Irreparable Harm by Melissa F. Miller Page A

lawyer died in a tragic accident tonight. They’ll be scrambling to deal with that for the rest of the week.”
    Irwin didn’t want the power balance to shift, and it would if he didn’t clean up his own mess. “Tragic. Even so, I am going to send these morons to Pittsburgh to tie up loose ends. McCandless? What’s her first name?”
    “Sasha. See if they can get something out of her before they kill her, why don’t you?”
    Irwin gritted his teeth. “Right.”
    He clicked off the phone.
    “Okay, assholes” he said. “Redemption time. You’re going to Pittsburgh. Find a chick lawyer named Sasha McCandless. Listen carefully now. Find out what she knows. If she has files, get them from her. Got it? Don’t kill her and then tell me you’re sorry you didn’t get the files. Do you think you can handle that, you mental midgets?”
    The younger guy glanced sidelong at his partner, looking for a signal that he could start pummeling Irwin.
    But the older guy straightened up and said, “Yes. We’ve got it. You know there’s an extra fee for travel, right?”
    Irwin cocked his head, started to object, and then decided it wasn’t worth it. “Whatever. Fine. Just don’t fuck it up this time. Now get out. I have to get some sleep.”
     
    * * * * * * * * * *
     
    Sixty miles away, Sasha and Connelly were traveling north on Interstate 70. They’d just passed the exit for the Antietam Battlefield. In a few minutes they’d be through Hagerstown and would be crossing over the Mason-Dixon Line from Maryland into Pennsylvania.
    “Did you know the Mason-Dixon had nothing to do with slavery?” Connelly said. “It was laid to settle a property dispute between the Calvert family of Maryland and the Penn family of Pennsylvania.”
    Sasha glanced at him in the rental car’s rearview mirror. It was the first time he’d spoken since the car had been delivered to the hotel. He’d tried to convince her that Peterson wouldn’t be any less dead if they waited and took the first flight out in the morning, but she finally got him to understand she was driving back with or without him. He’d blustered and threatened to arrest her, but, in the end, he’d yanked open the rear passenger door and flung himself and his bag across the seat.
    She hadn’t much cared whether he’d been sleeping back there or just sulking. The silence had been welcome.
    Now, she met Connelly’s eye in the mirror and said, “Is that so?”
    “Mmm-hmm. American history major.”
    Several minutes later, the road changed from smooth blacktop to bumpy and cracked. Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation crews had taken over road maintenance several hundred feet before the official sign welcoming hapless travelers to the Commonwealth and it showed.
    “Welcome to Pennsylvania,” she told him as they were jostled along.
    Connelly forced a laugh. They drove in silence for a spell. Then he said, “You don’t think it was an accident, do you?”
    He meant Peterson. After she’d hung up, Sasha had told him what Naya had told her. Peterson’s car was found wrapped around a tree a few blocks from his home. He’d apparently hit it at a high rate of speed and was declared dead on the scene. Everyone was assuming he’d been driving under the influence. Naya had added that the Prescott power brokers were hard at work trying to convince the coroner’s office not to run a blood alcohol test. Sasha hadn’t seen a reason to share that piece of information with the air marshal.
    Now, in answer to his question she said, “No. I don’t.”
    He waited.
    She kept her eyes on the bands of luminescent paint stretching out ahead of her. “Noah was a heavy drinker. But he’d been drinking hard since before either of us was born. He was an accomplished drunk. I’ve seen him have a four-martini lunch and then cross-examine an expert witness and just shred the guy. He Irished up his coffee every morning for his commute to the office. But, he never, ever slurred