Chapter 7 - The Midnight Switch
"Get the zip-ties from the medical kit, Nora," Raymond commanded, never taking his eyes off Christopher, who was gagging and sputtering against the wardrobe, blood trickling from his split scalp down his expensive silk collar.
I kept the revolver trained on Wallace with one hand while I dragged the heavy medical supply case open with my foot. I kicked a bundle of heavy-duty nylon cable restraints toward the bed.
"Tie Wallace first," Raymond ordered. "Hands behind his back. To the radiator pipes."
I stepped behind the doctor, grabbed his wrists, and wrenched them backward. Wallace whimpered like a whipped dog as I cinched the thick nylon ties around his wrists until the plastic bit deep into his flesh, then looped a second tie around the cast-iron steam radiator beneath the window.
"Nora, please," Wallace blubbered, tears mixing with sweat in his beard. "I was forced into this! Christopher had gambling markers on me from the casino in Mashantucket! He was going to have my legs broken!"
"Tell it to the state prosecutor," I said coldly, pulling the zip-tie until it was singing tight.
I walked back to Christopher. Raymond released his throat and drove a short, brutal right hook into Christopher’s solar plexus. The younger man collapsed to his knees, vomiting bile and blood onto his polished oxblood shoes.
Within two minutes, Christopher was securely bound hand and foot with heavy medical restraints, gagged with three rolls of sterile adhesive tape, and shoved into the dark recesses of Raymond’s walk-in closet.
Raymond stood in the center of the room, breathing heavily, his knuckles raw and bleeding where he had struck his nephew. He looked down at his own trembling hands, then looked up at me.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice softening.
"No," I said, wiping a streak of white plaster dust from my cheek. "Theodore?"
I rushed to the bassinet. My son was screaming at the top of his lungs, his face crimson, his little fists waving frantically in the air. I picked him up, pressing him against my neck, kissing his damp forehead over and over again until his panicked cries began to soften into hiccuping sobs.
"He’s fine," I breathed, rocking him. "He’s unharmed."
The bedroom door clicked open.
Mrs. Gable stood on the threshold, holding a heavy cast-iron skillet in one hand and a set of brass keys in the other. Her eyes widened at the sight of the shattered water basin, the bullet hole in the ceiling, Dr. Wallace strapped to the radiator, and Raymond standing upright like an old general in his pajamas.
"God in heaven," Mrs. Gable whispered, lowering the skillet. "I heard the shot from the kitchen."
"Christopher missed," Raymond said simply. "Martha, is the coal tunnel clear?"
"Clear as a whistle," she replied, her eyes flashing with triumphant satisfaction as she glared at the weeping Dr. Wallace. "And the Ford Econoline is idling in the carriage house right now. I opened the rear alley gate twenty minutes ago. The security guards are all in the gatehouse eating breakfast; they didn't hear a thing over the storm winds."
"We have two hours before the board meeting begins at Commercial Wharf," Raymond said. He turned to me. "Nora, get my clothes. The charcoal wool suit in the dressing room. The white spread-collar shirt. The burgundy tie."
"Mr. Winslow," I said, watching him sway slightly on his feet as the adrenaline began to ebb. "You have been in bed for two months. You can barely stand without support."
"Then you will support me," Raymond said, his jaw setting with that same iron immovability that had built Winslow Maritime. "I am not walking into that boardroom in a hospital gown like an invalid seeking pity. I am walking in as the Chairman of the Board to take back what belongs to me."
Twenty minutes later, Raymond was dressed.
His clothes hung loosely on his emaciated frame—he had lost nearly thirty pounds during his chemical captivity—but Mrs. Gable had pinned the back of his waistcoat with safety pins, and his charcoal overcoat covered the hollows of his shoulders. With his silver hair brushed back, his jaw cleanly shaven by my own hand, and his gold signet ring back on his left pinky, he looked like a ghost who had climbed out of his tomb specifically to settle an unpaid debt.
I packed Theodore into his padded car seat, slung my diaper bag containing the holographic will, the flash drive, and Christopher’s revolver over my shoulder, and looked at Mrs. Gable.
"What about you, Martha?" I asked.
"I stay here," the old woman said with a terrifying smile. "I’ll sit right downstairs in the foyer with my knitting needles and Christopher's shotgun across my knees. If those gate guards come looking for the young master, I’ll tell them he’s sleeping off a migraine."
Raymond took both of Martha’s hands in his and kissed them gently. "Thank you, Martha. Thirty years of loyalty will not go unrewarded."
"Just bury that miserable boy in the courts, Master Raymond," she said fiercely. "And don't spare the rod."
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We slipped through the concealed servant door behind the master bath, descending the narrow spiral staircase down into the stone belly of the Winslow estate.
***
