Lettie’s gray eyes were set. Sasha could see this was a matter of loyalty to the firm for her secretary. There was no point in arguing with her. It was only one day.
“Okay. Thanks for getting me coverage.” She turned to leave.
“He told me to have you come to his office when you arrived.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Prescott.”
Cinco had summoned her? That was not how things worked at Prescott & Talbott. There were several layers of insulation between Cinco and someone like her. Her stomach tightened and she wondered what he wanted.
Only one way to find out. Out of habit, she headed for the stairs instead of the elevator. She used the time hoofing up the eight flights to gather her thoughts.
She stopped in the hallway outside his personal secretary’s office and realized she was not sure exactly how one announced oneself for a meeting with Charles Anderson Prescott, V.
She rapped on the walnut-paneled door.
“Come in,” called a refined voice with a hint of a English accent.
Sasha pushed open the door. Caroline Masters, Cinco’s secretary, had her own small but tasteful office outside his. It was decorated in warm colors. A pair of formal, striped chairs sat in front of a burnished walnut desk. Classical music played, just barely audible.
Caroline smiled, “Good morning, Ms. McCandless. Mr. Prescott is expecting you. Can I offer you a drink?” She waved a manicured hand, weighed down by an emerald ring, over a tray that held a tea service and a coffee carafe.
She looked exactly like a secretary to a man like Cinco would look. Trim, pretty, and ageless, not flashy or memorable. Sasha realized the description also fit his wife.
Sasha resisted the impulse to hide her own unpolished, unadorned fingers behind her back. “No, thank you.”
“Very good.” She pressed a button on her telephone and announced, “Sasha McCandless is here, sir.” She waited a moment and then said, “Please go in.”
Sasha eased open the door to Cinco’s inner sanctum and stepped through. She blinked. Prescott & Talbott lore had it that Cinco’s office was over the top and had to be seen to be believed, but she had never gotten a description. She had expected to walk into a moneyed attorney’s office, full of dark, gleaming wood, oriental carpet, loads of bookshelves and gold-framed certificates, diplomas, and pictures of the neglected family. Something in keeping with the décor of Caroline’s space and the rest of the firm.
But Cinco’s office was one of a kind. The walls were painted bright orange and there was not a diploma, certificate, or family portrait to be seen. A single piece of art hung on the long wall to the right of the door. It was an enormous black and white print of a nude woman’s backside. It focused on the curve of her hip, the rise of her butt, and a long tangle of hair streaming to the small of her back, nothing graphic.
She turned from the picture to where she expected Cinco’s desk to be. But, instead of sitting behind the standard-issue hulking executive desk, Cinco stood behind some sort of lectern or podium. Two enormous white leather captain’s chairs flanked it. She saw no computer, no books, and no phone, although his secretary had just buzzed him, so he had to have a phone hidden somewhere in the office.
“Sasha, please have a seat.” He moved out from behind the podium and sat in the chair to the right of it, waving her into the one on the left.
She complied. The seat was so high that her feet dangled several inches above the floor.
They looked at each other.
“You wanted to see me?” She didn’t know what else to say. Obviously, he wanted to see her; associates didn’t just pop in for a visit with the chair of the firm.
“Yes. While the partners are still grappling with the loss of our friend, our duty to the firm and its clients means we need to put aside our grief and take care of Noah’s caseload.” He nodded, as if to say, and that is that.
Sasha found herself nodding along, her feet swinging as she did.
“At the risk of seeming…,” he paused and pursed his lips, “crass, I note that you will be a candidate for partnership in the spring.”
She nodded faster, keeping time with her heartbeat now. Jesus, these guys were shameless.
“You’re highly regarded by the litigation department. Not only did Noah trust your judgment, but others speak well of you also.”
He glanced at his lap and she noticed that he was holding a notecard. “Mmm. Kevin Marcus called you a rising star.”
He met her gaze and then the eyes went back to his notes. “Several clients, including UPMC and Myron Construction have shared glowing reviews of your work.”
None of this was news. Marcus was the deputy managing partner for the litigation department. She’d worked with him on several matters, and he was responsible for giving the associates their annual reviews. The in-house attorneys in the clients’ legal departments—big firm refugees who knew how the system worked—had blind copied her on the laudatory e-mails so she’d have a set when the partnership decision was made. She waited for him to get to the point.
He frowned. “In fact, Hemisphere Air has asked that you take over responsibility for the crash litigation.”
That
was
news. “Bob Metz asked for me?”
“No.” Another frown. “Vivian Coulter asked—no, insisted—that you take over.”
Viv? Sasha turned that one over in her mind as he went on.
“As a former partner, Vivian well knows that it is simply not done here. Associates, no matter how senior and valued they may be, do not run large cases like a multidistrict litigation without partner supervision, guidance, and oversight.” No need for his notes for this part, she noticed. “This policy is out of concern for associate professional development, not to mention malpractice exposure.”
He fixed Sasha with another long look, then he stressed, “We would never do that.”
She remembered a conversation she’d overheard between two of her brothers when they were in college. She couldn’t have been older than twelve, maybe thirteen. She’d passed by the door to the bedroom they shared when they were home on breaks and heard Ryan laughing at Patrick.
“Ry, you don’t get it. She says she never does that.”
“No, Patrick,
you
don’t get it. Lydia does give blow jobs. She gave you one.”
Sasha had frozen in the hallway, her stomach fluttering at the news that sweet Lydia, Patrick’s girlfriend was
that
kind of girl.
Now, she focused on keeping her expression neutral while Cinco worked to convince both of them that he really wasn’t a slut.
“But, Hemisphere Air is a very important client, so we’ve decided to honor their request. You need to understand that the firm will be watching closely. This case will impact your prospects—for good or for ill.”
He flashed a tight smile.
In the past twelve hours, she’d beaten up a federal agent, found a corpse in a dumpster, learned that her mentor and friend had died, and driven two hundred and fifty miles, give or take. She was being stalked. There was a good chance whoever had blown up Flight 1667 would strike again. And she was pretty sure the plaintiff’s attorney across the street was responsible for all or most of it.
Now, Charles Anderson Prescott, V, from the comfort of his captain’s chair, was telling her she was going to run a multimillion dollar class action defense and the firm would use it as an excuse to deny her partnership if anything went wrong.
She wondered if the job description for Cinco’s secretary included protecting him from bodily harm. She gave herself a minute to imagine delivering a solid palm heel strike to his chin.
Then she smiled back and said, “Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Prescott.”
He waved the gratitude away, “I’m sure you’ll acquit yourself well.”
It sounded like she was being dismissed. She slid off the chair. Cinco stood to see her out, checking his notecard one last time to make sure he’d covered everything.
“Oh, yes. There’s a class certification hearing this morning in another of Noah’s cases. The caption is
Jefferson v. VitaMight, Inc.
My understanding is Noah and plaintiff’s counsel had reached an agreement in principle to settle. You just need to appear to let the court know about Noah’s death, assuming news has not already traveled, and explain that the parties are working out the details of the settlement. Noah had apparently been intending to file papers to that effect yesterday afternoon but never got to it.”
“Got it.” It sounded pretty simple.
He walked her to the door and said, “Good luck.”
Caroline had the
VitaMight
file ready to hand to Sasha as she walked through the outer office and returned to the real world.
Chapter 19
Connelly made his way down a narrow, two-way street cut into the side of a hill. Parked cars lined both sides, making the passage so tight that he’d had to back Sasha’s Passat into an alley to make room for a car traveling the other direction. He pulled over and squeezed the car into a space four doors down from the Calvarusos’ house.
He felt stiff as he got out of the car. Getting his ass kicked by a tiny attorney, staying up all night, and the mad dash to return the rental car, pick up the Passat, shower, eat, and check into the office had taken a toll on him. Not to mention his broken nose had bloomed into a bruise, and he now sported two black eyes.
He stopped on the cracked sidewalk in front of Rosa Calvaruso’s house and looked up at it. It was a modest brick house with a small neat lawn, set close to the houses on either side. The house looked tidy, unimpressive, and closed up tight.
Motion caught his eye behind what he imagined were the living room drapes. The heavy fabric was swaying. He saw a shadowed face peering out from behind. As he tried to see in, the drapes fell shut again and the figure disappeared.
He walked up the front steps to the porch and stooped to pick up the newspaper. Tucked it under his elbow and rang the door bell with his good hand.
Waited.
He was getting ready to ring it again when he heard movement on the other side of the door. Then a burst of rapid Italian. It was a woman’s voice, angry.
“Mrs. Calvaruso? I’m Agent Leo Connelly with the Department of Homeland Security. I need to speak to you, ma’am.”
The same voice, in English this time, said, “You get the hell off my porch!”
“Ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t do that. I am very sorry to bother you right now, but I need to speak to you.”
Silence.
Connelly sighed. “Mrs. Calvaruso, I have reason to be concerned for your safety. If you don’t let me in, I am going to have to break your door to confirm that you are unharmed.”
“I’m fine. Go away.”
“I can’t do that.”
Connelly shifted his weight and eyed the door. It didn’t really fit with the house’s simple brick façade. It was ornate, with frosted glass sidelights and a transom window, and it looked solid.
He raised his voice. “I’m going to count … ”
The door swung open.
“Come in, then.” Her voice was flat and resigned.
He stepped forward into the dim hallway and right into the path of the widow Calvaruso. She was about Sasha’s size, with stooped shoulders and steel gray hair cropped close to her head. And she was wielding an aluminum baseball bat.
He was beginning to hate Pittsburgh. And its tiny, aggressive women.
He thought about reaching for his identification but instead just raised his hands. The newspaper thudded to the floor.
“Mrs. Calvaruso, I’m not going to hurt you.”
She fixed him with her fierce brown eyes. Took in his conservative suit and his busted nose.
“What do you want?”
What he wanted was a kindly, mourning Italian grandmother who would offer him tea and maybe some biscotti.
“Put the bat down, Mrs. Calvaruso.”
He kept his hands up but made a patting motion, encouraging her to ease the bat down.