Irrevocable Trust (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller Book 6)

IRREVOCABLE TRUST

USA TODAY
Bestselling Author

Melissa F. Miller

Brown Street Books

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author
’
s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
©
2014 Melissa F. Miller

All rights reserved.

Published by Brown Street Books.

For more information about the author,

please visit www.melissafmiller.com.

Brown Street Books eBook ISBN: 978-1-940759-04-3

Cover design by Clarissa Yeo

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sincere thanks and appreciation to my editing and proofreading team, especially Curt Akin and Lou Maconi. As always, any mistakes or errors that remain are mine and mine alone. Special thanks to Sasha
’
s Associates for their sustained cheerleading, excitement, and support and to every reader who
’
s ever taken the time to send me a note.

“
The Witness Security Program was authorized by the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 and amended by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The U.S. Marshals have protected, relocated and given new identities to more than 8,500 witnesses and 9,900 of their family members, since the program began in 1971.

…

Witnesses and their families typically get new identities with authentic documentation. Housing, subsistence for basic living expenses and medical care are provided to the witnesses. Job training and employment assistance may also be provided.

…

No Witness Security Program participant, following program guidelines, has been harmed or killed while under the active protection of the U.S. Marshals Service.
”

—
From the U.S. Marshal Service
’
s webpage at http://www.usmarshals.gov/witsec/

CHAPTER ONE

Allison Bennett was, by nature, a careful woman.

But she
’
d spent the better part of her adulthood being downright paranoid, and she had vowed to leave that character trait behind when she moved her family to Sunnyvale, North Carolina, for a fresh start.

Old habits had died hard, but after six months in her new home, she
’
d begun to relax. She stopped sleeping with a loaded gun in her bedside table. She occasionally allowed the gas gauge on her new minivan to dip into the red zone. And once or twice she even forgot to deadbolt the front door.

By the time she
’
d lived there for nine months, she no longer hyperventilated when her kids disappeared for hours on end, passing long summer days doing whatever it was small-town kids did from dawn until dusk. She depleted her stockpile of canned goods and propane tanks and stopped buying two cases of water every time she shopped for groceries.

She began to feel safe. So safe, in fact, that she allowed herself to believe the past she was running from would never catch up to her.

She decided it was time to put down roots in her new home. So, on her first Christmas as a single mother, she treated herself to a gift.

She called the most trusted supplier of vacuum-packed heirloom seeds in North America and splurged on the largest seed vault it carried: enough to both plant an abundant garden this year and store sufficient seeds to replant in the future just in case society did collapse.

New, non-paranoid Allison chided herself for thinking such a thing, but the extra-large vault was an excellent value for the price, so she went ahead and purchased it anyway.

The seeds arrived, several months later, right on schedule, in plenty of time for planting.

By the time the package landed on her front porch, she
’
d forgotten all about her plans for a garden. Her new life had turned upside down since Christmas. Just before the new year, the man she was hiding from had escaped from prison, and she
’
d been paralyzed with fear, waiting for him to show up and ruin the life she
’
d begun to build. Unable to sleep, she dug the gun out from the storage locker, oiled it, and loaded it. But the days stretched into weeks, which turned into months, and he never appeared.

Finally, she decided not to let the fact that he was out there,
somewhere
, stop her from living. She reminded herself that she was safe. Her kids were safe. He could never find them. She repeated the words the government had told her like a mantra, until, at last, she began to believe them. The gun went back into the storage trunk.

And so when the ground thawed, she spent long hours digging up her lawn, tilling and turning the soil, and amending it to create the perfect environment for her vegetables. She planted her seeds and nurtured them. Her youngest children helped each morning with weeding and watering. The older kids planned elaborate menus around the anticipated harvest. And they all shared her excitement when green shoots peeked out from the rich earth.

None of them knew she
’
d be dead before the first plant bore vegetables.

CHAPTER TWO

Monday

Pittsburgh, PA

Sasha McCandless was, by training, a careful woman.

She
’
d spent the better part of her adulthood in a career where careless mistakes meant the difference between winning a case and losing it. And she
’
d spent that same amount of time practicing hand-to-hand combat and self-defense.

She
’
d begun studying Krav Maga because she was a very small person and she wanted to feel capable and strong. She never imagined the training would save her life multiple times, but then she never imagined she
’
d have so many encounters with murderers. Including the murderer who was currently out there, somewhere, waiting for his chance to strike at her and her new husband.

For the first several weeks after Jeffrey Bricker had hired armed bandits to storm her wedding, she
’
d been spooked. She kept looking over her shoulder, checking under her car, and generally walking around ready to spring into battle. But Jeffrey Bricker had been out there in the shadows for nearly six months now.

Even her Krav Maga instructor agreed it was unsustainable to live in a state of high alert for an extended period of time. Daniel analogized the situation to the time he
’
d spent living in Netanya, during a period of heavy conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
‘
We just accepted that every time we set foot in a public place there was a real risk of a bombing. We scanned the space for suspicious people or packages, made a note of the exits, and went on with our daily lives.
’

And, after about a month, so had she and Connelly.

They weren
’
t reckless. It wasn
’
t as if they had forgotten that a megalomaniacal murderer with an actual army at his disposal had escaped from a federal penitentiary with the express goal of killing them. But they couldn
’
t go through life waiting for him to strike, either.

This thought ran through her head as she rapped on the door to her law partner
’
s office. In fact, she tried not to spend time wondering about Bricker
’
s whereabouts except for these weekly briefings. Each Monday, she and her partner, Will Volmer, had a conference call with Hank Richardson, the director of the shadowy nameless federal task force charged with hunting down and capturing Bricker. Connelly sometimes sat in on the calls, too.

She stepped into the office and saw that her husband had beaten her there.

Will and Connelly had their heads bent over the phone. They both looked up as she closed the door behind her. She raised her coffee mug in greeting.

“
Sasha
’
s here,
”
Will announced into the speaker phone while Connelly slid off the edge of Will
’
s desk and came over to greet her with a chaste kiss.

His arm lingered around her waist. Six months of marriage hadn
’
t dulled the thrill that ran down her spine at the contact.

“
Morning, Hank,
”
she craned her neck toward the speaker.

“
Sasha,
”
his familiar voice boomed through the phone.

She inched one of Will
’
s guest chairs closer to the desk and took a seat. Connelly followed suit.

“
What do you have for us, Hank?
”
Connelly asked.

“
Nothing new, I
’
m afraid. I
’
ve increased the team, adding people from across six agencies. We
’
re still out there chasing down leads, but, so far, he
’
s a ghost.
”

“
What about the prepper group in New Mexico?
”
she asked.

Two weeks earlier, a low-level marijuana dealer had been picked up in a Drug Enforcement Agency sweep. He
’
d been eager to get a deal and had started rattling off the names of his suppliers and his buyers. He mentioned that he had some regular customers who were foot soldiers in a local militia group. Further questioning by the DEA agents led to the revelation that the group was rumored to be harboring a fugitive who
’
d escaped from prison.

At the previous week
’
s briefing, Hank had said the DEA and Homeland Security were planning a joint raid on the compound. It was the most promising lead they
’
d had in months.

“
After much consultation, the agencies agreed that the DEA did not have cause to raid the group. They then reached out to Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms. While the ATF has been interested in seizing the groups cache of weapons for some time, after due consideration, they determined that the risk of a Ruby Ridge or Waco scenario was too high. So, the desk jockeys in charge are all punting. While everyone was bickering over who was going to do what, if anything, I went ahead and authorized a mission by a
…
freelancer
…
who could only confirm that, if Bricker had been there, he
’
s gone now.
”

Hank
’
s tone left no question as to his views about the bureaucratic maneuvering that may have allowed Bricker to slip through the government
’
s fingers. It also made clear that she shouldn
’
t ask for further details about the
‘
freelance mission.
’

Given that she was married to one of Hank
’
s freelancers, she knew all too well that the mission was likely technically illegal.

“
Next time,
”
she said.

Connelly rubbed her arm reassuringly through her thin, cotton cardigan.
“
That
’
s the attitude.
”

“
Well, I
’
ll sign off now,
”
Hank said.

“
Anything else? What about the prison dentist who helped Bricker escape?
”
Will asked.

Originally classified as a hostage, the dentist, who had ties to Bricker
’
s militia, was now officially considered an accomplice. He was either dead
—
likely at Bricker
’
s hands
—
or on the run.

“
There
’
s no news on Dr. Rumson.
”

She caught Connelly
’
s eye and flashed him an encouraging smile as Hank said his goodbyes.

Will depressed the conference button to end the call and searched her face.