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He reached for the zip ties that had fallen out of his hand, rolled Clatcher onto his stomach, and used the ties to restrain Clatcher’s hands.
He rose to his feet, looking around the room, his gaze coming to rest on one of the sturdy wood chairs around the kitchen table. He moved one of the chairs into the middle of the living room, returned to Clatcher’s inert body, and dragged him toward the chair.
It took him less than a minute to get Clatcher off the floor and into the chair. He used more zip ties to restrain the man’s ankles to the legs of the chair, then ripped a piece of duct tape off the roll.
Clatcher groaned when Nick slapped it over his mouth, but he didn’t open his eyes.
Nick didn’t mind. He had all the time in the world.
He checked the magazine in his weapon and sat down to wait.
10
Alexa looked out the window as they made their way home from the airport, the city passing by on the other side of the glass. They’d stayed in Cuba an extra day, Nick as anxious as she was to delay their return to Boston. They didn’t talk about what awaited them, but she had the sense that things were coming to a head, that the impossibility of what they’d been doing was nipping at their heels.
There was too much of everything: too much secrecy, too much conflict. It wasn’t sustainable, and that was even more true with what Nick had confirmed from Allen Clatcher.
He’d come home after dark, his knuckles bloody and bruised but otherwise in one piece. He didn’t tell her what he’d done with the man who used to work for Frederick Walker, and she didn’t ask.
Part of it was cowardice. She didn’t want to know. Not yet. She knew she’d have to make the most impossible decision of her life, and cowardly or not, she wasn’t ready.
Would never be ready to say goodbye to him.
What he did tell her was that Clatcher had confirmed Karen LaGarde’s version of her story — that Leland was an addict and an alcoholic with a man streak who’d assaulted Karen months into their relationship, that she’d had him arrested, that Frederick had sent someone to her apartment to threaten her.
Cold fear had flooded Alexa’s body, the memory of the man who’d broken into her apartment, who’d very nearly killed her, still fresh in her mind.
Clatcher had also confirmed that Frederick had paid Karen to go away and keep her mouth shut, but Karen’s story had been the least of it. Nick had come away with a list of crimes committed by Leland over the years, some in the name of his addiction and others in the name of an obvious anger management problem exacerbated by the knowledge that Daddy was always handy with a checkbook if he needed bailing out.
Worst of all, the accident that had left Samantha dead and Alexa critically injured hadn’t been the only time Leland had hit someone when he’d been drunk or high: there had been another time after Alexa’s accident, another unsolved hit-and-run on Avery Street involving a young mother pushing her ten-month-old in a stroller.
The baby had survived. The mother hadn’t.
She’d felt sick when Nick told her, couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if she’d pushed harder after her accident, if she’d looked past her own pain to look more closely at the case, if she’d asked more questions.
The fact that Leland was messed up, that he was obviously a rich kid raised without love or boundaries would have been sad when he was a little boy, but now he was a middle-aged man, and not just a man but a man on the verge of being elected to the Senate.
A man who believed the rules didn’t apply to him because so far, they hadn’t.
She looked at Nick, his hands on the wheel, eyes focused on the road, and wondered if she was imagining the tension in his jaw, wondered if it was because of what he’d learned from Allen Clatcher or because they were back in the city, because he sensed the reality of their relationship chasing them as much as she did.
They hadn’t talked about what to do next. Alexa had put ice on his hands, wrapped them, made love to him until he’d fallen into a deep sleep. They’d spent the next day sleeping in and swimming and making love on the beach, making lunch at home and going out for one more quiet dinner next to the water, feasting on icy cold ceviche, tender beef carpaccio, crispy fish croquettes, and creamy rice pudding with coconut.
She’d thought the extra day would make it easier to come home, but as much as she loved Boston, she wasn’t ready to be back, wasn’t ready for the return to her office and the conversation with the AG’s investigator, a conversation she could no longer postpone.
“Home sweet home,” Nick said, pulling next to the curb in front of her apartment.
She looked over at him. “Thank you for a lovely time.”
He reached for her hand. “Let’s not let it end. Not yet.”
She smiled. “I can’t go back to Havana, but I could manage Thai, a bottle of wine, and a movie.”
He grinned, his face relaxing for the first time since they’d stepped onto the plane in Havana. “I’ll take it.”
He leaned over to kiss her, then got out of the car.
She tried helping unload their bags from the trunk but Nick wouldn’t have it, no matter how much she protested. She waited on the sidewalk instead, looking around the neighborhood, relishing the mild temperature. It wasn’t Havana, but at least it wasn’t January.
