“Controlled chaos,” said Clay. “The sign of a sharp mind.”
Nick perched on the edge of a worktable loaded down with two computer monitors, a hard drive with its guts spilled open, coils of cable, and several keyboards stacked in a tower that looked on the verge of collapse. “If you say so.”
“You’re the one who asked to meet at my office,” Clay reminded him, flipping his long hair off his forehead.
It was a reminder Nick didn’t need. A reminder that he was keeping his investigation into Alexa’s accident from Ronan and Declan, that he was exposing them to danger. It didn’t matter that his inquiries were off the record. He was playing a very dangerous game, one that could cost them all, and that didn’t even count the night he’d spent in Alexa’s bed.
He had to push away the memory of her hair spread out on the pillow like dark silk, her legs open, her sex wet and ready for him as he’d positioned himself to take her.
He was in treacherous territory, using MIS’s resources to investigate the accident of the woman who had the power to send them all to prison, the same woman whose body he’d explored with a fervor that had surprised even him.
He couldn’t afford to think about her now. Couldn’t afford the distraction of wondering if he’d fucked things up for good or if she might forgive him for being less than straight with her.
“Tell me more about the connection between Delaney and Walker,” Nick said.
In the wake of his fight with Alexa, it had taken Nick a few hours to remember the text from Clay. Then he couldn’t help feeling like it was a breakthrough. How had an unremarkable detective from BPD gotten on the good side of the heir to an old money fortune, a man now rumored to be running for the Senate?
Clay looked up at him. “Tell me more about what we’re doing and why I can’t tell Dec or Ronan.”
The question rankled, but Nick understood why Clay would ask it. Technically he worked for MIS, and MIS was Nick, Ronan, and Declan.
“It’s personal,” Nick said. “I’m paying out of pocket on this one.”
He wouldn’t funnel Clay’s time or any of the expenses he incurred on Alexa’s case through the company, although he knew money would be the least of Ronan and Declan’s objections.
“Is it going to get me in trouble?” Clay asked.
He was asking about Ronan. Declan could give as good as he got in a fight, but there weren’t too many things Dec cared enough about to swing his fists.
Ronan, on the other hand, wouldn’t hesitate to beat the shit out of any man who displeased him, and Nick wasn’t dumb enough to think he was an exception. They’d scrapped it out ever since they were kids — Ronan the oldest, Nick the second oldest — grappling on the lawn until one of their parents intervened.
Nick figured they were pretty evenly matched at this point. Ronan had stood toe-to-toe with some of the toughest soldiers in the U.S. military, and Nick had made it through one of the most challenging police academies in the country, followed by years on the streets of Boston, chasing down perps who didn’t have the good sense to stop when the police told them to stop.
But he had no desire to exchange blows with his brother. They’d reached a point of mutual respect, camaraderie even. He would have to either abandon his investigation into Alexa’s accident or let Ronan in on what he was up to before he did lasting damage to their relationship.
“I’ll take full responsibility,” Nick said.
“I’ll be sure to remember that when Ronan’s beating the shit out of me,” Clay grumbled, turning to his desk. He picked up a file folder and handed it to Nick. “Eleven years ago Dick Delaney was just another rookie detective — no family on the force, no connections in high places. Then he was assigned to the Nash-Hancock case and all of a sudden the guy’s a golden boy, rocketing through the ranks at BPD like he’d solved the case of the century instead of closing a hit-and-run without a single lead. Right after that, guy starts showing up at Walker parties and fundraisers, moves into a house in Seaport.”
“Seaport?”
Clay nodded. “A starter house, but still.”
Seaport was expensive. Not as expensive as Back Bay — that was serious old money territory — but still pricey for a detective, even a detective on the rise.
Nick opened the folder Clay had handed him and flipped through the pages. There was a timeline of Delaney’s rise at BPD following the closure of Alexa’s case, plus a list of locations and events where Clay had been able to place Leland Walker and Richard Delaney at the same time. There were also pictures — of Frederick, the patriarch of the Walker family, his wife Lillian, a regal woman with a long neck and thick dark hair, and their grown children, Leland and Elizabeth.
They looked exactly like Nick expected them to look. Like rich people who’d been born with one silver spoon in their mouth and another one shoved up their ass.
“So Delaney doesn’t get a break in the Nash case,” Nick says. “He closes it, becomes a star at BPD, and is suddenly an honored guest of Leland Walker.”
“And not just back then,” Clay said. “They still meet regularly, and rumor is Delaney’s considering a run for mayor.”
Nick flipped back to the page of recent meetings between Leland Walker and Delaney. Clay was right: they met once a month at Lucca, an upscale restaurant in Back Bay.
Nick turned to the photograph of Leland Walker. According to the background, Leland was the only living son of Frederick and Lillian Walker: an older boy had died at the age of twenty in a sailboat accident. In the picture Leland was wearing a suit and tie, his dark hair peppered with just enough gray to be considered distinguished. Nick knew it had been taken recently because Leland looked very much the way he had on the news when Nick met Kyle at Billy’s three weeks earlier.
It seemed a lifetime ago, his brief relationship with Alexa begun and ended in the space between then and now, but he remembered looking up at the television and reading the headline that Walker was rumored to be running for the Senate. The memory set off a store of other moments like it — moments when he’d been in line for coffee or glancing at social media or passing through the living room at home while someone was watching news. There had been lot of coverage of Leland’s potential run, news outlets and pundits breathlessly anticipating the announcement of one of Boston’s most promising political candidates.