“Right. That’s what they all say.” He pointed to a sign on the wall. “Come on. Room three twenty-four is down this hall.”
The door was open, but he knocked firmly before they entered. Inside, Marian lay sleeping in the bed, hooked up to a scary number of cords and tubes, while an array of monitors beeped and hummed. The remains of a lunch tray had been shoved to the side, and Lyman sat beside her, holding her hand.
“How’s she doing?” Zoë whispered.
Strain had etched fine lines in the skin around Lyman’s eyes. “The doctor said she looks fine, but these machines make me nervous.”
“Are you planning to sit up with her all night? You’ll never get any sleep in that chair.”
“The nurse said they can bring in a cot.” He glanced at Nick. “You two should go back to the house. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know what time Marian’s being discharged so you can pick us up.”
Nick nodded. “Will do.” While he headed for the door, Zoë lingered at Marian’s bedside. “Zoë?”
She turned. “Hmm? What?”
“Are you coming?”
“Oh…yes.” She patted Lyman’s shoulder as she passed. “Take care of her, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
As soon as they were back in the hall, Nick touched her arm. “Are you okay?”
She drew a deep breath then released it slowly. “I’m not sure. My head feels fuzzy—like I’m here, but I’m not—and I’m really tired.”
He’d had the same feeling many times after a stressful operation. “It’s the post-adrenaline letdown from the accident. You’ll feel better after some rest, but maybe I should drive on the way back.”
Her back stiffened, and the spark returned to her eyes. “Not on your life. No one drives my car except me. No one.” She clutched her purse to her chest as if he had threatened to steal her keys.
He shook his head. She was too stubborn for her own good. “Have it your way, but if you start to nod off, I’m taking over, whether you like it or not.”
On the drive back to the Prescott estate, he had to bite his tongue to keep from snickering. Zoë reminded him of a rabid teenage gamer in an arcade as she gripped the steering wheel with single-minded ferocity and kept her gaze trained on the road. As soon as she parked the car, she went straight up to her room without a word.
The last of Nick’s energy disappeared when he reached the top of the stairs to his apartment. His head was pounding, and his chest hurt, so he downed a couple of ibuprofens. He’d decided to give her an hour to rest before forcing the confrontation that had been building for days, so to pass the time, he stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes.
He awoke with a start and glanced around the dark room in a disoriented panic. The digital alarm clock on the bedside table glowed seven-zero-five. Impossible. How could he have slept almost three hours? He bolted upright and swung his legs to the floor. His stomach lurched, and his head spun for several seconds before it cleared. He stumbled to the bathroom and flipped the switch. Squinting against the bright light, he glanced in the mirror and winced at his reflection.
He looked like a boxer who had lost the title fight in twelve rounds. Raw, red abrasions streaked his cheeks and forehead. His eyes were bloodshot, and incipient bruises showed beneath them from the force of the airbag deployment. He couldn’t have a serious conversation with Zoë, looking like this, but what choice did he have? He wet a washcloth in cold water, wrung it out, and then plastered it across his face.
Yow!
He sucked air in through his teeth. His battered face stung like an army of fire ants had been snacking on it, but as he held the cold cloth in place, the pain gradually lessened. After a couple of minutes, he lowered the cloth and surveyed the damage again. He didn’t look any better, but at least it didn’t hurt as much. His stomach grumbled, reminding him of the time. He needed to eat. He also needed to sit down with Zoë, no matter how bad he looked.
Even if they both felt like something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe, it was time for the truth.
He found her curled up on the living room sofa, staring at a re-run of an old eighties detective show.
“Have you eaten?”
When she turned her head, surprise registered in her eyes, as if she’d forgotten about him. “You look awful!”
He pressed his lips together. He didn’t want his appearance to color their discussion. He raised one shoulder in his best attempt at a nonchalant shrug. “Airbag. It looks worse than it feels.”
“I hope so. Otherwise, we need to head straight back to the hospital.” She clicked off the television, unwound her legs, and stood. “Maybe you’ll feel better if you eat. I’ll see what I can pull together.”
Her eyes were brighter and no longer dazed with shock and fatigue, but the dark smudges beneath them remained, in stark contrast to her fair skin. According to his sister Angela, Nick was worthless at sensing what women wanted or needed, but even he could tell a little pampering might go a long way right now. “Tell you what—you join me in the kitchen, and I’ll cook something for us both.”
She frowned in confused suspicion. “I thought you said you couldn’t cook.”
“I may have exaggerated slightly. Come on.” He raised one hand to the small of her back in a gentle nudge.
After parking her at the kitchen table, he poured her a glass of red wine and rummaged through the cabinets for pots.
Zoë sipped her wine and sighed. “This is nice. You don’t have to cook, you know. I’m the chef, after all.”
He turned with a skillet in one hand. “Are you?”
She glanced away and let his question drop.
Nick let her drink her wine in peace while he hunted for a tall pot and gathered ingredients from the fridge and pantry. Olive oil. Garlic. Cherry tomatoes. Basil. Parmesan cheese. Spaghetti. He hadn’t lied completely about his culinary skills. His repertoire consisted of only a handful of dishes, and this specialty of his mother’s was one of them. While the pasta cooked, he halved the tomatoes then sautéed them in olive oil with the garlic and basil. A few minutes and a sprinkle of grated parmesan later, dinner was ready. Simple, but satisfying.
He set two steaming plates on the table, poured himself a glass of wine, and settled into the chair across from Zoë. He wanted a straightforward view of her and wanted her to see him just as clearly. Evasion and lying were much more difficult face-to-face. Not that he expected her to pull her arms inside her sweater and stare at the floor when he asked uncomfortable questions like many of the suspects he’d interviewed over the years, but small changes in expression could be just as telling.
She twirled a bite of spaghetti around her fork and popped it into her mouth. Her lips curved in a smile as she chewed and swallowed. “Mmm. This is delicious.”
Nick’s pulse leapt. She’d just given him the opening he was looking for. “I’ll teach you how to make it, if you like.”
Hot pink rushed to her cheeks. “Um…thanks.”
He laid his fork on his plate and focused his attention on her. “Zoë, after what happened today, we need to be honest with each other. You’re not a professional chef, are you?”
She didn’t pull her arms into her sweater or stare at the floor. Instead, she met his gaze full-on with challenge flashing in her emerald eyes. “No, I’m not. Any more than you’re a chauffeur.”
He nodded in acknowledgement. As he’d told her, there was nothing to be gained by hiding the truth at this point. “So why are you here?”
“Lyman hired me to protect Marian. I’m a bodyguard.”
A bodyguard. Not what he’d suspected, given her appearance, but then he wasn’t sure what he had expected. “So why the pretense of being a personal chef?”
She swirled her wine then took another sip. “My firm specializes in operatives who work undercover, and Lyman didn’t want Marian to know he’d hired a bodyguard.” She stabbed a tomato. “He was afraid she’d worry if she thought he was worried.”
Nick let out a short laugh. “That circular logic sounds familiar.”
Zoë tilted her head and assessed him with a cool expression as she finished her tomato. “What about you? You used to be a detective with the Detroit P.D., and now you’re a licensed private investigator.”
Her statement drew him up short. Had she been a step ahead of him all along? “How do you know that?”
“My employer has an excellent research department.”
“I couldn’t find anything on you.”
“You’re not meant to. Because we work undercover, our names don’t appear on the company website, and our boss requires no social media footprint as a condition of employment.”
She gathered another bite of pasta on her fork. “So, Mr. Private Investigator, what are you doing at Strathmoor, pretending to be a chauffeur?”
“Pretty much the same as you. After Lyman’s car accident, Marian was terrified and hired me as a bodyguard for him.”
Zoë’s eyes sparked with understanding and amusement. “And I bet she didn’t want him to know.”
“You’d win that bet.”
“How did she find you?”
“My brother-in-law was the first officer on the scene of the accident. Afterward, Marian kept calling him at the station, insisting on police protection for her husband. Kenny tried to explain the police don’t provide that service, especially not without a direct threat. Finally, she wore him down, and he referred her to me.”
Zoë’s expression grew thoughtful as she ate another bite. When she finished, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “So we’ve been dancing around each other for weeks, each pretending to be someone else, like some kind of ridiculous French farce. This situation would be funny if it weren’t so serious.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I can’t be sure about Lyman’s original accident, but I’m afraid a gunman in the basement and a pair of homicidal bikers definitely qualify as serious.” Without thinking, he cut his spaghetti into short segments with the side of his fork. When he glanced up, Zoë was smiling. “What?”
She raised her brows and pointed at his plate. “My brother does that for his six-year-old.”
Heat rose in his cheeks. “Old habits die hard. My mom made me and Angela cut up our spaghetti when we were kids. We preferred the full-strand-suck method, but Mom insisted that left more sauce on our faces than in our stomachs.”
“I’m sure she was right. My mother swore my brothers made messy eating into a competition.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes before he refilled their glasses. “Since we seem to be working the same case, what do you say we pool our efforts? Do you have any theories about the guy in the basement or the kamikaze cyclists?”
She kept her gaze on the ruby liquid in her glass and took her time answering. “Are you convinced the incidents are connected?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I think it’s likely, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. The gunman who demanded the plans to GRAMPA didn’t have the same voice or accent as Victor Watanabe. And why would Rudy Gehke, a rogue cop-turned-bank robber, try to run us off the road? It’s hard to see a connection.”
He’d had the same thought. “So what do you think we should do next?
She pushed back from the table, stood, and began to pace, glass in hand. “Since the Prescotts are the only point of connection, they probably know more than they realize. We need to talk to them.”
Nick stacked the dirty plates and carried them to the sink. “I’m not sure how much they could tell us now. They’ve both been traumatized by the accident today.”
Zoë joined him at the sink and set her empty glass on the counter. “I’m afraid we’re all a little worse for wear. I’m still shaky, and you look like you’re ready to go trick-or-treating.”
When she raised a hand to the abrasion over his brow, her touch was cool and gentle. “We’ll need to be subtle and go slow.”
Warmth suffused his body, and his thoughts blurred. What was she talking about? Oh, yeah. The Prescotts.
“And we can’t abandon our covers without permission,” she continued.
“Uh…no.”
He struggled to follow the conversation as her fingers trailed down the side of his injured face then withdrew. What was wrong with him? Maybe he was suffering the delayed effects of trauma from the airbag. He dumped the rest of his wine, filled the glass with cold water, and downed it in two gulps. As he focused on the concern in her eyes, his head cleared.
“Better?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She turned on the faucet to rinse the dishes. “I think we’d better get you to bed. We can discuss strategy tomorrow before we head back to the hospital.”
His brain froze again at we and bed.
She shook her head and wiped her hands on a dishtowel. Taking him firmly by the arms, she steered him toward the back door. “Go. Now. And don’t come back for at least ten hours.”
When his hand touched the knob, he turned and hesitated, mesmerized by the perfect curve of her upper lip. He couldn’t think of anything except how much he wanted to kiss her. No, needed to kiss her. There were probably a dozen excellent reasons he shouldn’t, but none came to mind.
He reached for her and slowly closed the space between them, half expecting her to pull away or object. But she didn’t. She smiled.
“Go,” she murmured. “You too tired to know what you’re doing.”
She was wrong. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Just before their lips touched, she turned her head, and his mouth brushed her cheek.
She slipped from his hands. “Go.” Reaching around him, she opened the door and gently propelled him onto the porch.
He had stumbled half-way across the courtyard to the garage when she called out, “Oh…and thanks for dinner.”
Chapter Ten
Daylight glowed orange through Zoë’s closed lids, but opening her eyes required more energy than she could muster. When she rolled to her back and stretched, her muscles screamed in protest. She sucked in a breath and waited for the pain to ease. Car accidents—even minor ones—always had the same effect on her body. The next day every square inch hurt as if she’d been beaten with a two-by-four, even if she hadn’t been injured.
She rolled back to her side and picked up her phone to check the time. Seven-twenty-two. If she hadn’t been too tired to think last night, she would have spent an hour soaking in the old cast iron tub with a handful of Epsom salts before tumbling into bed.
She forced herself out of bed and winced her way to the bathroom. Normally, she was a shower-and-go kind of girl, but this morning the tub beckoned. She ran the water as hot as she could stand, climbed in, and sank down until the steaming water reached her shoulders. The tub was too short to stretch her legs out, but she managed to get enough of her body under the water to get some relief. She dunked a washcloth then draped it over her face and settled back.
While the hot water worked its magic, she chewed on her dilemma. Last night she hadn’t told Nick about Jimmy Mahoney. They’d agreed to work together, but she hadn’t shared a key piece of information. Why?
Because the only facts she knew for certain were that Jimmy was Marian’s ex-husband and he’d come to the house a week ago. His visit had upset Marian, but that didn’t necessarily tie him to any crime. His leathers were similar to those of one of the cyclists she’d encountered her first morning at Strathmoor, but that proved nothing.
The gunman in the basement had been masked, and she hadn’t noticed anything about the second biker who’d sped off yesterday after running them into the tree. Any connections she tried to make at this point would be pure speculation, and she refused to violate Marian’s confidence on speculation. If convincing evidence turned up connecting Jimmy to either crime, she would share it.
Thoughts of Nick inevitably shoved her to the place she’d been avoiding, the place she didn’t want to go—their almost-kiss. Last night had changed their relationship
, but she wasn’t sure how. On the surface, they no longer had reason to distrust each other, but that didn’t necessarily mean there was anything between them on a personal level. She had to admit she found his strength and single-minded professionalism sexy. And since he’d tried to kiss her twice, he must be attracted to her, at least some of the time. But as to where that might lead, she hadn’t a clue.
Since the whole conundrum gave her a headache, and her bath water was getting cold, it was time to set speculation aside and deal with the business at hand. She pulled the plug, grabbed a towel, and climbed out of the tub.
After a gentle yoga routine, her sore muscles had loosened, and she felt almost human. She dressed and went down to the kitchen, where she found Nick sitting at the kitchen table, reading Lyman’s newspaper.
He glanced up when she entered the room. “You look better this morning.”
“I feel better.” She studied his face. The scattered small cuts had scabbed over, but the bruises under his eyes had blossomed into a stunning mix of purple and green. “You, on the other hand, look like the backside of a June bug.”
One side of his mouth curved up. “This is nothing. You should see me after taking a high stick to the face.”
“I’ll pass, thank you. You made coffee.” She crossed to the counter, grabbed a mug from the cupboard, and poured herself a cup.
“Since we’ve established that you’re not a real chef, I figured I could help out in the kitchen.”
She carried the pot to the table and refilled his cup. “I appreciate the gesture this morning, but remember—as soon as Marian gets back, I’m in charge of the cooking again.”
“For better or worse.”
She raised one brow. “I was going to offer to make pancakes, but after that crack, it’s plain toast for you, bucko.”
When the phone on the wall jangled, Nick jerked around in his chair, sloshed hot coffee on his hand, and swore. Since Zoë was only a couple of steps away, she reached for the receiver. It had better not be that nasty anonymous caller again. She was so not in the mood. “Prescott residence.”
Boiling Point (Phoenix, Ltd. Book 2) Page 13