Inadvertent Disclosure (19 page)

Stock frowned. “And what
precisely is your need to know, Special Agent Connelly?”

Connelly reddened.

Before he could open his mouth
and get himself in trouble, Sasha jumped in.

“I reached out to Special Agent
Connelly as part of my now-defunct investigation,” she lied.

Stock raised a brow. “You
thought the Federal Air Marshal Service would be the appropriate agency to help
you track down an ecoterrorist?”

He looked meaningfully at the
table set for two to let her know he wasn’t buying what she was selling.

She continued to spin her tale.
“I thought perhaps he—you—had fled the jurisdiction and might be traveling by
plane. As you may have surmised, Special Agent Connelly and I have a personal
relationship. So, I asked him to put Jay Last Name Unknown on the TSA’s watch
list.”

Stock just stared at her.

“But, I’m sure we broke some
regulation. Why don’t you report it? Make sure you mention that you ambushed
and handcuffed an officer of the court at gunpoint in that report.”

He moved on.

“So where are we now?” he
asked.

“Where we are now,” Connelly
said, having made a full recovery from his earlier tongue-tied state, “is
eating dinner. Pull up a chair.”

Over mouthfuls of chicken and
peanut noodles, washed down by a robust merlot for Sasha and Connelly and tap
water for Stock, the three dissected Stickley’s story about the keys and his
convenient discovery of the tapes and notes in Stock’s bag.

Sasha was forthcoming about the
fact that she thought Russell was clean but couldn’t be sure. She left out her
conviction that Gloria was hiding something, and Connelly didn’t mention it.

Stock wiped his mouth with his
napkin and pushed back his chair. “Good eats. Thanks.”

He looked from Sasha to
Connelly and his prickishness fell away, replaced by anxiety. “Look, I’m up for
a promotion. I can’t get tagged with a blown cover. Not now. I really need your
help. I’ll do what I can to get you information on the QT. Okay?”

“Of course,” Connelly said
immediately, as Sasha knew he would.

His ready agreement annoyed
her, as she also knew it would.

“Let’s start with this
information,” she said. “I know Connelly’s contact said Big Sky was clean, but
I’ve heard the oil and gas companies have to play ball with the county
commissioners if they want to get the gas out of Clear Brook County. Can you
pull background information on the commissioners? Start with Heather Price.”

Stock furrowed his brow, “I
have, of course. The Wilson family has had a hard time recovering from the
scandal back in the 70s, but, by all accounts, Ms. Price has made good.”

She furrowed her brow right
back at him. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

For all his pokes at Stickley’s
intellect, Stock wasn’t exactly coming off as a genius.

“Price is the daughter of Clyde
Wilson, local businessman turned pauper.”

“Wait. Heather Price is
Wilson’s daughter?”

“Affirmative.”

“Shelly Spangler, the town
doctor, is her sister?”

“Again, affirmative.”

CHAPTER 30

Rails to Trails Mile Marker 14

Clear Brook County,
Pennsylvania

Tuesday evening

Shelly checked her watch. Eight
p.m. on the dot. She stood by her car at the trailhead and waited for Heather.
Her sister was always late. As if Shelly’s tight schedule meant nothing.

Shelly rubbed her hands
together. It was too dark and too cold for a walk on the trail, but Heather
refused to move their weekly power walks to a mall or the Y. She had always
been an outdoorsy person, her younger sister’s comfort be damned.

Stop it
, Shelly told herself.

Heather was the only family she
had left. Their relationship, for all its faults, was her tie to her childhood.
She sometimes wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to loosen that tie
completely and let her youth, with all its sorrow and suffering, float off into
the sky, far away.

But, in the end, she couldn’t.
She did love Heather. And she valued where she came from. She couldn’t dismiss
how she’d grown up, despite the pain.

High beams swept the parking
lot as Heather sped in, bumping over the uneven ground, and came to a stop
across two spots.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said in a
not-at-all sorry voice, as she hopped out of her truck.

She fell into step beside
Shelly, and they walked onto the dark and empty trail.

Shelly was glad for the tall
lights that Heather and her fellow commissioners had voted to install every one
hundred feet on the trail. She just wished they had been spaced a little
closer.

“How’s everything?” she asked,
as they quickened their pace.

Their goal was to cover three
miles in under thirty minutes. The Wilson girls always achieved their goals.

“Good,” Heather huffed, her
arms pumping like pistons. “Business is good. I’m going to need to expand the
fleet if the drilling keeps up like it’s been.”

 “That’s great,” Shelly said
and meant it.

She had no ownership stake in
the trucking company, but under their arrangement, they each got a cut of all
the money that flowed, directly or indirectly, from the fracking leases. That
meant Shelly got a percentage of the take from the trucking contracts with the
oil and gas companies, just as Heather got a percentage of the mineral leases
Shelly signed. They carried their own expenses, so it didn’t matter to Shelly
if Heather had to invest in more trucks, just like Heather didn’t care about
all the hours Shelly spent filling out those blasted annual reports to the
Orphans’ Court on all the properties. The only expense they shared, and it
galled Shelly to do it, was the cost of keeping Stickley cooperative. At least
Heather footed the bill for Bob Griggs.

“It is, and it isn’t,” Heather
said now. “These oil companies need to slow down and start listening to public
opinion somewhat. It wouldn’t take much. Sponsor the wellness fair. Or donate
some books to the library. But, if they keep coming across as money-hungry
outsiders, the tide is really going to turn.”

That would be bad, especially
now, because their newest venture was heavily dependent on fracking being
around for the long term.

Shelly felt her chest squeeze and
reassured herself. Heather wouldn’t let that happen. Not out of any sisterly
love, but out of her own self-interest.

They reached the 1.5 mile
marker and turned around. Shelly checked her watch. It was just a quarter after
eight. They were ahead of pace. And she figured she had at least twenty minutes
before the call came summoning her to the hospital. The timing was perfect.

“You’re still planning to come
to the grand opening, right?” Heather interrupted her calculations.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said. Although
Café on the Square was Heather’s project, she’d already promised Shelly a cut
of all the catering contracts she could manage to force down the oil companies’
throats.

“Good. Wear something festive.
The way some people are carrying on, you’d think we killed Bob instead of
buying him out.”

No, Shelly thought, you’d only
kill him if you couldn’t buy him out.

CHAPTER 31

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Tuesday, 9:10 p.m.

After Stock left, with a
promise to dig further into the personal lives and business dealings of Heather
Price and Shelly Spangler, Sasha and Connelly cleared the table. She rinsed the
dishes and loaded the dishwasher while he used the other side of the double
sink to wash the cooking gadgets and array of pots and pans he seemed to need
to create any meal, even one that came from the slow cooker. Not that she was
complaining. The end result was fabulous.

She ran a dish under the water,
her mind on the water in Clear Brook County and the Wilson sisters.

“You okay?” Connelly asked.

“Yeah, just thinking.” She
turned the faucet, stopping the flow of water, and slid the plate into the
dishwasher. “All done. You want me to dry?”

“No, I’m about finished, too.
Grab your wine and relax. You can keep me company.”

No need to ask her twice. She
dried her hands and reached for her glass on the gleaming countertop. Gloria’s
recipe box caught her eye.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Gloria
sent some recipes home with me. I assume you wanted them?”

He looked at her, puzzled. “I
didn’t ask her for any. Her food was good, though. I’ll check them out.”

He placed the last pot on the
drying rack and wiped his hands on a towel. Then, he reached across her for the
recipe box and looked inside.

“Oh.”

“What?”

“Look.” He held the box out to
her.

She put down her glass and took
the little cardboard box. Contrary to its name, it held no recipes. Just one
mini-cassette tape marked “2.”

She ran to her desk and fumbled
in the top drawer, pushing paper clips and highlighters aside until she found
her old handheld recorder. She hadn’t used it since college. No chance the
batteries would still be good.

Where was the charger? She
shoved a box of envelopes to the side and rifled through the next drawer down.

“Slow down,” Connelly told her.
“It’s not going anywhere.”

He was right, but she ignored
him. Her heart was racing and her hands were shaking. This could be it. The
key.

“I can’t find the charger.” She
could hear panic in her own voice and forced herself to speak more calmly.
“We’re going to need to get batteries.”

“Okay, the 7-11’s open. It’s a
nice night. We can walk.”

His deliberate calm was rubbing
off on her. She felt her anxiety level falling.

“Sure.”

They were putting on their
jackets when Sasha’s phone rang. It was Marty Braeburn, apologizing all over
himself for calling so late.

“It’s not a problem,” Sasha
assured him, the phone jammed between her ear and her shoulder as she zippered
her fleece jacket to her chin. Spring might come in March, but April in
Pittsburgh still carried a chill.

“I thought you’d want to know,
Jed Craybill has been admitted to Clear Brook General. He’s incoherent and
dehydrated. There’s no next of kin and his health care power of attorney names
his late wife. The county’s going to step in. Dr. Spangler’s here. I assume you
have no objection to her making his medical decisions?”

The air went out of Sasha’s
diaphragm, like she’d been gut punched.

Jed had been fine—better than
fine—just one day earlier. How could he have gotten into such bad shape so
fast?

“Thanks for calling, Marty. Mr.
Craybill has a new physician. Dr. Alvin Kayser, a geriatric specialist here in
Pittsburgh. Dr. Kayser and I are on our way. The county is not authorized to
act on Mr. Craybill’s behalf, absent a verifiable medical emergency, in which
case, I expect an ER doc to call my cell phone first. Are we clear?”

She grabbed a piece of paper
and scrawled Dr. Kayser’s telephone number on it from memory then shoved it
into Connelly’s hands. He could get through to the doctor’s answering service
and have him on the line by the time she was off the phone with Braeburn.

Connelly nodded; he understood
what she wanted him to do. He pulled out his phone and walked over to the
window to make the call.

On the other end of Sasha’s
phone, Braeburn huffed. “A specialist from Pittsburgh? This is beyond the pale.
I called you as a courtesy—”

She cut him off. “A courtesy
that I greatly appreciate. Now, I’m returning the favor, and letting you know I
will raise holy hell if anyone up there takes steps beyond keeping my client
alive until his doctor arrives.”

“This specialist doesn’t even
have privileges up here, I imagine. This is absurd!” He was sputtering.

 “Are you telling me the county
hospital isn’t going to grant my patient’s personal physician the right to
evaluate him and have him moved to another facility?”

 “Of course not. I just . . .
Okay. Please get here quickly, though. I don’t know how much time he has.”
Braeburn’s voice softened and took on a sad note.

“We’ll be there as fast as we
can. Thanks again for the call.”

“You’re welcome. You should
know I plan to make some calls and see if Judge Paulson’s replacement has been
named yet. I’ll be requesting an emergency hearing.”

“That’s fine, Marty.”

She ended the call and joined
Connelly by the window.

“We’ll pick you up, sir.” He jotted
an address on the sheet of paper Sasha had given him and hung up.

“He’s getting dressed. Grab
your stuff and let’s go.”

He slid the phone into his
pocket and hurried to the bedroom, where he kept a change of clothes and some
toiletries.

“Are you sure you can come back
up there? I can handle it myself. I know you have a job of your own.” A job he
seemed intent on jeopardizing for her.

He took her by the shoulders.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on up there, but I know you aren’t walking
into it alone.”

She smiled up at him. “Let’s
go, then.”

They flew around the loft,
throwing clothes and papers into bags. Sasha strapped on her backpack. Connelly
carried their overnight bags. On his way out the door, he reached over the
counter and grabbed the tape recorder and Judge Paulson’s tape.