Read Online Inadvertent Disclosure by Melissa F Miller - Free Book Online Page A

looked over
her shoulder. She swallowed.
    “Uh, he’s in the community
lounge. You wait here, okay?  I’ll get him.” She disappeared back into the
dimly lit hall, pulling the door most of the way shut, but not closing it
entirely.
    Sasha glanced at Russell to see
if he’d follow the woman inside, but he just grinned and deposited himself into
a long wooden glider by the door.
    After several minutes, during
which they could hear the murmur of voices floating out through the open window
just behind the glider, the door reopened.
    The shorter man from the
parking lot came out onto the porch and pulled the door shut firmly behind him.
    Russell stood. “Afternoon,
Danny.”
    “Deputy,” Danny said with a nod.
He turned his attention to Sasha, “We haven’t been formally introduced. Daniel
J. McAllister, III.” He stepped forward with an outstretched hand and a wide
smile.
    Sasha took his hand but didn’t
return the smile. “Sasha McCandless. Esquire,” she added as an afterthought.
    The grin faded.
    “So, Danny,” Russell said, “I
guess you know why we’re here.”
    “Let me start by saying I don’t
condone violence in our movement.” His eyes darted between the two of them. He
was nervous and trying to hide it.
    “What do you call attacking an
unarmed woman, Danny?”
    He flinched. “That got out of
hand, and I’m truly sorry. But, don’t forget, I did try to stop Jay.”
    Sasha raised a brow.
    “What about the vandalism,
Danny?  Slashing tires?  Doesn’t that create waste?  Now four perfectly good
tires are ruined.” There was a hint of mockery in Russell’s voice, but Danny
either missed it or chose to ignore it.
    “We have some new members,” he
told them. “Some of them don’t yet understand our philosophy fully.”
    “That’d be this Jay character?” 
Russell rested a hand on the butt of his weapon.
    “For one,” Danny agreed.
    “Who else?”
    “Well, he’s the main one, I
guess. We have had several people join recently. None of them local. They
responded to our web posting.”
    “Jay was one of them?”
    “Yes.”
    “What’s his last name?”
    “I don’t know it.”
    “Where’s he from?”
    Danny shrugged.
    “Where’s he staying?”
    Another shrug. Russell stepped
close to the smaller man and stared down at him. Waited.
    “Uh, he was staying here,”
Danny admitted. “But, he didn’t come back after the . . . uh, incident at the
lot. To be honest, I figured the state police had probably picked him up and
I’d be bailing him out later. What happened after I left?”  He directed this
last part to Sasha.
    “After you fled,” she said,
“your new friend took another swing at my windshield, cracking it. I couldn’t
wait for the police any longer, so I disarmed him and beat him with his
branch.”
    Danny swung around to Russell.
“Is she serious?”
    “She seems to be. Turns out Ms.
McCandless here has some self-defense training. Your buddy probably has a hell
of a headache right about now.”
    He was silent.
    Russell pointed over Danny’s
shoulder into the house. “You know, I don’t ordinarily try to enter your
premises. I have no interest in harassing you and your merry band of tree
huggers. However, I want to satisfy myself that you’re not harboring a
fugitive, which is what this Jay character is now, just so we’re clear. Plus,
you’re going to need to get your checkbook, Danny. Ms. McCandless will take a
check to cover the cost of her car repairs.”
    Danny opened his mouth to
protest then thought the better of it. “Okay. She waits out here, though.”
    “Fine by me,” Sasha told him,
sinking into the glider. “The smell of patchouli gives me a headache.”
    Russell smirked at the comment
and followed Danny into the house.
    Sasha passed the time on her
Blackberry. She texted Connelly explaining why she’d been delayed in Springport
and composed an e-mail to the General Counsel and the Vice President of
Operations at VitaMight to let them know