Private Bodyguard

“This assignment may not completely suck after all, especially if we get to play with his toys,” he said as soon as the window was down. He petted the dashboard.

Oliver chuckled. He missed working with his old team of Jonathan and Mark, but he had grown fond of Grant. The thirty-four-year-old was the epitome of intimidating without even trying. Tall, wide and thick with muscles, the dark-skinned bodyguard never looked as if he couldn’t win in a fight.

“Just wait until you see the house,” Oliver said. “Any problems getting here?”

“No, sir. It’s about a thirty-minute commute with no traffic. How about on your end? Did you deal with the private eye?”

“The threat wasn’t as threatening as we thought, but just to make sure, I’m going to ask a few more questions after my shift.” Grant nodded, and Oliver once again told George to open the gate.

“The man driving Nigel is Thomas, and the one in the Audi is Grant,” Oliver explained to George. “You have all our numbers. Don’t hesitate to use them if you need to. At all times there will be two of us with Nigel.”

George took the three cards with their numbers and put them in his pocket. Although he said he understood, Oliver could tell his attention had moved toward the cars, where his true boss had just exited.

Nigel Marks was over six foot, of average size and dressed in a proper suit. His salt-and-pepper hair was cropped close to his head, with a pair of reading glasses resting on top. The file Oliver had been given said Nigel was fifty-three, though he looked years younger. The file also said he was an avid runner, competing in marathons and triathlons in his spare time. That would account for the toned body his suit did little to hide. As Oliver approached, Nigel ended his call and extended his hand.

“Sorry about that,” Nigel said with a smile. “This merger has made everyone forget how to do their jobs. You must be Mr. Quinn.”

Oliver shook. “Call me Oliver.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Oliver. Nikki spoke very highly of you and your team. Hopefully you won’t get too bored on this job.”

“It’s a good sign when a job stays boring,” Oliver replied.

Nigel seemed to consider this and laughed. “I suppose you’re right. Well...” Nigel waved to his house as Grant and Thomas joined them. “As I told Nikki, feel free to treat this as your home while here. There are no off-limits areas, but I do ask my office be left alone unless I’m with you. I have a feeling that my free time will be spent in there.” He paused as his phone rang. His pleasant mood seemed to slide away in an instant. Replacing it was the look of a tired man. “My work is never done.”

* * *

DARLING FELT AS if she was frozen yet couldn’t stop everything around her from moving. It wasn’t until her vision started to tunnel that she realized she was about to pass out. With a quick dose of good sense, she backed out of the bathroom and crouched, flinging her head down between her legs. In the moment she couldn’t remember why that stopped a person from fainting, but she knew she needed to try it nonetheless.

So there she was, crouched just outside of room 212’s bathroom and its body in the tub, trying to calm her stampeding heartbeat and erratic breathing.

This case was nothing but bad, bad luck.

A car door shut in the parking lot some time later. Whether it was seconds or minutes, she wasn’t sure. The room hadn’t been the only aspect of her reality that had warped when she had seen the body. However, instead of sending her into a bigger fit of worries, the sound of the outside world started to make her focus.

She took two deep breaths and slowly righted herself. The camera around her neck slapped against her chest, reminding her of the reason she had been there in the first place.

Nigel Marks and his mistress had been in this room the night before. He had gone, but his mistress hadn’t checked out. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to guess it was her unfortunate fate that she was the one wrapped up in the tub. Darling knew she had to call the police, just as she knew that once she left the room, she’d never be allowed back in.

At the moment, it was a thought that didn’t sit right with her. So, blaming the impulse on her desire to solve mysteries, even ones seemingly cut and dried, she took her camera from her neck and walked back to the bathroom doorway. With hands she let shake, she snapped a few pictures of the bathroom and its deceased guest before she turned back and took a few of the bedroom. Another car door slammed shut in the distance. She glanced once more toward the bathroom.

Darling felt a mixture of anger and sadness pull at her heart. Nigel Marks might be a powerful man in the business world, but by killing this woman, he had unwittingly stepped inside Darling’s domain.

Darling hurried to the main office and was thankful that Dan was still alone. He didn’t look up when she came in, he just raised his hands.

“I know nothing,” he said, still in a bubble of humor. It was a bubble she was about to pop.

“Dan, you need to call the police. There’s a dead body in room 212.”

Dan laughed, thinking it was a joke until he finally met her eyes. Darling figured she must have looked as serious as the situation was. She watched his face and mood sober.

“Where?” was all he could manage.

“Wrapped up in a shower curtain in the tub.”

His lips thinned, and his brows pulled together. “You better give me the key and leave, then,” he said after a moment. He pulled the only landline phone the office had from the second shelf of his desk. Darling felt a quick wave of fondness for the man. He was always trying to cover for her.

“I don’t want you to lie about how you found the body,” Darling said. “I’ll tell the deputy the door was already open.” She handed the key back to him. “We don’t have to tell anyone about the key. Though I don’t think they’ll care either way.” It seemed obvious to her what had happened.

Dan nodded and pocketed the key.

“Then you call them,” he said, already shrugging into his coat. “I want to go see it for myself.”

Darling sat behind the front desk with a very loud, long sigh and did as she was told. Deputy Derrick wouldn’t be happy she had managed to get into this mess, but at least this time she wasn’t guilty. Not that she would have admitted she had been guilty that morning. Instead of dialing 9-1-1, she called the man directly. In a small town like Mulligan, where the members of police force could be counted on two hands, Derrick had the dual duty of being their trusty investigator as well as deputy. Instead of puttering around with someone else in the bull pen, Darling went straight to the source.

“Deputy Derrick,” he answered on the second ring.

“Derrick, it’s Darling. I hope you’re not busy right now.”

She heard him snort. “Is that your way of trying to ask me out? We both know how well that works,” he said, all humor.

“Well, not quite.”

“Where are you calling from?” he asked after a pause. She knew him well enough to recognize something close to suspicious concern creeping into his tone.

“The Mulligan Motel,” she paused for a moment and then dove in. “There’s a body in room 212, wrapped up in the tub.”

“A body?”

She nodded. Then, realizing he couldn’t see her, she said, “And Derrick? The last person seen leaving the room was Nigel Marks.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Stay there and tell Dan don’t let anyone else in that room,” he finally said. “And I mean it, Darling. No one else goes in there.”

Darling agreed to his no-tampering-with-a-crime-scene rule. Suddenly her morning indiscretion didn’t seem as bad. She even bet Oliver’s need to question her would disappear when he found out.

Oliver.

She pulled his card out of her back pocket and looked at his number.

If Nigel did kill whoever it was in the tub, where did that leave Oliver?

Chapter Three (#ulink_be039af6-9811-5a57-b3fe-f9908a800be2)

Oliver didn’t answer when Darling called him.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt she owed it to him to give him a heads-up that the man he had promised to guard was about to need a lot more protection than he could offer. Oliver had said she wasn’t a threat, vouching for a woman he no longer knew. Plus, it was no fun to be blindsided. She knew that from experience.