Free Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) by Melissa F Miller

dining
room.
    He scanned the room to ensure no
one was watching them, then hissed, “Don’t worry, Andre, your money’s in my
trunk.”
    Colton slipped the vial into his
briefcase as adrenaline coursed through his body.
    “Forget the salad. Let’s go.”
    He stood and waited for Andre to
gulp down the last bite of his sandwich, eager to get on with his plan.

CHAPTER 8
     
    Sasha let
Connelly drive her car back to Pittsburgh so she could work the phone. Her
representation of Serumceutical had taken on a new urgency. The familiar sense
of all-consuming drive filled her.
    Connelly glanced over at her. “You
look jazzed,” he commented.
    She was sure she did. The stakes
had been raised, awaking her love for competition. ViraGene was going to pay
for what they’d done to her newest client.
    She just smiled at Connelly and
held up a finger to silence him as she waited for Naya, her legal assistant to
answer the ringing phone.
    “The Law Offices of Sasha
McCandless,” Naya’s voice rang out through the speakerphone, clear, formal, and
businesslike, especially for a Saturday.
    Sasha felt a smidgeon of guilt
for asking Naya to come in, especially with all the holiday preparations she
had going on with her church’s pageant, but Naya had assured her it was fine,
as long as she didn’t miss the pageant rehearsal Sunday afternoon.
    “Naya, it’s me,” she said.
    “I know, Mac, just messing with
you.” Naya laughed. “How’d the meeting go?”
    “It was interesting. Oh, you’re
on speaker,” Sasha said, giving Naya an unspoken warning not to ask about her
relationship with Connelly.
    “Hi, fly boy,” Naya cracked.
    “Hello, Naya,” Connelly said,
unable to hide his smile at Naya’s ribbing. “Have you missed me?”
    Before Naya could respond, Sasha
jumped in. “You two will have plenty of time to play your games when we get
back to the office. Naya, I need you to get started on something.”
    “Got it,” Naya said, the playfulness
gone from her voice. “Hit me.”
    “Okay, first, Celia Gerig is
gone. As far as we know, all of the information on her application was false,
except for her social security number and her name.”
    “Will do. Do who know what she
looks like?” Naya asked.
    “Ben’s secretary is going to
email you a copy of her personnel file, which includes a digital photo they
took at the distribution center for her employee ID. That’s all we’re going to
have, I think. A name, a social, and a picture,” Sasha said.
    “I’ve done more with less,” Naya
told her.
    It was true. Naya had what Sasha
considered good people skills. She wasn’t always great at dealing with people,
but she was an ace at two more important things: finding them and reading them.
Naya could track a person down. She could also look at a person and know if he
was lying. Those two valuable traits more than made up for her occasional lack
of tact in her personal interactions.
    “Great. There’s more, but start
there, because we have to find this woman. And fast.”
    “I hear you. Hey, should I order
you guys some food from Jake’s?”
    Sasha checked the time. It was
past lunchtime. After Ben had dropped his bombshell, the three of them had
returned to his office and hammered out their next steps. None of them had been
in any mood to eat at that point.
    Now, she felt too wired to eat.
She looked over at Connelly, who was nodding vigorously. His stomach rumbled
loudly, driving home his view.
    “Connelly’s stomach says ‘yes,’”
she told Naya. “We’ll be there in about forty minutes.”
    “See you later,” Naya said and
ended the call.
    Sasha cleared her throat. She had
more calls to make, but first she wanted to take one more run at Connelly.
    “Connelly?”
    “Yeah?” he said in a tone that
suggested he knew what was coming.
    “You have to call Tate,” she said
in a soft voice.
    “I know, Sasha. Not yet.”
    She watched his knuckles turn
white as he gripped the steering wheel tighter and