
my deputy,” Connelly said, holding up a finger to forestall further
conversation as a woman picked up the ringing phone on the other end.

“Roberts,” said the woman in a
crisp, no-nonsense voice.

Connelly had often mentioned someone
named Roberts when he’d talked about his new job. For some reason, Sasha had
assumed Roberts would be a man.

She conjured up an image of the
female Roberts. Late middle-aged, with cropped gray hair and a firm handshake.
She probably wore pantsuits to work four days a week. But today was Friday, so,
in the time-honored faux informality of casual day, she would be dressed in
pressed khakis and a cotton button-down shirt—possibly light pink in a
concession to femininity.

“I’m here,” Connelly said. “Come
down to my office when you can.”

“Be right there, boss,” the woman
replied and ended the call.

Connelly walked around his desk
and joined Sasha near the seating area.

“Sit wherever you want,” he said.
“Do you want anything to drink? Grace can make some coffee.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow. Connelly
had his female underling fetching coffee? How 1960s of him.

“No, thanks,” she said, although
she would have loved a cup. Poor Roberts.

There was a light rap on the
door, and Connelly walked over to open it.

“We take security very seriously
around here,” he told her over his shoulder. “No one else’s key card will open
my door. Not even Grace’s.”

“How’s everyone else’s work?” she
asked. Surely, the company didn’t program each individual employee’s card so
precisely.

“Good question,” Connelly said. “We
can get into the procedures after Grace gives us her report.”

He pulled the door inward, and a
tall, shapely redhead with bright blue eyes strode into the room. The woman’s
hair tumbled past her shoulders in big waves. Instead of the Brooks Brothers
business casual uniform Sasha had imagined, Grace wore a fitted wrap dress that
highlighted her curves and knee-high black boots with a heel that put her about
even with Connelly’s six feet in height.

Sasha suddenly felt even smaller
than usual—at a hair under five feet and shy of one hundred pounds soaking wet,
she was used to being the tiniest adult in a room. But this woman was a
giantess. A gorgeous giantess.

“How was the drive?” she asked
Connelly.