Read Online Courting Disaster by Carol Stephenson - Free Book Online

Navka stood at the door of his corner office along with the secretary. Without missing a beat, I continued down the hallway.
    I extended my hand. “Greg, how are you?”
    “Good.” After shaking my hand, the CEO showed me inside and the secretary closed the door. I took one of the leather client chairs while Greg sat behind a massive mahogany desk. He folded his hands on top.
    “How’s my boy Mike?” Although Greg was actually Grigori and Russian, he had been in the United States so long that he’d picked up and enthusiastically used all idioms and colloquialisms.
    With a start I realized Jared once warned me about Grigori after I’d been shot.
    He had gripped my shoulders, shaking me lightly as if he could shake some sense into me.
    “Don’t take the Rocket account. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
    “You have no proof.” Irritated, I pulled away. “Borys never named Grigori or his company as being involved.”
    Frustration etched Jared’s face. “Not only is the owner Russian but one of Borys’s clients. Borys’s forte was setting up money-laundering operations. He did it in both Poland and the Soviet Union and he’s done it for years in Florida. If you weren’t being so stubborn, you would realize there’s no leap of faith or logic here, honey.”
    “Nearly all Borys’s clients were Eastern Europeans,” I argued. “We both know how tight-knit the Russian community is.” I folded my arms. “I’m taking this account. It’s only representing the drivers on traffic violations, not the end of the world.”
    “No, but it is the end of our relationship. I can’t watch you get killed for good this time.”
    “Jared—”
    I’d reached for him, but he had stalked out of my home, out of my life.
    Jared’s admonition had served a reverse purpose. I’d decided to find out if Grigori was connected to Borys’s death. I’d managed to land the account but somewhere along the line I’d lost my focus on investigating Rocket. A year later I was nowhere closer to having an answer.
    Face it. I’d let the shooter win. I’d been unable to get on with my life. Maybe Jared was right. I had given up.
    “Carling?” Greg’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Are you all right? I heard about your car accident.”
    “I’m fine, thanks.” I pulled myself together. “Mike’s been released without being charged.”
    Greg smacked the palm of his hand against the desk. “Excellent! Good job!”
    “I really had nothing to do with it. They had detained him only for questioning.”
    “You’re too modest.” Greg’s eyes narrowed. “What did Mike have to say to the police?”
    I gave the CEO a smile. “We’ve been over this before. You know that I can’t divulge the actual conversations. Attorney-client privilege.”
    As Greg’s expression hardened, I added on a bright note. “However, I can tell you that the police found a kilo of cocaine in the back of Mr. Staminski’s truck. If he had been charged, I would have pled ‘not guilty’ as my client had no knowledge of how the cocaine got in the back of his truck.”
    Relaxing marginally, Greg leaned back in his black leather executive chair. “Good, good.”
    “Not so good. The police are hardly going to accept a kilo got into one of your trucks by accident. They’ll launch an investigation.”
    My comment didn’t even faze him, but then again little did. Certainly, Jared didn’t have concrete evidence to indict either Greg or Rocket. For that matter I’d never discovered anything incriminating. Instead of allowing me to visit the plant, Rocket sent the drivers to my office. I hadn’t been able to get close enough to the operations here to learn more about Borys’s activities. My initial resolve had sputtered. It had been easier to take the money. Mortification burned in my stomach.
    “Let them.” Greg shrugged, swiveling to face the bank of windows. I knew his office overlooked the shipping yard, rather than a postcard pretty