Under His Protection Read online

  “Told you so.”

  “Nobody likes a know-it-all, Nash.” She crawled back under the covers, looking like a kitten burrowing.

  He smiled. “Hungry?”

  Her stomach rolled at the thought. “No.”

  “The doctor said you can check out anytime.” Nash tapped the release papers sitting on the bed tray. “Detective Rhinehart was kind enough to send an officer to get your rental car and return it. And since your suitcases were in the trunk, I’m assuming you hadn’t had a chance to check into a hotel before the services.”

  She shook her head. Pain bounced through her brain. She really had to stop doing that, she thought.

  “Good, the bags are in my car, and after you check out, we’re heading for the airport.”

  “Nash.”

  “No, Lisa. You’re hurt and if you think your head aches now, wait till tomorrow. I want you in your home, guarded.”

  Her gaze shot to the door and the uniformed officer there. “Okay, this is getting scary.”

  “Which is why I want you home. This isn’t my jurisdiction, and in Indigo, I can actually order people to protect you.”

  “You just want to be the boss.” Her smile was quick and slight. “What I can’t understand is why me? I never did anything to anyone. At least not since I was in second grade and tied Patty Murkle’s pigtails in knots.”

  Nash grinned. “What’d she do to deserve that?”

  Lisa tipped her chin defensively. “Kissed Brewster Tate. He was my beau.”

  “Remind me never to tick off a seven-year-old.” He stood. “So are you going to fight me on this?”

  “No.”

  “When we know why Winfield was killed,” he said quietly, “we’ll know why someone wants to blame you.” He gestured to the other chair. “There are your clothes.”

  She made a face. “You couldn’t get me some clean ones?” These were stained with blood.

  “Your cases were locked and our flight leaves in an hour and a half.”

  “Our?”

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “I can manage alone. You need to stay here and question Catherine Delan and Carl Forsythe.”

  Nash simply folded his arms over his chest.

  “Okay fine. Waste the taxpayers’ money. See if I care.” Yet she smiled up at him and whispered, “Thank you. Now get out so I can dress.”

  He didn’t move, his gaze lingering on her curves in the ugly hospital gown.

  She arched a brow, feeling the heat of that velvety look. “Don’t you think you’re taking the protect-and-serve thing a little far?” She made shooing motions with her hands.

  “Okay, I’m going.” He turned to leave. “But, you know, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” He reached the door just as a pillow hit him in the back of the head.

  “I FEEL SILLY.”

  “You look silly,” Nash said as he helped Lisa into her house.

  “Gee, so smarmy with the charm.” She walked gingerly toward the sofa; her skull felt as if it was going to explode. “You know, if you’d been two minutes faster with following me, I wouldn’t be in this shape and you’d have your perpetrator.”

  He smiled at her. “Oh, yeah, sure, blame me for your stupidity.”

  “Why, Nash Couviyon,” she drawled, her accent sickly sweet, “you do know how to make a girl feel like she’s been rescued.”

  He smirked. “I had to fight you to rescue you. I’m a guy—I need to flex my muscles and growl once in a while, you know.”

  She snickered. “I’ll have to remember that.” He’d been wonderful, she admitted. “Thanks for hanging in with me, Nash. I know you had better things to do.”

  “Not from my view,” he said softly, giving her hand a squeeze. “Come on, you need to rest.”

  Lisa sank into the sofa. “I need to sleep. How are you supposed to heal in a hospital when someone wakes you up every hour to poke a needle in you or take vital signs?”

  Nash hid a smile she wouldn’t appreciate. She was crabby and in pain, and though she was teasing him, she was right. If he’d been faster, he could have prevented this. And if she’d been at that apartment sooner, she would have interrupted a killing rage.

  The door opened and Nash turned, automatically reaching for his weapon when Lisa’s assistant Kate came rushing in from the shop. She stopped short and Nash relaxed.

  “Oh, my God, what happened? Lisa, you poor thing. You look awful.”

  Lisa groaned. “Well, it’s safe to say I won’t get a big head from too much flattery.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true.” Kate cleared the coffee table, then propped Lisa’s feet on a pillow. “Can I get you some coffee, tea, anything?”

  “No, I’m fine. Just watch the shop. You’re in charge today. And thanks for coming in early to open up.”

  Kate waved that off, pushing her hair off her shoulder. “It’s been slow but steady.” She looked between Lisa and Nash. “So who’s going to give me the scoop?”

  Lisa let her aching head sag back onto the sofa cushions. “I—”

  “She slipped and hit her head,” Nash interrupted. “It was an accident.”

  Lisa kept her eyes closed, wondering what he was up to. “Heck of a funeral.”

  Kate frowned hard. “Yeah, I guess. Do you want me to help you upstairs or into something more comfortable?”

  “I can manage alone, thanks.”

  Kate shrugged and said, “Call if you need anything.”

  “I’ll be around,” Nash said, and watched Kate head back to the shop.

  “No, you won’t. I don’t need a baby-sitter and you need to go read reports, find some suspects. I’ll be fine.”

  “Someone tried to kill you, Lisa.”

  “No, someone stopped me from seeing them in Peter’s apartment. If they’d wanted to kill me, they’d have kept bashing.”

  Her expression was creased with pain, which was the only reason Nash didn’t point out that the blow to her head could have killed her. Or mention the butcher knife in the bed. He went to her flight bag, unzipped a pocket and took out her pain medication. He left the room for a glass of water and came back to her, nudging her when she didn’t open her eyes.

  “Thanks.” She took the pills, wishing for instant relief. She hadn’t wanted to take them before the plane ride and force Nash to carry her through the airport like a sack of fertilizer.

  “I’m going to get your bags.”

  She nodded, yawning her thanks, and Nash returned to find her sound asleep. He set the bags down, shifted her into a more comfortable position on the sofa. She stirred. “You want to go upstairs?” he asked softly.

  “Not unless you wanna come with me,” she murmured in barely a whisper.

  Nash’s insides locked up. She was drugged, he reasoned. That sexy smile didn’t mean anything. But the invitation lingered as he kissed her forehead, then took her bags upstairs. Her bedroom gave him pause, and he grinned.

  Now this was Lisa, he thought, not like the bedroom in New York. This was comfortable and sexy at the same time. Daylight fell through the windows and twisted over the sheer fabric draped over the four-poster bed before pooling on the floor. The colors were vivid and warm, and plants filled every space she could find. Silks and cottons melted together in pillows, spreads, dust skirt, but Nash only saw her on that big bed, drowsy, her hair mussed and her arms reaching for him. He closed his eyes, set the bags down and made an about-face, then headed back downstairs.

  You’re asking for trouble, he warned himself, but he was beyond that because the instant he saw her asleep on the sofa, he wanted to kiss her. Hell, he’d wanted to do more than kiss her since she’d stormed back into his life.

  The image of his partner’s widow, destroyed and broken, intruded, and it put a grip on his emotions. He wasn’t willing to risk Lisa’s happiness like that. His job was dangerous; he had a scar to prove it. He didn’t have the right to ask Lisa for more than friendship.

  But dammit, he wante
d to.

  A COUPLE OF HOURS later, Nash left Lisa watching TV and bored out of her mind. He knew good and well the instant he was out the door she’d be in the garden, so he told Kate to call him and squeal on her. Nash checked in at the station, demanding the background checks on anyone associated with Winfield and hearing only that they were coming. Not fast enough, he thought, then read through a stack of messages and answered as many as he could.

  One thing he learned was there were no deliveries made by Mercury to the Baylor Inn on the day of Peter’s murder or the day before. So either the bellman, Mick, was lying or someone was masquerading as a Mercury employee. Nash figured it was the latter. The only person to see or hear Winfield when he was with Lisa was the housekeeper, Kathy Boon. Nash checked his watch. She’d be at work soon.

  Room service, the housekeeper, the inn owner and the concierge all had access to the suite. Other than a passkey, no one could get in without being let inside, unless the killer locked the balcony door after he left. Nash needed more and knew where to look. He dialed Quinn Kilpatrick.

  “Are those forensic reports in?”

  “Hello to you, too, Couviyon. How was New York?”

  “How did—? Never mind. Hello. New York is a big city with way too many people. I’m glad I don’t live there. Now tell me you have news.”

  “All cop and no fun makes Nash boring as hell. Yes, I have news. We found blond hairs in Winfield’s bedding.”

  “Blond?” Not red. Inside, Nash was screaming, Thank God! but he knew now that Lisa would never have let Winfield get that close to her.

  “Yeah. There was none in the drains, and I’m doing a test now to confirm gender and if it’s natural blond.”

  “You don’t think it is, do you.”

  “Even I can spot roots.”

  “Dyed?”

  Quinn’s exasperated sigh came through the phone. “I won’t know till I actually do the test, Detective.”

  “Sorry for the push, Quinn. But I’m not making much headway. Anything else?”

  “The bath teabag was sealed with glue, not an iron as the brand calls for. So that tells me that whoever prepared it wasn’t familiar with how to use it.”

  “Lisa couldn’t tell if any were taken from her shop. She has a jumble of them and gets them off the Internet.”

  “How’s our gal doing?”

  Nash smiled to himself. Sometimes Quinn was like a mother hen. He told Quinn about the apartment and the knife in the gown.

  “Sweet mother, if she’d been any earlier, she’d have interrupted that psycho.”

  “My thoughts exactly. I have a patrolman watching her house just in case. But she didn’t see anything.”

  “Except stars, I’ll bet.”

  Nash’s lips tightened. Seeing Lisa on the floor bleeding was not something he’d forget anytime soon. “Call me when you have something.”

  “Good God, Nash, do you ever sleep?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Try it. You’re testing your friendships,” Quinn said, then hung up.

  Nash wouldn’t apologize. Not with Lisa’s life on the line. He had to make life safe for her again. If for no other reason than allowing her to find a man whose job wouldn’t put her in danger.

  He was willing to take a bullet in the line of duty, but he wasn’t willing to drag Lisa into his job. And inevitably, more than friendship would do that. He remembered clearly what losing David had done to his partner’s wife, Laura. Even as Nash insisted to himself that he was restraining his feelings, that he was keeping as great a distance between them as he could, he knew it was a lost cause. Lisa was in his blood, and four years apart hadn’t made a difference.

  He should be smarter, he thought, a hell of a lot smarter. But as images of Lisa with someone else crowded his brain like ghouls in a kid’s nightmare, Nash wondered if he was strong enough to let her go.

  Chapter Seven

  Driving to the Baylor Inn later that evening, Nash hunted down Mick. The kid was loading bags into an airport shuttle. “Mercury said no one delivered here the day of the murder.”

  “Well, then, someone’s playing you, ’cause they were dressed the same as the Mercury riders.” The teen shut the cargo doors and accepted his tip with a smile he didn’t give Nash.

  “This man you said who made the delivery, can you tell me—”

  “I didn’t say it was a guy.”

  Nash groaned. “A woman? That would have been helpful, Mick.”

  Mick had the good grace to blush. “Okay, yeah, it was a girl. She wasn’t that tall, nice boobs and legs.” He moved away from the front of the inn, lit a cigarette and took a drag, his expression thoughtful. He squinted. “It had to be a wig.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “’Cause it was dark and her eyebrows were light.”

  “You said she wore racing goggles.”

  “Not on her eyebrows.”

  Blond hairs, possibly dyed, in the bed and a woman with light brows was all leading him nowhere, Nash thought, frustrated. “Did you see anyone else just hanging around?”

  “Yeah, Chartres.”

  Nash scowled. “The concierge insisted he didn’t leave his office.”

  Mick smirked. “I don’t know what stiff and pointy told you, but Chartres always makes the rounds. I’ve worked here for months. He’s like a damn clock. Dinner at five before the guests, then he stops in with the housekeeper, the desk, even comes to me, as if we can’t do our jobs without his tap on the shoulder, y’know? Then he strolls around to greet the dinner guests. If he stayed in his office, the chef would have noticed, because Chartres inspects the kitchen.” Mick dragged hard on the cigarette. “Like Chartres knows the first thing about cooking. He gets excited when a guest sends a meal back to the kitchen.”

  Nash smiled, thanked the teen and made his way into the kitchen. The chef, a young, energetic man with a ponytail, confirmed what Mick had said. Chartres had indeed been in the kitchen interfering with the “creative process”; Nash could understand the man’s irritation. The menu at the Baylor Inn changed daily. It was what made it so popular and reservations hard to come by. When the chef realized that what he said could get Chartres out of his hair, he told Nash more. John Chartres had been a concierge at a hotel in New Orleans and was fired. Why, no one knew.

  Lisa said that Winfield had gone to New Orleans three years ago. It probably had little bearing on this case, but a couple of phone calls to the New Orleans police and Nash would know where Winfield had stayed and if Chartres was the concierge at the same time. Nash needed a connection. It was not quite time to visit Chartres again, he thought, passing the man in the reception area. Nash found Kathy Boon cleaning the room across the hall from the murder scene.

  “Miss Boon?”

  She didn’t respond, her back to him.

  He called again, then touched her shoulder. She whirled around, her expression taut. Then she sighed. “Hello, Detective. You startled me.”

  “May I speak with you?”

  “I have a lot of work to do, so if you don’t mind talking while I clean, sure.”

  “Did you see John Chartres on the upper floors the night of the murder?”

  “You’re sure it’s murder, huh?” She swallowed thickly, glancing beyond him to the room still sealed with police tape.

  “Yes, ma’am, we are. Did you see him?”

  Her brow furrowed as she scrubbed out the bathroom sink. Nash noticed she wasn’t wearing gloves this time, and her knuckles were scraped.

  “He came up to remind me that room four was occupied by honeymooners and to just give them towels and leave them be.”

  “When exactly did you see him?” Nash asked.

  “About seven, I guess. He was waiting for me at the storage closet on this floor.”

  “Wouldn’t he just go find you, instead of waiting till you had to go back for supplies?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Her brow knitted harder. “Yeah, in fact he was standing i
nside the open door. Maybe he needed something for one of the bathrooms downstairs….”

  Chartres didn’t strike Nash as the fetch-and-carry type. “Isn’t there another storage room down there for that?” Nash had the floor plans of the inn and knew there was.

  Her features tightened. “Yes, there is.”

  Nash questioned her further and learned that William Baylor, the owner, had left late that evening. Later than he told Nash.

  Nash stared at Kathy’s hair for a second. She noticed.

  “What?” She ran her scraped hand over her hair.

  “Is that natural?”

  After she got over her sudden confusion, she laughed uneasily. “What woman my age has natural hair color? Only the ones without gray.”

  “Gray? You don’t look a day older than twenty five.”

  She smiled brightly and briefly gripped his arm. “Thank you, you made my day. I’m thirty-one.”

  Nash was stunned. “Would you be willing to give me a sample?”

  “Of my hair?”

  Even as she spoke she plucked out a couple of hairs. Nash put them in a plastic envelope.

  “I’m not even going to ask why you want it,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t tell you anyway,” he replied, and thanked her. She barely acknowledged this last, turning on the tap to rinse the sink. Nash wondered if she was once a blonde.

  “How did you hurt your hand?”

  She didn’t look at the scrape, covering it. “I—I caught it between the shelf and a box of soaps.”

  Nash had seen scrapes from brawls before, and this looked like one of them. He slipped his business card from his wallet and held it out. “If you ever need help, Miss Boon…” he said, and when she took it, he simply turned away, wondering whom she’d had to defend herself against lately.

  Leaving the hotel, Nash returned to his office and hounded the rookie he’d assigned to do background checks on all the people who came in contact with Winfield. By six that evening, the young woman handed him a thick file. “I went back as far as high school on most of them.”