Thugs and Kisses (14 page)

After deciding that the laundry could wait, I grabbed a quick shower and headed to the office. As I expected, it was mostly deserted except for a couple of attorneys using Saturday to catch up or to get a jump on the week ahead. I went straight to my office and closed the door.

Seated at my desk, I pulled out the upper right-hand drawer and felt underneath. Taped to the bottom of the drawer was a small envelope in which I kept Steele’s passwords. Also inside was a small key that fit a special compartment in Steele’s custom-made desk. Only two of these keys existed—Steele had one and I kept one. And as far as I knew, only the two of us knew about the compartment and where my key was hidden.

I peeked out my door and saw that no one was around, then quickly covered the several yards between my office and Steele’s. As usual, his office door was closed. I opened it and slipped inside, gently closing it behind me. It wasn’t unusual for me to go in and out of Steele’s office, but I didn’t want someone to see me and stop to make small talk. I had just a few hours to check out a couple of things and then head back home to meet Sally.

After settling into Steele’s chair, I opened his right-hand bottom drawer. It was a very deep drawer. Inside, color-coded folders hung suspended from slim metal rails. Inside each hanging folder were well-labeled manila file folders containing information Steele needed at his fingertips. Some of the folders contained personal information, such as the legal associations he belonged to, and others contained information on various Woobie internal committees. I pushed the files back and out of the way. Underneath them was a false bottom with a small keyhole. The key in my hand fit the tiny lock perfectly. After a quick turn, I was able to pull up the lid. It was only open halfway when I saw what I was after—Steele’s passport. It was resting on top of a neat stack of papers.

Steele used this false-bottom drawer mostly as a personal safe deposit box. Inside, he generally kept things like his passport, will, birth certificate, and important papers on other aspects of his life that he liked having immediate access to but didn’t want to keep at home. The first time I found out about the drawer was when a client brought in some old bearer bonds. Steele stashed them in this drawer for temporary safekeeping and gave me the spare key. I’ve had it since. Once he had me bring his passport to him after he arrived at the Orange County Airport and realized he’d forgotten it.

I looked down at the passport in my hand. If Steele hopped a plane out of the country, he would need this. If he forgot it, as he did before, he either would have called me or returned on his own to retrieve it. Steele was methodical and seldom made mistakes. If he was up to something shady that involved skipping the country, he would not have forgotten this. But then, just because Steele’s car was in the parking lot for the international terminal didn’t mean he took an international flight. Still, sifting through what little I did know about real-life white-collar criminals, it would seem that if he
did
do something illegal and tank his impeccable legal career, he’d want to leave the country. And knowing Steele, it would be somewhere that boasted warm weather, sandy beaches, and a bikini-clad Welcome Wagon.

My head hurt like hell. I closed my eyes, rubbed my temples, and tried to think. As I started swinging gently in Steele’s chair, I heard the familiar
squeak … squeak
. Damn if I didn’t miss the
squeak … squeak
. I sat like that for a short while—thinking, concentrating, and squeaking—when an idea struck me like a thunderbolt. At the same time, Steele’s office door was suddenly flung open by a shocked Fran Evans.

“Oh,” she said, quickly recovering her usual frosty demeanor, “I thought maybe Mike was back.” She tugged at the hem of the cream tunic sweater she was wearing and smoothed it down over her jeans.

“Nope, just me.” Before Fran could get any closer, I pulled some of the hanging file folders over the hidden box and rummaged through a few of them, hoping I looked like I knew what I was doing. I slipped the passport into one of them while I rifled. “Some things came up on Steele’s calendar, and I thought maybe I should attend to them instead of waiting for him to return.”

“Such loyalty is so commendable, Odelia.”

I glanced up at her. The words sounded sincere, but I immediately saw from her eyes that they were said to mock me.

“My loyalty, Fran, is to the firm. Steele may have vanished, but his work did not. If Steele misses a deadline, it reflects badly on the firm, which can affect all of us.”

“You’re such a good little paralegal, Odelia. Always looking out for the firm and that arrogant ass Steele.”

My first impulse was to throw my bulk at the bitch, but instead I sniffed and rolled my eyes, not caring if she saw me or not.

“Funny, isn’t it?” she said, eyeing me warily. “Steele is missing and so are the documents we need to prove our case for Silhouette.”

“Nothing
funny
about that at all.”

“I didn’t mean funny as in
ha ha
funny, Odelia. I meant funny as in strange or suspicious.”

“If you’re accusing Mike Steele of doing something unethical, Fran, don’t beat around the bush, just come out and say it.”

“I’m not saying Steele did anything wrong, just that everything seems, shall we say, too coincidental.”

Hmm, let’s see,
I calculated to myself,
if I climbed up onto Steele’s desk, I could launch myself at Fran with much more velocity than if I tried it from ground level.
As if reading my mind, Fran took a step backward, closer to the open door.

My headache increased. I scrunched my eyes at her as I spoke, hoping it made me look mean and not just in pain. “I don’t know what you mean, Fran. Steele is missing, but that doesn’t mean he had anything to do with those documents.” I paused and sniffled. “Besides, you were handling them as well. Maybe it was
you
who tampered with them?”

Her mouth fell open in indignation. “What? Are you accusing
me
of doing something with those documents?” She was outraged. “How dare you!”

In equal outrage, I snapped back. “And how dare
you
accuse Michael Steele of the very same thing, and he’s not even here to defend himself.”

“No, he’s not, and that’s the point, isn’t it?” She took a deep breath and started to leave. Just before walking out the door, she turned to me. “Maybe we should be checking
your
car for those documents, Odelia. Maybe you had something to do with this. I’ve often wondered about the two of you. Maybe you planned this together, and he left you behind to take the heat. It’s something he’d do and something you’d fall for.”

Had Fran delayed her departure by another minute, I know I would have assaulted her and probably been fired for it. Hmm, might have been worth it, especially since I know it would have felt great, and I could use a little instant gratification right now.

As soon as Fran left, I tried to get my thoughts back on track. I had an idea, but it was one that was rather outrageous. But first I had to close up Steele’s desk. It wouldn’t do to leave it open for anyone to find and rummage through. Locating the file where I dropped his passport, I pulled it out and dropped it back into the secret box, but when I tried to close and lock the lid, something got in the way. I opened the lid wider and felt around inside. Something was definitely stuck, papers of some sort.

Dropping the lid, I went to work removing the hanging folders until the entire box beneath them was exposed. This allowed me to pull up the lid all the way. It was a good-sized box, taking up the entire lower portion of the file drawer. Inside, in addition to the personal documents I expected to see, was a file folder. It was squished into the box down at the far end and was interfering with the hinge. After wiggling it a bit, I was able to free the folder and pull it out. Inside were documents, original documents, all pertaining to Silhouette and the other parties to the lawsuit.

What did this mean? Was Steele behind the document tampering after all? And what about the documents found in Steele’s car? Where those more originals or just good copies of these?

I stopped speculating and tried to put myself in Steele’s head. Once I did, I saw a different picture. Maybe Steele hid these documents to protect them. Karen had said he was preoccupied with the case, with something fishy. Maybe he had discovered the tampering himself and hid the originals to make sure nothing more happened until he could figure out what was going on. Now that sounds more like the Michael Steele I know.

I checked my watch. It was almost noon. Quickly, I put the file back into the hidden box and locked it. After the hanging files were replaced, I looked over my handiwork to make sure the false bottom was not noticeable to anyone snooping around the drawer. Satisfied, I returned to my office, grabbed my bag, and headed for Laguna Beach and Steele’s condo once again. If I hurried, I could make it there and back home before Sally arrived.

With no weekday traffic, the trip to Laguna Beach took less time than it did before. However, when I arrived in the seaside town itself, it was alive with people out and about enjoying the warmer-than-usual late October. This time, I didn’t dawdle to take in Steele’s décor and to wonder if anyone was home. Instead, I went straight up the stairs to the extra room and to Steele’s desk. On the desk, right where I’d last seen it, was the portfolio containing bills waiting to be paid. I sorted through them until I located a couple of credit card statements. I also dug around the drawers to see if I could find a checkbook of some kind. I don’t recall Steele ever having a checkbook on him. I knew he paid almost everything by either credit card or debit card and paid his bills online. But even so, I was sure he would be the type who would keep meticulous entries. I located the checkbook and its register in the middle drawer and was pleased to see I was right. Items were entered and immediately subtracted from the balance. Except for a check he’d written a day before his trip and a cash withdrawal on the same day, there hadn’t been any deductions for his mortgage, utilities, car payment, or credit cards since late September. It looked like Steele paid his bills all at once at the end of the month. I checked the entries for several months and located only two credit card names. These matched the two statements I had taken from the portfolio.

I tossed the checkbook and the statements into my bag and grabbed my address book and cell phone. Flipping open the phone, I came face to face with a photo of Greg I had saved to the screen. I looked at it, screwed up my face to chase back the tears, and was pleased that this time I won the battle of the blubbering. The pain was getting easier to take, maybe because a week had gone by or I had thrown myself so deep into finding Steele that I didn’t allow the break up with Greg to take center stage. Whatever the reason, I vowed to get past it and keep moving. A moving target is more difficult to hit; it’s true for dodging both bullets and emotions.

Taking a deep breath, I punched in some numbers from a cryptic entry in the address book. Immediately, I heard a mechanical voice telling me to leave my name and number, nothing more.

“It’s me, Odelia,” I said into the phone, almost in a whisper. “Call me on my cell if you can.” I didn’t leave my number. There would be no need.

When my cell phone rang just a few minutes later, I jumped. But when I answered, I didn’t find the person I expected, but Melinda of Melinda’s Maid Service.

Once I was over my surprise, I asked her the same questions I had asked Let Mother Do It. This time I received a positive response in a negative tone.

“Yeah, I used to clean that selfish bastard’s place.”

I nodded to myself.
Yep, this sounded like the right person.
“Used to? I take it you don’t anymore?”

“Not for about three weeks,” Melinda scoffed. “He called me about three weeks ago and demanded that I make an unscheduled cleaning visit. Said some plants had been delivered, and the delivery company had made a mess. Wanted me to drop everything I was doing and come right over and clean it up.”

“And you didn’t?”

“Hell, no. I was in the middle of my daughter’s baby shower. I told the fool where he could find his vacuum cleaner and broom, and said I’d be by on my regular day, which was in just two days. I always cleaned his place on Friday.”

“Knowing Mr. Steele as I do, I’m sure that didn’t go over very well.”