“It’s the closest thing to a motive I’ve seen yet. When we talk to his staff tomorrow, we need to cover both sides—the political and the personal. Who was he dating? Who might’ve had an axe to grind? You know the drill.”

“What’s your gut telling you, boss?”

He knew she hated when he called her that. “I’m not loving the political angle.”

“The timing works.”

“Yeah, but would a political rival cut off his dick and stuff it in his mouth?”

Freddie cringed and covered his own package.

“We’re going to keep that detail close to the vest and see where it takes us. But my money’s on a woman.”

“You know what’s bugging me?” Freddie asked.

“What’s that?”

“No sign of a struggle. How does someone get a hold of your dick and do the Lorena Bobbitt without you putting up a fight?”

“Maybe he was asleep? Didn’t see it coming?”

“Someone grabs my junk, I’m wide awake.”

“Spare me the visual, will you, please?”

“I’m just saying…”

“That it was someone he knew, someone he wasn’t surprised to see.”

“Exactly.” He picked up the second donut and took a bite. With a dollop of white cream on his lower lip, he added, “He had one of those butcher block knife things in his kitchen. The butcher knife was the one holding him to the headboard.”

“So the killer didn’t arrive armed.”

“It doesn’t seem so. No.”

Standing up, Sam said, “I want to see those tapes. What the hell is taking them so long?”

Driving from the Watergate to the office, Nick should have been thinking about what he was going to say to his staff. They’d be looking to him for leadership, for answers to questions that had no answers. But rather than prepare himself for what would no doubt be an emotional ordeal, he kept hearing Sam’s voice: “I would’ve liked to have gotten those messages.”

Pounding his hand on the steering wheel, he let loose with an uncharacteristic string of swears. Like it wasn’t enough that John had been murdered. To also have to face off with the one woman from his past who he’d never worked out of his system was…well, calling it unfair wouldn’t do it justice.

He knew she wanted to talk about what happened all those years ago and why they never saw each other again. It made him so mad to think about her malicious ex not giving her the messages. But he couldn’t process the implications of this discovery in the midst of the mayhem caused by John’s murder. Dealing with Sam Holland solely on a professional level would take all the fortitude he could muster, never mind getting personal.