Page 7 of Insidious Threats
“Laura’s my Pilates instructor,” Bella prattled on as if Stasia might care. Then she dropped her voice and leaned forward. “Are you from … pretrial services?”
Stasia allowed herself a small smile and flicked her eyes down to the monitoring bracelet circling Bella’s slim ankle. Bella watched her with parted lips, anxious and alert.
Finally, Stasia answered, “No. I’m not here to make sure you’re following the terms of your house arrest while you await trial.”
Bella’s shoulders relaxed. “Home confinement,” she corrected, as if she couldn’t help herself.
“Whichever.”
“So, then, how can I help you?”
“Our boss sent me.”
Bella’s shoulders shot back up to her ears, and she shook her head violently. “You can’t be here,” she whispered. “Please, go.”
Stasia studied the woman without pity. “You know I can’t do that.”
“You can’t come in.”
“I don’t need to come in. I have a message to deliver. Mr. Delone wants you to remember how important it is that you maintain the confidentially that you agreed to when he retained you.”
“Retained me in my capacity as a real estate broker to manage his commercial properties in the area, you mean?”
Stasia gave her a blank look. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
Bella pursed her lips and shifted her weight from one bare foot to the other, antsy now. “Then I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s a good answer. Just remember. Because Detective Colchis forgot.”
“Wait. What?”
“Tim Colchis, your co-defendant? You know, the police officer who stabbed the boxer in a failed effort to clean up the Landon Lewis mess.”
Bella dropped the innocent act like it was hot. “Look, Leith—our employer, rather—didn’t involve me in any of that last summer. All I did was tell Colchis when Landon was alone in the building. That was the full extent of my participation in that botched operation. Since then, I’ve done everything I could do to limit the damage.”
“Just be mindful that you don’t decide to talk. The detective decided to roll the dice. He told the district attorney’s office that he’s ready to deal.”
“He’s going to sell me out?” Bella exploded.
“That would be exceedingly hard, considering he fell in his cell this morning and sustained extensive brain damage. He’s comatose and unlikely ever to wake up.”
Bella opened, then closed, her mouth. After a moment, she found her voice. “Did you …?”
Stasia gave her a long, cool look. “I don’t think you want to ask me that question, Mrs. Steptoe. Your takeaway here is not to get any ideas about cooperating with the prosecution. In many ways, your position has improved. With Novak and Colchis both dead, there’s really nobody who can testify against you.”
“You’re forgetting Maisy Farley.”
Stasia waved a hand. “She’s an irritant. A fly. Nothing more. Now, one last question: the errand Leith asked you to handle last month—the trip to upstate New York—was it successful?”
“As far as I know. I did what Mr. Delone told me to do.”
Stasia held her gaze for a long, intense moment. “Good. See that you continue to do so.”
She heard a car rolling up the driveway behind her and turned up her hood so the Pilates instructor wouldn’t glimpse her face. She left Bella standing open-mouthed at her front door and slipped away as if she’d never been there.
6
Amanda hurried off the elevator into McCandless, Volmer & Andrews’ brick-walled lobby, still shivering from the bracing winter air.
