Harry mentally ran through the options for murder: gun, knife, poison, suffocation, drowning, strangulation, head injury, or a combination of those things. His problem was that he no longer had access to a gun. The police had seized his father’s arsenal as part of the investigation into his father’s illegal weapons possession. Poison was not possible. Head trauma was challenging, as he’d need to find a rock or brick to use at the park, and there was no guarantee he would find what he needed in the dark.

It left riskier and more physically violent methods his only choice. His hotel suite did not have any kitchen knives. The bags lining his garbage cans were flimsy at best. If he pulled one over his blackmailer’s head, it would be ripped in seconds.

Strangulation was the only option left.

He knew he was strong—daily sessions with a personal trainer guaranteed that. But he had no idea of the size of his adversary. Would he succeed if he tried to choke him with his bare hands?

It was risky.

And he didn’t like risk.

Also, that kind of attack would result in a physical struggle, and God knew what kind of forensic evidence Harry would inadvertently leave on his blackmailer’s corpse—assuming he was successful.

His gaze fell on the wall outlet. His computer power cord hung from it, useless in the face of the denuded hard drive in Harry’s computer.

The computer power cord. That was the answer. The deliciously ironic answer.

Harry unplugged the cord and wrapped it around his hand. Would it flex enough to make a tight grip on his blackmailer’s neck? He couldn’t tell.

He slipped it around his own neck and wrapped the ends, pulling the cord taut.

His Adam’s apple protested at the pressure.

It would work.

He released the cord, leaving it around his neck, like a tie that he had not yet knotted.

He had come home to confess his sins to his conservative mother, and instead shot a woman in cold blood and was about to strangle a man. If his mother were alive, she would tell him to call the authorities.

But he was one of the authorities.

Just another day at the office.

Nausea rose in his stomach.

All that scotch.

None of that food. Should he eat before he went on his date with the devil?

He reached for the room service cart. His hand connected too hard with the plate holding his sandwich. The lid tumbled to the ground, the plate tipping over. His sandwich slid to the floor, the slices of bread splaying apart. The mound of beef looked obscene on the carpet. Au jus seeped in a brown puddle around it.