by Leigh James
I shook my head again, but this time for a different reason. Typical Alexa. “He fell for it?” I asked.
“He loves me. And I wore a low-cut shirt,” she said. “Duh.”
I rolled my eyes but I refused to say double duh. “And Linda?” I asked.
“Oh,” said Alexa dismissively. “I just told her that the annual half-price shoe sale was going on at Nordstrom.”
“That was it?” I asked.
“You have to know how to motivate people, Nicole,” she said and sniffed. “Now, I gotta go. I’ll do my eye makeup, then I’ll go to work and pretend to be a lawyer, all while planning your secret surprise party for our good buddy, Norris Phaland.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I mean it.”
“Good for you,” Alexa said. I heard her snort in disapproval right before she hung up.
* * *
“Did you talk to Teddy?” I asked Walker, a few minutes later. He nodded at me. He was reading documents online and rubbing his temples as though he had a headache. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I just can’t believe the government paid your law firm five million dollars to shut up and pitch in, to help the cause of my early demise. And yours.”
He looked up at me. “They’re unfuckingbelievable.”
I patted his shoulder. “I know,” I said. “But I still believe it. And remember, it’s not the whole government, it’s one person whose greed got in his way.” I paused for a beat. “What did Teddy say?”
“He said he was going to check the boat later, make sure it was secure, and keep his eyes out for any strangers. There’s not many people out because of the weather and he knows this island like the back of his hand. He also told me he can handle himself with a gun, if he needs to.”
“He told you that?” I asked.
“I asked him. He’s a hunter, so he’s used to shooting,” Walker said. “He also said he and some of the other local boys will watch out back. If they need to.”
I looked back out the window: the storm was starting to pick up. “Here’s hoping they won’t,” I said.
“What’s new on your end?” Walker asked. “Alexa? April and Lester?”
“Lester and April are meeting with David and Norris today at Blue. Lester’s going to secretly tape them, try and get a statement about my credit card, anything damaging he can get,” I said. “Even if he gets something on tape, it’ll be inadmissible. It’s illegal for him to do it. But at least if we get it in front of someone with authority, it might give them the push they need to look into it further and hopefully bring charges.
“They’re also going to try to put your tracking devices on David and Norris’s computers, but I don’t know if they’ll have time. And John Tobin’s, if Lester sees him again soon. After that,” I said, shrugging, “the best I can use them for is current affidavits. I’m going to draft those today. If we have written testimony about what they know, what they witnessed, it’ll further strengthen our case. I’ll have that in addition to the statement that Lester made for me here. It’s not testimony before a jury, but it’s all we’re gonna get.”
“Because Lester, and quite possibly April, are going to skip town as soon as possible?” Walker asked.
“As soon as you pay them,” I reminded him.
“You mean, as soon as Lester Max pays himself. I’m going to give him all the access codes to the corporation’s accounts — but I won’t do it until we’ve confirmed they’ve turned in the affidavits. Then, before he runs, he’s supposed to wire the balance of the money to me. That’s the big ‘if’ — if he wires us the money, like he’s supposed to do, before he skips town,” Walker said. “It’ll be dangerous for him, and tempting to just keep it for himself. If he wires it to us like he’s supposed to, it will immediately alert the authorities that he’s up to something, and that something’s up.”
“The timing on this is all a little tight,” I said, and grimaced.
“I’ve had tighter,” he said, looking at me hotly and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“Ha-ha,” I said. “But we don’t have time for that right now. Where is he going to wire the money to?” I asked. “Last time I checked, we didn’t have access to a Swiss bank account.”
“I’ve always wanted one, but no — you’re right. The money’s not coming to us. It’s getting wired to a bank in Miami. The account is listed under one Ms. Louise of South Beach. She’s going to take her cut, and if she does what she’s supposed to, she’ll wire the rest of the money to an account on Boca.”
I raised my eyebrow at him, waiting.
“Which is the account Teddy just opened up in his name. And then ….”
“If Teddy does what he’s supposed to, he’ll take his cut and then give us the rest in cash,” I said, staring at Walker with my eyes wide. “That’s a lot of ifs.”
“It’ll be all right,” Walker said, with his typical bravado. Ah, the confidence of the extremely gorgeous, muscled, brilliant, self-made billionaire.
“Alexa is going to start working on that surprise retirement party for Norris Phaland. I asked her to invite John Tobin, and anyone else you can think of from the SEC who might be directly involved. I told her we wanted them all there. If they’re in one place, they can all be taken in at once. No one will get the chance to run: they’ll be surprised.”
“That’s great thinking,” Walker said, “but exactly who is going to be doing the arresting? The Feds are after us. The local police are after us. That leaves…who, exactly?”
“Well,” I said, standing up and pacing between the piles of documents we’d highlighted, collated and stacked. “We have to send these all off to someone, sometime.”
“Do you have anyone in mind?” Walker asked, expectantly. “Because I’ve officially run out of government officials to trust.”
“There’s one person involved in the case I still trust….” I said. “At least, I hope I can trust her.”
I could feel Walker watching me as I started clipping together the files and labeling them. I started organizing them by date, so she could see the sequence of events.
“Can you call Teddy?” I asked. “Tell him I’m gonna need a package sent out first thing tomorrow morning. He’s gonna need to priority overnight it. Emphasis on the priority.”
Chapter 24
After we’d organized everything, I’d made sure that all of the most damning deposits and their correlating dates were highlighted. Then I also carefully tabbed and highlighted the parts of Lester’s statement that implicated my firm in the murders.
Then Walker and I paced the condo.
“I think we need to be prepared for the fact that even though we can clearly show that Proctor & Buchanan violated the professional rules of conduct about client funds, and we can show the deposit for five million, we still don’t have any evidence that directly links them to the killings,” Walker said. “If I remember correctly, the deliveryman’s car had been wiped clean. They had no witnesses, no prints, no motive — except for the motive supplied by David and Norris, accusing you. Mandy and the driver, same thing.
“So, we have no concrete evidence against David and Norris at all — and the press has been accusing you of being responsible for this since we skipped town. So the jury of public opinion is heavily against us,” Walker said, his eyes searching my face. “It doesn’t look good, either, that I slipped off my GPS bracelet in the men’s room at Logan. And that we ran.”
“I know,” I said, still pacing. “But Lester knows the truth. And possibly John Tobin, though I can’t imagine he’ll be admitting anything anytime soon.” I looked back out the window. It had officially rained all day. I turned back to Walker. “If Lester and April can’t get them to say anything on tape today, and we can’t get anything from their personal laptops, we’ll have to just go with Plan B: Lester’s statement and affidavits from him and April. I’m going to start them now. They’ll have to print them off, sign them
, and then overnight them to the courthouse. We can’t have them sending anything here.”
“That’s the next thing we need to talk about,” Walker said. “Someone is down here. I’m gonna venture a guess that he’s here to kill us. We need to get our money and get out of here, fast. As soon as we get everything in place.
“And Nicole, I’m not one-hundred-percent sure it’ll be safe for us to go home.”
“I know,” I said, nodding at him. I’d gone over it in my mind, again and again. “Maybe once David and Norris are arrested, and the prosecution has time to go through everything we’ve assembled, it’ll be safe to go back.”
“But I’ll still be charged — for breaking my home detention. For jumping Federal bail. For aiding and abetting another criminal’s flight, too,” Walker said, referring to Lester Max. “You’re going to be stripped of your license. I’ll have to fight with my Board and struggle to gain back control of my company, if I can get anywhere near it.
“And then, what if the government’s not done with us? What if they want to retaliate? What if the case against me still stands?” He asked.
“Maybe we should hide for longer,” I said, grabbing his hand and lacing my fingers through his. “Really go off the grid, like you suggested. Give the good guys a chance to do their job.”
He nodded at me and I squeezed his hand. “But I’m not ready to turn my back on it for good,” I said. “I love the idea of living on an island with you and having your four babies…or maybe just one baby, to start…but I’m only twenty-five. I’m not ready to retire yet.”
I shifted uncomfortably and looked back at him. “I know I won’t be able to practice law anymore. And maybe you’re done with what you’ve been doing, too. Your company. We can think of a new future…together. If that’s what you want.” I swallowed nervously over a lump in my throat. No matter what, no matter everything that he’d told me, every touch, every look that told me he loved me, I still felt scared putting myself out there like that.
“If that’s what I want?” Walker asked. “Nic, I tattooed your goddamned name across my back. What else do you want from me, woman?”
I laughed and just shook my head, mostly at myself. “I don’t know. Sorry. I guess I still can’t believe that a gorgeous, Top Bachelor, dater of stars and models, billionaire wants to be with little old me.” I shrugged. “It’s only been a couple of months. I’m still wrapping my head around the idea.”
Walker sighed with frustration. “Please don’t refer to yourself as ‘little old me,’” he said. “You’re an amazing lawyer — or you were, until you threw your lot in with me. On top of that, you’re wicked hot, as we like to say in Boston. On top of that, I’ve come to realize that not only are you an evil genius force to be reckoned with, you’re a complete badass. Do you think I could have escaped the Feds with anyone but you? Or be plotting to bring everyone down with anyone else?” he asked. “You’re the brains behind this operation. All the good ideas have been yours.”
“Minky Lucca wasn’t a good plotter?” I asked. I was infuriating in my inability to take a compliment, I knew.
Walker put his finger to my lips. “Please don’t ever bother saying her name again. What I feel for you is in a different stratosphere. Don’t cheapen it. And for crissakes, don’t doubt it.”
I kissed his finger and he dropped his hand to my waist. I felt the familiar pull, the excitement, at his touch. “I don’t doubt it, Walker. It’s hard for me to tell you what I want, though, because it isn’t exactly the same as what you want. You want to hide forever, to leave it all behind, and I don’t.
“And I don’t want you to pick that new life over me. Do you understand? I don’t want to even give you the out. But I feel like I have to speak up, because if I don’t do it now, I might never do it. And I don’t want to regret a single day of my life. Almost being blown up makes you realize that life’s too short.
“I know you love me,” I said. “I’m hoping you love me enough to do what I want.”
He tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “Of course I do,” he said. “You’ve given up everything for me. You have my absolute loyalty. But part of that means I have a duty to protect you. So I’m putting my foot down — we’re running to the islands and hiding. At least for now, until we know it’s safe. I’m not putting you in any more danger, and I’m not putting us in a position where we might get separated at home. That’s the last thing I want. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, relieved.
“And I think we should bring people with us. We need to make the arrangements for that now.”
“Huh?” I said. “Who are we bringing with us? I thought you said Lester Max wasn’t invited.”
“I meant our families. Your dad, your brothers, and Adrian. We might need to get them out of town for a while. To keep them safe, in case there’s some sort of backlash.”
“Can we do that?” I asked. I pulled away from him, wrenched my hands together and started pacing again, worrying through this new idea. “Nobody in my family has a passport. They couldn’t get one in the next two days, either — it’d look too suspicious.”
“So let’s fly everybody down here — to Miami,” Walker said. “We’ll sail over there. And then we’ll all go over on the boat, together.”
“How long does the trip take?” I asked, excitement and nerves fighting for precedence inside me.
“If we have good weather, thirty hours. That’s from Miami to Nassau. That means we’ll have to leave here, soon.” Walker looked around the room. He looked out the window at the stormy weather. “This isn’t going to last forever,” he said, motioning to the rain. “Things will calm down before you know it.”
“I freaking hope so,” I said.
* * *
Things were moving too fast and not fast enough, all at the same time. We still hadn’t heard from Lester. We took turns pacing, collating, and looking for new files on the server.
“We should have Teddy get a bunch of supplies for us,” I said. “Water, blankets, food, flashlights, batteries — the whole nine yards,” I said. “I know it’s only thirty hours on a boat, but who knows what’ll happen once we get there.”
“Hopefully, we’ll at least have a significant amount of cash. Cash always helps everything,” Walker said.
“But that’s if Lester follows through,” I said.
“And Louise. And Teddy,” he added. He looked at me calmly. “I’m hoping this particular chain of events reinvigorates my belief in the goodness of people. It’s gonna really suck if it doesn’t.”
We looked at each other for a beat. “I’ll call Teddy,” he said.
“I’ll call Mimi,” I said. “Do you think Louise will hide them at The Majestic for us?” I asked.
“Of course she will. I’ll just pay her more.” He gave me a lopsided grin and I grabbed the phone to call her.
“Hi,” I said, hoarsely, after she picked up immediately. “Call me back on your TracFone?”
She called back instantly. “I’m glad to hear your voice,” she said. She sounded calm. Thank goodness she was used to high-stress situations after years of corporate legal battles.
“How’re the settlement negotiations going on your end?” Mimi asked.
“Things are moving along,” I said. “But I need to move some other things, too.”
“Okay,” she said, cautiously.
“Actually, people. Not things. I need to move some people.”
“You might have to get more specific,” she said, and I could picture her perfectly-shaped dark brows knitted together, furrowed and worrying.
“I need you to get a message to the parties, like before. Tell them they need to get on a plane to Miami — tonight. Tell them to take a cab to The Majestic Hotel. Someone there will take care of them. And tell them to throw their cellphones out as soon as they hang up with you.”
“Seriously?” Mimi asked.
“Seriously,” I said.
She paused for a beat. “Well, if th
at’s all, I’ll get the message to the parties. I think this is an offer that they’ll jump at.”
“Thank you, Mimi.”
“You’re welcome, Counselor. I’m rooting for you, by the way,”
After I hung up I noticed that I was shaking. My father. My brothers. Adrian.
Please God, keep them safe.
I went into the kitchen. Even though I had affidavits to write and I hadn’t eaten enough today, I poured myself a healthy glass of wine. Walker came in, rubbing his face, and I poured him one, too. We didn’t talk. We just stood there, drinking, each lost in our own thoughts.
My TracFone rang. “Hello?” I said, warily.
“It’s Lester,” he said. “I just got out of the meeting with David. He didn’t admit to anything important on the tape. He was very oblique during the whole thing. April didn’t manage to get the tracker on his computer, either.”
“Shit,” I said. “What about Norris?”
“Is Walker still going to pay me?” Lester whined, interrupting me. “Because I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a price on my head after this.”
“Yes, we’ll still pay you — after you sign the affidavits and send them in. I’ll email them to you in an hour,” I said. “So what about Norris? He didn’t have anything to say, either?”
“Norris wasn’t there,” Lester said. “David said he had another meeting. Now, send me those files. David was very brief with me. I gotta get out of town. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Okay,” I said. I hung up and immediately called Alexa.
“Seriously?” she said as she answered the phone. “Do we really need to talk this much?”
“Was Norris Phaland in the office today?” I asked.
“I didn’t see him,” Alexa said, “but I never see him. He’s always just locked in his office, pretending to work. He’s probably playing Sudoku on his smartphone or sleeping.”
