Lovers and Madmen(Sasha McCandless 4.5) (4 page)

He crossed the kitchen and stood directly in front
of her. “And neither can you.”

His eyes were serious.

She stretched onto her toes and wrapped her arms
around his neck.

“Don’t worry. Remember my resolution? No more
danger, no more drama.”

He considered this, examining her face closely.
Finally, he relented. He pressed her back against the counter and took her chin
in his hand.

“Good. I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered.

She kissed him, hard.

“You won’t. I have no intention of going anywhere
near Nick Costopolous.”

The oven timer beeped. Connelly ignored it and ran
his hand along her neck and down her arm, sending a shiver up her spine.

The constant beeping was going to wake Kathryn,
she realized.

“Your lasagna’s going to burn.”

“Let it.”

He covered her mouth with his, but the noise and
the knowledge that Kathryn was sleeping right above them distracted her. She
gave him a gentle two-handed shove.

“Come on. Let’s eat.”

February 14

Sasha woke, stiff and
cold, on the living room floor next to Connelly. The comforter from her bed was
twisted around Connelly’s legs, and the cat was curled up at her feet, purring
in its sleep.

She stretched, and her back protested.

“What time is it?” Connelly mumbled.

“Not sure. Probably close to six.”

She rose and arched her back, trying to loosen the
muscles. Then she lowered herself back to the floor and went through the
motions of the cobra pose. Connelly leaned against the couch and watched with
an amused grin as she moved from one yoga pose to the next, ending in a
backbend.

Then he leaned over and tickled her ribcage. Her
side spasmed, and she laughed involuntarily. She rolled out of the backbend and
straddled him.

“What are you—twelve?” she asked.

He just smiled up at her in answer.

She leaned forward, brushing her hair against his
chest and pressed her lips on his neck. Footsteps sounded on the stairs leading
from the loft. She leapt off him, landing in a heap on the floor. He laughed.

Kathryn’s bruised face peered at them from the entrance
to the kitchen.

She pushed a tangle of hair away from her face and
said, “What are you guys doing?” her voice was dull with sleep and—Sasha
thought—hoarse from crying.

“Good morning,” she said, using Connelly’s
shoulder for leverage, as she pushed herself to her feet. “We were doing yoga.”

From the floor, Connelly snorted.

Sasha joined Kathryn in the kitchen.

“How’d you sleep?” she asked as she reached past
the younger woman to pull three mugs down from the cabinet.

“Okay, I guess. I’m sorry I fell asleep in your
bed.” Kathryn wore a sheepish expression.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you were exhausted.
You must be starving, though. What can I get you?”

Sasha poured three cups of coffee and passed one
to Kathryn, who gripped it with both hands and stared down at her feet.

“Kathryn? Your flight isn’t until eleven. You have
plenty of time for breakfast.”

She didn’t answer but kept her head down, refusing
to meet Sasha’s eyes.

Sasha turned to Connelly, unsure of how to handle
a noncommunicative, twenty-year-old college student. She knew how to cajole her
nieces and nephews, but she doubted peek-a-boo would work on Kathryn.

He walked into the kitchen, trailed by the kitten,
crouched in front of Kathryn, and took her hands in his.

“Are you okay?”

Even Kathryn couldn’t ignore Connelly when his
angular face was filled with such raw concern and his strong hands were
enveloping hers. It probably helped, Sasha thought, that all the girls at Jake’s
had crushes on him.

Her cheeks flushed pink under the bruises, and she
said, “I’m fine. I just think … maybe I overreacted last night. It was just a
silly fight.”

“Have you looked in the mirror, Kathryn?” Connelly
asked in a gentle voice.

Her gaze returned to the floor.

“He didn’t mean to hurt me so bad. He was just
worried because he hadn’t heard from me. And he got, like, crazed with jealousy.”

Sasha bit down on her lower lip to keep from
shouting at the girl and let Connelly handle it. She busied herself with
feeding the hungry cat, who was rubbing its head against her ankle with vigor.

“No matter how romantic you may think that is, you
aren’t in a healthy relationship,” he told her.

“You don’t understand, you don’t know Nick—”

Sasha turned and slammed her coffee mug down on
the counter, scaring the cat, who scurried out of the room with all four legs
going different directions.

“No, Kathryn,
you
don’t know Nick. But I
do. I want you to look at me and listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”

She waited until Kathryn dragged her eyes up to
meet her gaze, then she leaned forward and said in a slow, measured voice, “If
you don’t get away from Nick now, while you have the chance, he’ll kill you.
He
will kill you
. And Leo and I aren’t going to let that happen. You’re taking
a shower, you’re getting dressed, and you’re getting on that plane if I have to
drag you on by your hair. Do you understand me?”

Kathryn shot her a sullen look and turned on her
heel. She stomped up the stairs.

A moment later Sasha’s bathroom door slammed shut.
Sasha picked up her coffee and willed her hands to stop trembling.

The water pipes creaked to life overhead, and the
shower started.

She exhaled.

Connelly was watching her.

“What?”

“He killed his wife—didn’t he?”

She kept her face as blank as she could and said, “I
can’t answer that question, Connelly. It wouldn’t matter whether I said ‘yes’
or ‘no’—it would be a violation of my obligations under the Rules of
Professional Conduct.”

His gray eyes flashed. “He did.”

“I can’t answer that.”

“But, Moravian—or Vickers—whatever his name was,
he killed Clarissa. He’s in prison.”

Sasha walked over to the couch and curled her feet
under her. Connelly followed.

“Talk to me, Sasha.”

It was a relief to have this conversation; she
just had to have it carefully, choosing her words with precision.

“He’s in prison because he pled guilty to killing
Ellen Mortenson. He admitted that. He admitted that he was going to kill
Martine Landry when he was apprehended. And he admitted that he intended to
kill Clarissa. But he always maintained that he couldn’t go through with it
once he learned she was pregnant. He says she was alive when he left her.”

Connelly sat down next to her with a thoughtful
expression. She could almost see him sifting through the information.

She waited while he mused.

“Costopolous was arrested when the police saw that
his hammer was missing from his tool set.”

“That’s right. He told us the real killer must
have stolen it. And I believe that did happen.”

Connelly nodded and continued slowly, “But, as it
turns out, the hammer from his tool set wasn’t used to kill Clarissa.”

“Right again. His hammer was a Craftsman Professional.
Clarissa was killed with a DeWalt,” she said in a neutral tone.

“So. Vickers/Moravian stole Nick’s hammer,
planning to kill Clarissa with it. Nick replaced it with a DeWalt and
he
killed her?”

“It does seem farfetched,” Sasha said.

“But he had motive and opportunity. And if he had
a hammer—means.”

Sasha shrugged.

“Talk to me,” Connelly said.

She shook her head. “I really can’t. Believe me.
I
can’t.
”

They looked at each other for a long moment, and
she watched as frustration warred with acceptance on his face.

She was bound by ethical obligations that he neither
understood nor appreciated. In fact, she knew many of her legal
responsibilities and commitments to her clients didn’t sit right with Connelly.
But she thought—
hoped
—they’d reached a point in their relationship where
he’d support her anyway. She realized she was holding her breath.

Finally, he sighed. “Okay.”

It was just one word, but it allowed her to
exhale.

“Just, please, will you take Kathryn to the
airport and make sure she gets on that plane? She obviously hates me right now.
She’s still at least a little bit smitten with you.”

“Smitten?” he repeated.

She watched him suppress a smile.

“Smitten. A smitten kitten,” she said, leaning in
and nuzzling his neck.

She felt his body yield to her at once, inviting
her to draw closer.

Upstairs, the water shut off.

Sasha jumped to her feet.

Connelly groaned and stood as well. He gave Sasha
a long, hungry look.

“We need to get this smitten kitten on her way.
You’re driving me crazy,” he said in a husky voice. He trailed a finger along
her arm.

She shivered. She knew the feeling.

“Tonight,” she said as she focused on keeping her
knees from buckling.

Sasha raised her head at
the soft rapping on her office door.

“Come in.”

Naya pushed the door inward and poked her head
through the opening. “You have time to talk to your favorite legal assistant?”

“Only legal assistant,” Sasha reminded her and
pointed toward her guest chair.

Naya flashed her a smile. “Actually, I thought I’d
go with you to Whole Foods, so you can get your shopping done for your big
surprise.”

Sasha checked the time.

“It’s only ten thirty.”

“So? Jake’ll let you keep your stuff in the fridge
until the end of the day. Besides, you wait too long, you’ll be frantically
fighting off some other crazy lady for the last wheel of brie or some crap.”

“Okay, if you want to tag along. I’d love the
company.”

She saved the motion to compel she’d been drafting
and checked her phone to confirm her detailed ingredient list was on it.

Grocery stores inspired a confused dread in Sasha.
She usually ended up wandering around with no clear goal in mind, then she
would get frustrated, throw an assortment of unrelated items into her basket,
and check out. Only to find when she returned home that she had nothing that
she could turn into a meal.

Not this time. She’d mapped out this meal with the
precision of an engineer or an architect. Ingredients listed and
cross-referenced with the grocery store layout; recipes ready; a timeline for
prepping each course. She’d handled trials with less preparation.

She shrugged into her coat and followed Naya
across the hall to her office.

“You up for some P & T gossip?” Naya asked
over her shoulder.

P & T—Prescott and Talbott—was Pittsburgh’s
most prestigious law firm and their former employer. After Sasha had left to
start her own practice, she’d spent months wooing Naya, who was both a friend and
the undisputed best legal assistant at the firm.

Naya had come to work for Sasha six months’
earlier but managed to remain as plugged into the firm’s unofficial information
network as ever. Sasha, in contrast, tried to keep her contacts with the firm
to a minimum. It was hard to believe she’d worked there for eight very long
years; the entire experience seemed so removed from her daily existence of
running her own small business.

“Sure. As long as no one’s dead.”

Naya pulled on her coat and turned to arch a brow
at the caveat, but Sasha was serious. Her former colleagues seemed to manage to
get themselves murdered at an alarming rate.

“Nobody died,” Naya said, running her fingers
through her short-cropped hair.

Once Naya had left the firm and there were no old
white men to rankle, she’d traded her dreadlocks for a more conventional Jada
Pinkett-Smith style. It suited her and highlighted her large eyes and high
cheekbones.

But Sasha had noticed that, when Naya was nervous
or anxious, she combed her hands through her short hair, tugging on the ends.

Uh-oh, Sasha thought, bracing herself for bad
news.

“Then spill it,” she said.

They started down the stairs to the first floor.

“Okay. At the firm’s holiday party, Will Volmer
announced a new development program for non-attorneys. They’re calling it the
P&T Advancement Program.”

“Catchy.”

Another eyebrow raise from Naya—presumably for the
interruption. “Anyway, he set up a scholarship. They’re going to send one legal
assistant to law school every year.”

“Full ride?” Sasha asked, doubting that was the
case.

Will was the most upstanding, decent partner at
the firm, and she wasn’t surprised that he would want to nurture the talents of
all his employees, but law school was expensive. Even though Will had cleaned
house after being appointed the chair of the firm in the wake of a scandal
months earlier, she couldn’t imagine that his partners were eager to drop
roughly one hundred thousand dollars on a three-year education that would also
deprive them of a talented legal assistant.

“Full ride,” Naya confirmed.

“Wow. What’s the catch?”

They stepped out of the building and fell into the
stream of foot traffic flowing down the sidewalk. A florist’s delivery truck
idled in the loading zone. Sasha spotted piles of red roses through the window.
A woman scooted past them, her head down, as she thumbed at her phone.

“The catch is the legal assistant has to apply to
and be accepted into Duquesne’s night division and agree to continue to work
full-time for the first year. From what I hear, most people aren’t up for that,”
Naya said.

“No, I suppose not. That’s a huge time commitment.
It would take someone with an amazing—almost superhuman—work ethic to want to
do such a thing.”