Sasha McCandless 03 - Irretrievably Broken Read Online Free PDF

you?”
    “What can she add?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But, I think she believes me.”
    “Will you authorize her to talk to me about the divorce?”
    He narrowed his eyes but nodded yes.
    “Okay, then have her call my cell phone. The number’s on my card.” She plucked a business card from her bag and placed it on the table beside his booze.
    He nodded, glanced at the card, and then eyed the scotch again.
    She let herself out.
     

 
     
    CHAPTER 4
     
     
    Cinco stared out the window. The rain had stopped, and he could see clear to the top of Mount Washington, where a vibrant red and orange home had been built into the side of the hill. He didn’t know who had built the post-modern house or who lived in it, but he loved it. He loved it because it so clearly didn’t fit in with the surrounding homes. They were all dignified, well-built family homes that signaled stability, a degree of prosperity, and good roots. Not the red and orange house. It screamed of whimsy and individualism. Cinco often thought he was that house.
    He sighed and looked around the table at the three staid and serious Victorians looking back at him, unblinking, waiting to follow his lead.
    “Who are we waiting for?” he asked.
    “John Porter. He’s debriefing Volmer. He’ll be right up.”
    Cinco frowned, the smallest downturn of his mouth, to make sure the assembled men knew he was not happy about having to wait. The truth was Cinco didn’t care how long they waited. He spent his days—every day—going to meetings at the law firm his great-great-grandfather had built. They just blended, one into the next, into one interminable meeting.
    He wished his father, or at least his grandfather, had been as smart as the Talbott heirs, who had not followed their patriarch into the family business. Instead, they had used his money to fund ventures ranging from a decent Mediterranean restaurant to a Jeep dealership to a discreet, high-quality escort service.But, no, here he was, a lawyer, surrounded by a bunch of lawyers and all their endless “on the one hand, on the other hand” discussions.
    The door opened, and John Porter hurried in, his open suit jacket flapping behind him like a tail.
    “Sorry, gentleman,” he said as he pulled out the last available chair.
    Cinco’s personal secretary uncapped her pen, ready to begin her note-taking duties, but Porter shook his head at her.
    “Cinco, I don’t think we need Caroline for this, do we?”
    Cinco scowled. It wasn’t Porter’s place to dismiss his assistant.
    He turned to her. “Mrs. Masters, there’s no need to transcribe our first order of business, but you should stay, as I am sure other business will arise, and we will want a record of our discussion.”
    He turned back to Porter and eyeballed him hard, daring him to object. Porter said nothing.
    Marco DeAngeles broke the tension. “So, tell us, John. What did Volmer say?”
    The five men assembled in the room were the firm’s power hitters. They pulled down seven figures a year, regardless of how their own client billables shook out. As the top of the pyramid, they reaped the rewards and dealt with the headaches. And this business with Ellen Mortenson’s husband was a headache they did not need. Not after the mess with Hemisphere Air.
    Porter glanced at Caroline before he spoke, then he said, “Volmer gave her the check, but she hasn’t agreed to do it. She wants to talk to Greg herself, then she’ll let Volmer know.”
    DeAngeles slapped his hand down on the table, “I told you we should have sent someone other than Volmer! He’s too wishy-washy. We should have sent someone convincing.”
    Cinco held up a hand. “Volmer was the right choice. We need a soft sell with Sasha. For crissakes, Marco, she turned down partnership.”
    That one still stung. It just didn’t happen. Some lawyer wastes her twenties working twenty-five hundred hours a year, nights, weekends, holidays. No husband, no kids, no meaningful