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Chapter Forty-Seven


Despite Addison's promise that Cora couldn't get far, it had been over a month since the day in Nick's foyer, and Nick was finally getting to go home. It'd been a long month, a month of touch-and-go and reparitive surgeries up until the last week, when Nick had become so restless and antsy that he was driving everyone - especially the doctors and nurses - insane, and they finally sent him home.

The nurses help me load him into a wheel chair, and I pushed him carefully down the hallway as he clutched a duffle bag full of stuff that he'd slowly collected in his hospital room over the course of the month. "Bump," I warned him, as I wheeled him into the elevator.

On the ride down, my mind wandered over all the things that had happened in the past month. Addison had officially been named Hugh Walters' beneficiary and inherited not only the millions he'd already transferred to her account before his death but also one-third executive rights of the Walters Records company. Because she was so busy with everything else, Addison had immediately hired Lawrence to run the record company in her absence. Then she went on tour as planned, and even without Cora most of the shows remained sold-out and fully packed for her, despite the headline act being completely changed. Playing with Fire, the album, dropped on the third week and was still at the number one spot on the charts.

Cora had been completely cut out of Hugh Walters' will, and what little bit Hugh hadn't cleaned out himself from her bank accounts, the LAPD froze in hopes of stranding her somewhere that they could find her.

There had been several moments during the month, too, when Nick had almost told the authorities the whole story, including his part in it, but he was too afraid of what would happen. We spent an entire night talking about it about halfway through the month, though, and we'd agreed that we should keep Nick's involvement a secret - sheerly beause he hadn't really done anything. He hadn't been present at either murder, and the hitman he had paid had ended up not doing his job. Really, Nick was nothing more than privvy to information, he wasn't even truly an accessory.

At least that's how we rationalized the choice to keep Nick's past a secret.

Who knew how long keeping the secret would last.

We were crossing the main lobby of the hospital when the TVs suddenly displayed a photo of Cora, with the word BREAKING diagonally across the screen and Nick pulled the brake on the wheel chair I was pushing him out to the car in. I looked up at the screen.

"This jus in, authorities of the LAPD are currently surrounding the home in the West Hollywood neighborhood where Backstreet Boy Nick Carter lives in connection to the manhunt for Cora Walters." The screen flashed to an image of Nick's house.

I gasped. "Oh my God."

Nick's eyes were wide.

"An anonymous tip has led the authorities to believe that Walters was waiting at the residence after hearing that Carter was being released this afternoon from the local hospital after last month's shooting. This is the third anonymous tip authorities have received on the manhunt, including Cora sightings in Washington State, near the Canadian border, and downtown Los Angeles."

I instinctively put a protective hand on Nick's shoulder, and he put his hand over mine.

We watched the live footage as the LAPD stormed the house, kicking in Nick's door and rushing in. Nick's hand tightened on mine. We waited.

It seemed like ages. It seemed even longer than the past month.

And then a couple of police officers came out of the front door of the house, Cora between them, her hands behind her back, trying to shake them off. She was shouting, you could tell even from the distace the video feed was at from her. The officers opened the door of their car and, putting a hand on her head, set her into it before closing her in.

Nick let out a breath he'd been holding.

I felt like clapping.

I pushed Nick into the parking lot as the TV switched to another news story. A sleek black car from Walters Records, sent by Lawrence, was waiting out front, the door held open by Stanley. "We meet again," he greeted me as I pushed Nick over.

Nick glanced up at me, then back at Stanley. "You all know each other?"

"Stanley drove me to the restaurant that night, when you asked me to be your private investigator slash assistant," I explained.

Nick laughed, "Some private investigator you turned out to be."

"I never claimed to be one," I confessed.

Stanley laughed and held out his hands to help Nick up and Nick took them and slid into the car carefully. "Thanks Stan-the-Man," I said, grinning.

"Anytime, Miss." He grabbed Nick's empty wheelchair and brought it back into the hospital lobby before returning to drive us back to my place, since Nick's was currently the dissolving scene of a manhunt search.

Nick turned to me, "I have a confession to make."

"Yes?"

"I didn't hire you for your monking skills," he said.

"No?"

"Obviously, I didn't want you to find out about me, you know?"

"What would you have done if I had?" I asked.

Nick smirked, "Sam, I dunno if you noticed but you're the worst damn private investigator money could buy. I'm sorry, but it's true..." He laughed as I pretended to glare at him. "Honestly, I hired you for an alibi, originally, and because you were intriguing that night and although I didn't want to admit it, even to myself, I was interested even then in spending more time with you... and you working for me was the perfect excuse. I told myself that being around a woman 24/7 would make Cora jealous, but really it was because you made me feel better about myself in a menial conversation than Cora had managed to make me feel that entire night."

"Well, I hope to continue working for you for a long time," I said.

Nick shook his head, "No," he said, "You can't."

"I can't?"

"Yeah. Cos that'd be prostitution, and I'm pretty sure that's illegal." He kissed my cheek.

"Like you care about illegal," I said throatily, grinning as Nick's mouth ran along my neckline.

Nick laughed against my skin. "I'm in the business of making good choices now, haven't you heard?"

"Oh are you?"

Nick smirked. "Yes," he replied. "For instance, I have a choice of sitting up nice and straight and keeping my seatbelt on right now, which would be good... or the choice of making love to you right here in the backseat of this car, which would be bad... And guess which one I'm going to chose?"

"Sometimes," I said, "It's good to be bad."

Nick grinned and unclipped his seatbelt. "I was hoping you'd say that..."