When Lightning Strikes Twice (28 page)

Eve closed her eyes, as if in prayer. “God, I could use a cigarette.”

“You gave up smoking years ago, Aunt Eve,” Rachel reminded her. “Here, have a mint.” She pushed the candy dish in her aunt’s direction. Eve groaned and shoved it away.

Rachel was floundering in a sea of confusion. Despite all
the time they’d spent together this weekend, despite their passion-filled night which had not ended until his departure shortly before six this morning, Quint hadn’t mentioned a word of the Tilden crisis to her. The omission seemed deliberately deceptive but what worried her even more was her newfound ability to imagine—and condone?—his reply to her, should she ask him why.

He would insist that their professional and personal spheres were separate and did not intersect and instead of arguing the point, she would gaze into his dark eyes and forget everything but the need to be with him. To talk with him, to laugh and to argue with him. To have him inside her. He would know that, of course, especially after her total unqualified surrender last night. Rachel flinched.

“We need to meet with Quint Cormack to discuss dropping the complaint, but he won’t see us,” lamented Wade.

“Are you sure?” Rachel felt anxiety churning.

Eve nodded tersely. “The Tildens are scheduled to arrive here for a meeting at two o’clock and they think Cormack is going to be here. Unfortunately, he won’t be. He adamantly refuses to come to our office and of course, the Tildens won’t go to his. Town Junior has set it up as a power play, and Cormack knows it. I’ve called him several times this morning but he won’t bend. In fact, his secretary said that he won’t take any more calls from me today.”

“Why should he?” Wade was glum. “He’s holding all the aces, and all we’ve got is a lousy handful of deuces.”

“We aren’t even in the game.” Eve grabbed a mint and practically inhaled it. “Cormack is toying with us by biding his time. He says he’ll meet with us at his office next week but by then—”

“Charges might already be filed and arrest warrants issued,” Wade finished. “The cops aren’t going to wait forever. Of course, it won’t be our problem by then because the Tildens are going to fire us today when they show up here and Cormack doesn’t.”

“Don’t say that!” cried Rachel. “We can’t lose the Tildens
as clients! The Saxons have always represented the Tildens. It’s a tradition!”

Three pairs of hazel eyes met in grim understanding. Representing the Tildens was a prestigious tradition. Tilden business was the bulwark of Saxon Associates’ practice. What law firm could afford to lose their wealthiest, most important clients?

“Nick says our only hope is to get Misty to drop the complaint, and we can’t get to her without going through Quinton Cormack.” Eve shook her head wearily. ‘The Tildens will blame us, of course, they’ll blame us for everything. Somebody will have to take the fall and unfortunately, Saxon Associates is the most convenient scapegoat.”

“Who’s Nick?” asked Rachel.

Eve cleared her thoat. “Chief Spagna. I’ve—discussed this matter at length with him privately.”

“I can’t believe you had to talk to the police chief about possible criminal charges pending against the Tildens!” Rachel clutched her head in her hands. “It’s surreal! Aunt Eve, how did you manage to endure that scene without going orbital? These charges are trumped up and everybody involved knows it. Just thinking about the—the blatant manipulation and the collusion and the total unfairness makes me want to scream.”

“Been there, done that, dear.” Eve actually laughed.

Wade eyed his aunt keenly, impressed by her calm demeanor, a sharp contrast from her wild fury at the police station a couple days earlier. Was it possible that she hadn’t exacerbated the situation by forever alienating the chief during their private talk? That was a positive sign—the only one they had going for them, as far as he could see.

“Wade, you’re very friendly with the little Sheely girl who works for Cormack,” Eve said. “I know this is unorthodox, not to mention humiliating, but would you ask her to intercede on our behalf? Maybe she could convince her boss to meet with us today?”

“It won’t work, Aunt Eve.”

“But it can’t hurt to ask,” Eve argued.

“I already did.” Wade gave the candy dish a hard spin, and it rotated wildly until Rachel caught and halted it. He scowled. “I called Dana this morning. It was clear to me that Cormack told her not to get involved. He undoubtedly stressed Shawn’s role in the situation, probably hyped it to the max. I’m sure Cormack warned her not to let herself be—be—used by me.”

“How unfair and completely uncalled for!” Eve was indignant. “You’ve been close to the Sheelys for years.”

“And I would
never
use Dana.” Wade snatched the candy dish away from Rachel and sent it on another wild spin. “Of course, Cormack must’ve made it sound like I’m already trying to use her. Dana seemed so distant.” He averted his eyes, afraid they would betray how very much that phone call had disturbed him.

Eve seemed to know. “Maybe you’re reading too much into it,” she suggested quietly. “Maybe she seemed preoccupied because she is so upset about her brother’s involvement in this whole mess.”

“She wasn’t preoccupied, she was glacial.”

The candy dish sailed off the table, spilling mints everywhere. The three Saxons sat still, lost in their own thoughts, oblivious to the flying mints.

Rachel stared, bemused by the sight of her cousin, disheartened and distressed in a way she’d never seen him. And Aunt Eve seemed to be taking the threat of the Tildens’ defection with almost-Zen-like acceptance, totally at odds with her usually fierce fighting spirit.

Rachel was completely bewildered. She felt as if she’d missed a few vital clues and could make no sense with the ones she already had. “What does Shawn Sheely have to do with anything?”

Wade and Aunt Eve told her about Misty’s companion, collaborator, and witness to the alleged Tilden crime spree. Rachel immediately made the connection to Sarah’s distress last night. No wonder the girl had been upset!

“The Sheelys are so wholesome, so upstanding, and
Misty Tilden is—not.” Rachel felt real sympathy. “I can’t imagine one of them mixed up with her.”

“Neither can they, but according to Dana, Shawn claims they don’t know the
real
Misty. He intends to continue seeing her—and says he hopes to be more than friends with her. Way more than friends. I—uh—saw Dana after she and her sisters tried to set Little Brother straight last night,” Wade added, his voice trailing off.

He was aware that a flush was spreading from his neck to his face. There was additional information he had no intention of sharing with his aunt and cousin. Last night he’d hung around outside the apartment building where Mary Jo lived with her husband, the place where the Sheely sisters met to discuss the errant behavior of brother Shawn.

And when Dana had emerged, sobbing with sadness and frustration at Shawn’s refusal to see things their way, he had driven her to his apartment so she could calm down before going home. She couldn’t let her mom and dad see her so upset. In an earlier flurry of anxious phone calls, Tim and his sisters had agreed to spare their parents and younger siblings the news. At least for now.

Wade had offered Dana what comfort and words of advice he could. And he had ended up taking her to bed and giving her all the pleasure and fulfillment that he hadn’t delivered in Connecticut. She had matched his hunger and need with her own passionate responses, leaving him dazed and replete with unparalleled sensual bliss.

After hours of mind-bending marvelous fusion, they had reluctantly parted—on the best possible terms, he had thought. But when he’d called Dana this morning to ask for help with Quint Cormack, she had replied with all the warmth of a recorded message reciting the latest weather forecast. Maybe even less.

Obviously, Cormack had warned her to beware of Saxons asking for favors and she had bought into her boss’s poisonous suggestion that Wade was unscrupulous enough to use her to benefit Saxon Associates. The premise enraged him. Dana ought to know better! Certainly, she should
know
him
better than that; she should trust him. He wondered what he would do if she wouldn’t trust him. If she refused to see him. He closed his eyes, as if to shut out the pain.

“What are we going to do?” Rachel’s impassioned cry jolted him back to awareness. She was burning with the zeal that both he and Eve lacked today.

“There has to be something!” Rachel insisted. “We can’t just sit around and wait for the Tildens to arrive and fire us!”

“I did consider filing a cross complaint on behalf of the Tildens,” Eve said. “Both Shawn and Misty held them at gunpoint for a time that night. I wondered if it could be considered reckless endangerment and maybe even unlawful restraint. It’s a bit of a stretch but no more so than Cormack’s grand larceny and conspiracy concoctions. And there seems to have been enough menacing words flung about for a terroristic threats complaint of our own.”

“That’s brillant, Aunt Eve!” Rachel enthused. “We’ll go to the police station with the Tildens this afternoon.”

“I already ran the plan by Nick and he says it won’t fly.” Eve sighed softly. “He’s right, of course. Since Misty and Shawn filed first, a Johnny-come-lately counter complaint by the Tildens seems suspect. At best, it turns the situation into a they said/they said statement.”

“We could live with that, couldn’t we?” quizzed Rachel.

“Perhaps. If we weren’t dealing with Quinton Cormack.” Eve shrugged. “With him representing Misty, we’re forced to consider the worst-case scenario—that the Tildens could be countercharged with harrassment. Nick believes that Cormack would also include complaints of slander and malicious mischief. It’s daring, it’s outlandish, and only Quinton Cormack and Nick Spagna, who do not view the Tildens as demigods, would go through with it. But they will.”

“If Cormack and Spagna are the only ones who don’t pay homage to the Tildens, what does that make us? The town toadies?” Wade scowled.

Well, weren’t they? He remembered all the times he’d felt like an ingratiating toady around various Tildens. The “truth hurts” cliché seemed painfully apt.

“
Nick
says it won’t fly,
Nick
is right,” Rachel repeated, troubled. “Are you sure we should be taking Chief Spagna’s advice, Aunt Eve?”

“Yeah, according to Spagna, Cormack is Superman, Lawyer of Steel,” Wade said derisively. “Kryptonite might stop him, but the feeble Saxons don’t stand a chance against him. Chief Spagna is so pro-Cormack he might as well proclaim it on a bumper sticker on his squad car.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Wade.” Eve rose to her feet. “Ask the little Sheely girl to come in here and pick up these mints,” she added absently.

“Never mind, I’ll do it.” Sighing, Wade began to pick up the mints himself and throw them into the trash basket. “Katie would put them right back in the candy dish.”

“Possibly to be consumed by the Tildens this afternoon.” Aunt Eve seemed to be considering the idea.

Wade immediately transferred the mints back into the candy dish. “Seeing Sloane eat a mint that’s been on the floor
and
in the trash might be petty revenge, but it works for me.”

“We’re in the midst of a serious crisis and you two are plotting revenge with mints?” Rachel was exasperated. She snatched the candy dish from Wade and dumped the mints back into the trash can with an air of finality. “We have to do something. We have to take action!”

“Okay, Rach. Why don’t you go over to Cormack’s office and ask him if he’ll come here this afternoon and meet with us and the Tildens?” Wade challenged. “Is that enough action for you?”

He had used that same tone and smirk back when they were kids and he’d dared her to go on the Heart Attack, the triple-loop upside-down roller coaster on a boardwalk pier in Wildwood. Rachel had declined then, and she knew Wade fully expected her to refuse to go to. Quint’s office now.

But there were a few facts he was missing. Her face was flushed and hot, and her voice seemed to be echoing in her ears. “All right, I will,” she heard herself say.

“While we appreciate your offer, I have to warn you in advance that it’s useless, dear. Cormack will surely refuse.” Aunt Eve patted Rachel’s arm. “Don’t go, Rachel. You were distraught over the Pedersen case, and I’m concerned about you putting yourself in Quinton Cormack’s line of fire once again.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’ll get shot down like one of those ducks in a shooting gallery on the boardwalk,” added Wade gloomily.

If they only knew! Rachel swallowed hard. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I’ll go over there right now.”

She paused as she headed down the plushly carpeted corridor. “And Wade, don’t call Dana Sheely and warn her that I’m on my way over. Today I really would like to take advantage of—the element of surprise.”

“Dana won’t take a call from me anyway,” Wade said darkly. “I talked to her once and then I was told she wouldn’t accept any more calls from me.”

“By their dragon receptionist-secretary,” Eve surmised. “I was also told by Commandant Helen that no calls from Saxon Associates were to be put through.”

“Shunned by Cormack and Son.” Wade shook his head. “How the mighty have fallen and all that.”

“We haven’t fallen,” Eve insisted. “This is merely a—professional setback.”

“And the trouble in Northern Ireland is just a little spat among friends,” mumbled Rachel.

The trio walked to the reception area, where young Katie Sheely was busily typing away on her computer keyboard.

“Katie, what are you working on?” Wade asked, after he’d recovered from the shock of seeing her so thoroughly engrossed in any kind of office function.

Katie didn’t look away from the screen. “I’m in an
X-Files
chat room. You wouldn’t believe how outrageous this
one guy’s theory is! I think he might be an alien clone himself.”

Eve opened her mouth as if to speak, then swiftly turned and headed back to her office without saying a word.

“Considering everything, Aunt Eve has shown remarkable restraint today,” Wade murmured to Rachel. “I mean, contrast her attitude this morning to last week, when she was ready to take us apart, piece by piece. And you should’ve seen how infuriated she was in the police station Saturday morning! When she went over to talk to the chief after the Tilden meeting, I had visions of her being charged with felonious assault.”