“Thank you for the offer, but I suppose I’m with him.”
Nurse Jones mimicked her smile for the first time. “That’s not a bad lot to have.”
“I suppose not.”
Darling turned down a wheelchair to help her to the car and instead put a crutch beneath each arm and began an awkward gait down the hallway. Oliver carried her bag and kept close. He still seemed off somehow, but she was going to believe it was because he was tired. She couldn’t deny she was in the same boat. The sleep that she had gotten in the car hadn’t been sound or comfortable.
And she hadn’t been too sure it wasn’t the beginnings of death by exposure.
“Should I go see Derrick before we leave?” Darling asked. “The nurse said he should be waking up soon.”
“It might be a better idea to let him rest for now,” he answered. “I checked in on him before I went to your apartment, and he was still sound asleep. I think it’s his pain meds.”
Darling nodded. Guilt outlined with a sad edge cut inside her. If Derrick had not been watching out for her, he never would have been attacked. If she had only listened to Oliver and taken his offer to help protect her... Darling paused in her thinking. Whoever had taken her was determined. Hospitalizing an officer was a great testament to that fact. If Derrick hadn’t been there but Oliver had, then it would have been Oliver hurt. Or worse.
Her guilt ebbed away.
Another feeling tore through her at the thought of a horrific fate befalling the bodyguard. She glanced sideways at him. When the chaos around her died down, she would have to think about why her heart and mind always seemed to clash when the topic of Oliver Quinn was put on the table.
Chapter Sixteen
The bathwater stopped running, and a few seconds later, a splash sounded.
“You okay?” Oliver couldn’t help but call out.
They were back in Darling’s apartment. To celebrate, Darling had indeed drawn herself a bubble bath.
“I’m fine,” she answered through the door. “You can stop hovering now!”
Oliver fell into the couch when he was finished with another security sweep. He settled his back against the armrest so his sight line to the front door wasn’t obstructed, a habit. The conversation with Nikki started to replay in his head.
He was no longer a bodyguard.
All to save Darling.
He hadn’t fought Nikki after she had asked for his resignation. It was a choice he didn’t resent. Funny, he thought, how once upon a time he had left Darling to protect her, and now he was staying to do the same.
Why was it so easy to sacrifice everything for a woman who would never trust him again?
“Oliver!”
In a flash he was off of the couch and standing at the bathroom door. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine! I was just going to see if you were hungry?”
“Hungry?” he repeated, his adrenaline on the brink of spiking.
“Yeah, I haven’t eaten in—” She stopped. Oliver almost opened the door all the way to make sure she was okay. “Breakfast yesterday, I suppose. So, I thought we could maybe order something? There’s a pizzeria on Main Street that delivers. Unless you need to go back to work?” She had hesitated before her last question had slipped out. It made Oliver wonder if she knew about his conversation with Nikki. He pushed that thought away.
“No, I can stay,” he answered. That was a conversation he didn’t want to broach through a partially opened bathroom door. “And pizza sounds good.”
“Wonderful,” she almost sang. “I don’t have anything here to eat. There’s a magnet on the fridge with the number. Order whatever you want. Just make sure there’s a lot of whatever it is.”
Oliver shut the door and did as he was told.
Instead of sitting back down to swim in his deepest thoughts, he looked around the living room. Like the rest of the small apartment, it was filled with character. He found he liked it more than his apartment.
The bathroom door opened.
“Need any help?”
“No,” she replied, frustrated. “But I sure do hate crutches.” They clinked against the hardwood floors as she started to go for her bedroom. That gave Oliver an idea.
“Wait, are you dressed?” he asked, though he was already moving.
“Yeah, why?”
He held up his finger to get her to wait and walked past her into the bedroom. Going straight for her minioffice in the corner, he grabbed the chair and rolled it back into the hall.
“It’s no wheelchair but, really, isn’t it a chair with wheels?” He cracked a smile and Darling laughed. She wore a long-sleeved white robe that fell to her ankles and tied around the middle. Her hair was wet and wound up into a bun atop her head. It was the first time in eight years he had seen her without a lick of makeup on, and he had to admit she was still as beautiful as ever.
He helped her angle herself into the chair and placed her crutches against the wall.
“Where to, madam?” he asked with little bow. She laughed again. He liked the sound.
“I heard the couch is all the rage this time of the year,” she said playfully. “A five-star destination second only to the kitchen bar.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.” He did another quick bow and began to roll the chair toward the living room. He kept an eye on her foot, careful not to jostle it. They reached the living room, and without letting her stop him, he lifted her from the chair and placed her on the couch, her back against the armrest and legs stretched out. He sat on the edge of the coffee table right in front of her.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
“My foot is sore, but I guess that’s normal for having it split open and stitched back up. I didn’t get it wet in the bath. I was too afraid,” she admitted, rotating her ankle. As she spoke, Oliver’s gaze went to the bruises on her neck. “It doesn’t hurt that much,” she whispered, tone changing with her mood.
Oliver couldn’t help it. He reached out and traced the skin around the bruise on her right. It made Darling shiver. He stopped but didn’t pull away.
“I thought you were dead,” he breathed. “When I found you in that car...for a moment I thought you were—”
“But I wasn’t,” she interrupted, voice soft. Her hand covered his. They sat still, both caught in a moment that couldn’t be summed up in words.
Oliver leaned in. “I’m glad,” he whispered.
Darling searched his face, but he only had eyes for those lips. Careful not to spook her, he slowly closed the space between them, giving her plenty of time to move away. His heartbeat sped up when he realized she wasn’t going to.
The kiss was soft and warm. A ribbon drenched in sunlight. He wanted it to continue—to get lost in a moment that could be so much more—but he let it end.
After everything that had happened, Darling was vulnerable, whether she wanted to admit it or not. And he couldn’t deny he wasn’t in the best spot, either. He didn’t want to take advantage of her. He was finding that she still meant too much to him.
He pulled back and smiled. The private investigator’s cheeks were tinted red, her lips a shade of dark pink.
“Better than I remember.” As the words left his mouth, Oliver feared he had overstepped their relationship by bringing up the past. However, Darling didn’t seem to mind it. She mimicked his smile and opened her mouth to speak. Her response was cut off by a knock at the door.
“If that’s not at least a large pizza, I’m going to be so upset,” she said instead.
“I did you one better. I ordered two.” Darling thrust her fist in the air in victory, and just like that, they returned to normal.
Ten minutes later, they were seated at the kitchen bar, plates covered in pizza slices and minds set to
work. The question about who they were together was put aside for a time when one of their lives wasn’t in danger.
“You know what I don’t get?” Darling asked after putting down another large bite. “Why take me in the first place? I mean, I realize that stripping me down and dumping me in the cold is a pretty clear way to kill me without having to actually kill me, but why take me?”
“You must have gotten too close.”
“But why not warn me instead?” It must have been a question she had been wondering about for a while. She put down her food and angled her body to face him. The top of her robe opened a fraction, giving him an uninhibited view of the top of her bare chest. She didn’t notice his glance downward. He tried to refocus. “I get a folder of pictures of Nigel and Jane Doe with a note telling me to do the right thing—plus the article with my parents—and I follow those instructions. Then I go to get my camera with pictures of the hotel crime scene and there’s another note, warning me to stop snooping. The camera is returned before I go to the police, but this time with no note.”
“Then we take a trip to the gas station, confirm Jane Doe was there and get the security footage. You find out the woman Jane Doe talked to was Harriet Mendon. The next day Acuity is ransacked and the security tape is gone,” he continued.
“But with no note.” Darling said this with a punch, as if it held more importance than all of the rest.
“Yes, but then you come back here and get taken. There’s a new note with a threat saying you have one more strike left. Though you didn’t see that note.” Anger began to build within him once more. He pictured her sitting in that car again, motionless.
She kept on, not noticing the tension. “Right! One more strike. Implying that I hadn’t yet crossed whatever line had been drawn.” Darling lowered her voice. “So, I ask again—why take me less than two hours later, and why not leave the note at Acuity?”
“Whoever it was, they got sloppy.”
“You’re right,” she exclaimed. “They did!”
“Wait, what?” Oliver tried to follow the train of thought she was already on but came up short.
“Oliver, I think we’re dealing with two killers. Hear me out,” Darling began. “Two people are trying to frame Nigel. Note Writer enlists my help to make the case seem more valid. He—or she—is observant, smart. He knows what to say and when to say it. He’s careful. But then he trashes my office without a note? Then kidnaps me? What’s the point in leaving a threat on my door and then taking me after I clearly hadn’t left the apartment or done anything else on the case?”
“You think that like all the good crime-fighting and crime-committing teams, one of them is the brains and the other one is the hothead,” he finished for her.
“What’s more, I don’t think they’re communicating all that well, either. I think the brains wrote the last-strike threat without knowing about Acuity being ransacked or vice versa. The note writer wanted to scare me. The other one wanted to hurt me.”
“If this is all true, then our problems just doubled. What’s worse than one killer? Two.”
Chapter Seventeen
Darling was trying to put all the clues back together but couldn’t help but see them now as two separate lines, running sloppily parallel next to each other.
“Two people would make killing and cleaning up after Jane Doe easier,” she said aloud. “A rich man like Nigel wouldn’t have a problem finding a killer for hire with his wealth.”
Oliver didn’t skip a beat. “I know you are keen on thinking Nigel is behind this, but I’m telling you, it’s not him. Thomas caught him crying yesterday, just after Derrick called to tell him about how Jane Doe was killed.” He knew now that had been an attempt to shake whatever truth Nigel had about the woman free. “Do you really think Nigel Marks would cry over a mistress he’d killed? If it’s anyone in that family, I’d bet it’s the wife. They share the wealth. She just as easily could have fronted the money for a contract killer.”
Darling held in her rebuttal. Her desire for Nigel Marks to pay for all of his indiscretions was great, but she was finding the idea of him being behind Jane Doe’s murder didn’t quite sit right with her anymore. Although she wasn’t ready to point the finger at Elizabeth, either. She still believed the older woman was too smart to do something so stupid. And if she really thought about it, if Elizabeth was going to kill anyone, it would probably be her husband.
“We need to figure out who our Jane Doe is,” Darling said instead.
A booming knock sounded at the front door. It was so unexpected that Darling almost fell off her stool. Oliver’s reflexes were a lot more productive. He was off his stool and standing in front of Darling, using his body as a human shield. He had even reached back to help steady her.
“I’m not expecting anyone,” Darling whispered. “If you were wondering.”
Oliver nodded and reached over the bar to the kitchen counter. He pulled two of the steak knives out of their wooden holder next to the toaster. He passed one to Darling and brandished the other. She grabbed the handle of her knife and watched wide-eyed as the bodyguard silently crossed the room and sidled up to the front door.
The knock sounded again. Oliver waited for it to stop before calling out.
“Who’s there?”
Darling marveled at how controlled he was. He looked like a man about to go to war. Calm, calculating and also ready for whatever what was about to happen.
“Chief Sanderson!”
Darling relaxed, but when Oliver didn’t, she tightened her grip on the knife handle. Slowly the bodyguard cracked open the door. He must have been okay with what he saw. He straightened his back and opened the door wide. The knife in his hand remained there, but the chief didn’t seem to mind it as he looked between them.
“Sorry to intrude, but I have some new information I’d like to talk to you about,” Chief Sanderson said. Darling hadn’t been too focused on the chief when she had ridden in his truck that morning, but now she could see as clear as day that he hadn’t been getting much sleep, if any. Dark circles hung beneath each eye, and there was a droop to his shoulders as he moved to the chair next to the couch. Darling swiveled her stool around to face him while Oliver took point, standing between the two.
“Is it about Derrick? Is he okay?” Darling asked out of the gate. If anything happened to Derrick, it would be her fault. Derrick was one of the few friends she could claim as her own. She might not have been in love with him, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t loyal to him.
“No, he’s fine. Sleeping last time I checked in,” he assured her. “You two expecting company?” The chief looked at the knife in Darling’s hand. Heat rose in her neck, and she put the weapon back on the counter. Oliver relaxed his hand but didn’t put his knife down.
“We weren’t, and that was the problem,” he said with a nonapologetic smile.
The chief let out a chuckle. “Better safe than sorry,” he said.
“So what’s the news, Chief?” Darling asked. For him to personally visit was out of character.
“Well, we finally found what we believe to be Jane Doe’s car.”
“That’s wonderful,” Darling exclaimed. Surely they could find out who she was now. That was a break they all needed. The chief, however, didn’t seem as enthused. She shared a look with Oliver. He didn’t understand the chief’s current emotion, either.
“The car was stripped. No plates. No insurance.”
“Then how do you know it belongs to Jane Doe?” Oliver asked.
Chief Sanderson’s face was absolutely stony when he responded. “We found the murder weapon on the front seat. A blunt object that fits the indention in Jane Doe’s skull with trace amounts of blood on it.”
“So—if you can get her prints—you should be able to ID her now. At least faster, I hope, than sending her blo
od off?” Oliver supplied.
The chief shook his head. “She isn’t in the criminal database, so unless she’s been printed at some point in her life, it’ll still be difficult to see who she is. The system isn’t perfect and sometimes, no matter how hard we try, it doesn’t work.” He cracked a smile. It wasn’t happy. It was downright malicious. “So we’re going to get Nigel Marks to tell us who she is.”
That surprised Darling.
“Why?” Oliver asked.
“We found evidence that suggests Nigel was in that car recently, which means he knew our victim. Not even his fancy lawyer will be able to deny it. He’s now physically connected to her.”
Darling couldn’t believe it. “What is the evidence?” she asked.
“I can’t disclose that information.” Before Darling could complain, he held up his hand. “But I’m sure if you think really hard about it, you’ll remember.”
“What do you mean, I’ll remember?”
“You were in the same car, too.”
Darling felt her eyebrows slam together.
“Wait a second.” Oliver held up his hands. “You mean the car we found her in this morning belongs to Jane Doe?”
The chief nodded.
“Oh, my God,” she said, drawing both men’s attention her way. “The watch! It was Nigel’s watch? It did look expensive. I didn’t really think too much about it, given the situation.”
“Well, some people should think twice before they get their names inscribed into their accessories.”
“And the hammer,” Darling exclaimed, realizing what the blunt object the chief was referring to was. “It’s the murder weapon.” Darling’s raised her eyebrows when the chief nodded. She looked down at her hands and cringed. “I picked that up. It was in the trunk and I—I wanted a weapon! Did I mess up the evidence?”
The chief gave her a sympathetic smile. “No,” he said. “We were able to tell the older blood versus the blood left from your hand. As for her prints, I’m betting the hammer will be wiped down like the car, save for yours. But I’m trying to remain optimistic.”
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