Private Bodyguard (15 page)

Chapter Twenty

Everything felt so right.

Darling opened her eyes and didn't want to move. She could feel Oliver's even breathing against her back. His arm was thrown over her, pressing the warmth of their naked bodies together.

It was perfect.

She didn't want to leave the bed, but her mouth felt dry and she desperately needed to use the bathroom.

So, as carefully as she could, Darling slipped out from underneath his arm and grabbed her crutches discarded on the floor. Oliver didn't move once. It made her wonder how much sleep he'd skipped the past few days.

Once she was up and moving, Darling decided to go ahead and start the day. It was almost ten in the morning and she felt wildly energized. She knew that was greatly due to the naked bodyguard in her bed. With each step she took, her body reminded her just how close they had become the night before. Though in the light of day, she wondered what that meant for their future. Did they have one, or had it been a one-day event?

The bodyguard had promised to stay by her side as long as the threat of her kidnappers was still out there. Now that they had been caught, she didn't need protection. Why would he stay in Mulligan when his life—his home—was two thousand miles away?

She tried to push the troubling thoughts from her mind as she took a quick shower, awkwardly hopping around to avoid putting too much pressure on her foot. It took the attention from the potential heartbreak she might have to endure again from her fair-haired bodyguard.

Darling managed to dress herself without falling over. She chose a red, long-sleeve top that plunged low to show some cleavage, and a pair of dark jeans that hugged her nicely. It was a more flirty outfit than she usually wore but, as she looked at Oliver's still-sleeping form, she had the urge to break out of her boring wardrobe habits. Not that he seemed to mind when she was and wasn't dressed up.

Oliver stayed asleep throughout the next half hour as she got ready and made breakfast, confirming her suspicion that he had been seriously lacking sleep. She tried to be as quiet as possible but found that when her food was gone, a restlessness was beginning to replace her feelings of contentment. Her gut was back to telling her something was off about Jean Watford's death. But what was it?

“Do you really think Nigel Marks would cry over a mistress?”

Darling snapped her fingers as Oliver's words replayed in her head. That was it.

She went back to the bedroom and grabbed her laptop, putting it in a bag so she could avoid dropping it while using her crutches. Moving to the living room, she powered it on with new vigor. Working on a hunch, she opened an internet browser and searched Jean Watford's name. After some digging, she found the young woman's public social media profile. It had all the information Darling needed.

She did some quick math and typed in a new search.

A few minutes later she found a picture that nearly confirmed her hunch. The picture was from the early '90s and showed a young Nigel Marks at a Christmas party. He stood tall—and rather handsome—amid a large group of people. The quality wasn't the greatest, but Darling got the break she needed when she saw the name of each person printed across the bottom. It didn't take long to find the last piece of the puzzle.

Standing next to Nigel was a red-haired woman with a giant smile.

Her name was Regina Watford.

Darling's mind began turning at such a fast pace she almost felt dizzy. This was why Nigel hadn't admitted to knowing Jean. He
did
have an affair. It was just twenty-three years and nine months earlier.

If Darling was right, she was looking at the night the businessman had strayed from his wife of twenty-six years with the red-haired woman at his side and produced a child—Jean.

Darling thought about the pictures she had been given of Nigel and Jean from the past year. Everyone had thought the two happy people were having an affair, but that was because the daughter angle had never entered their minds. Now, the pictures of the two laughing, hugging and dining in public fit the scenario of a father and daughter meeting. Had they been seeing each other in secret for years or had they just reunited?

Before she could talk herself out of it, Darling went back to the bedroom and grabbed Oliver's phone. She went into the bathroom and shut the door. Scrolling through his contacts, she found Nigel's personal cell phone number.

For some reason she couldn't quite place, she needed to confirm the truth. She hit Call and waited with bated breath.

What was she going to say?

“Nigel Marks's phone,” a man answered after two rings. “This is Jace Marks.”

That put a kink in Darling's plan. Did Jace even know about his half-sister?

“Um, hi,” Darling stuttered out. “This is Darling Smith. I, uh, just had some information for Nigel I thought he might like to know.”

“Darling Smith? The woman who was kidnapped?”

“Yeah,” she responded, uncomfortable.

“How are you?”

Surprised at the concern, she answered on reflex. “I'm okay. My foot is sore, but I'm alive.”

“That's good. It would have been another senseless tragedy had that bodyguard not found you.”

“I'd have to agree there.” She cleared her throat. “Is there any way I can speak with Nigel, though? It won't take long.”

“I'm sorry but no. He's currently unavailable. The best I can do is pass along a message.”

“No,” she said a little too quickly. She tried to sound calm as she continued. “It's personal. I'd really like to talk to him myself.” She wasn't about to announce the real reason behind the call.

“Hold on, then,” he said. She didn't hear anything on the other end of the line and looked at the phone to make sure the call hadn't dropped. “We're about to leave the police station and head home. You can meet us at the house, but we have to ask that you keep this meeting and whatever information you have private until Nigel has talked to you. This family has had enough false accusations and rumors started lately.”

“Sure thing. I completely understand.”

“Thank you. We'll see you soon.”

Darling ended the call, shocked at how easy it was to get a meeting. She supposed it made sense that the Markses wanted to go ahead and squash any remaining gossip within the town or general public. Charisma Investments was going to suffer thanks to the actions of Lamar Bennington and Robert Jensen. They didn't need any more bad press.

She returned Oliver's phone to the nightstand and watched as the bodyguard continued to sleep. He looked so peaceful, she decided not to wake him. She wasn't a child. The danger was gone. She could go tie up this loose end without him. Her kidnappers weren't out there to get her. She could be back within the hour.

Bending low, she pressed her lips to his temple. He didn't stir.

She wrote a quick note and left.

Laughing at the fact that the last time she had been at Nigel Marks's home she'd been arrested, she thrummed her fingers against the steering wheel as she drove. It was amazing how a week could change everything.

The gate to the Markses' house was shut, but Darling could see a car parked in the driveway beyond it. She pulled up to wait at the gate and rolled down the window. George Hanely had never been one of her favorite people. He might not even let her in.

However, he never came.

She sat up straighter to see into the gatehouse. No one was inside.

“Getting lazy, George?”

She put the car in Park and opened the door. Pulling her crutches from the backseat, she made her way to the window. George was probably lounging, watching one of his daytime soap operas or whatever it was the man did all day. She looked inside, ready to scold the gate guard but stopped short.

George was sprawled out on the floor, facedown.

Darling tried the doorknob and let out a breath of relief when it opened with no resistance. She knelt beside the unconscious man, almost falling in the process.

“George?” She felt for a pulse and was happy to feel the beat against her fingers. “Hold on. I'll call for help.”

She got back up and looked to the phone on the desk. Oliver was going to be upset that she had yet again found herself connected with the police in such a short span.

“Don't move.”

Darling froze, hand hovering above the phone.

Turning slowly, she felt her stomach bottom out.

George Hanley was not only coherent but also sitting up and smiling. A gun was in his right hand, pointed at her, but that wasn't what put ice in her blood.

In the palm of his left hand were her two daisy earrings.

“Just so you know how serious I am.”

* * *

A
N
ANGRY
CHIRPING
pecked at the haze of sleep around Oliver until, finally, he had to make it stop. Rolling over, he grabbed his cell phone and gave it a stare that could kill before turning off the everyday alarm. It was meant to make sure he was wide-awake by noon, which, to him, was a time that no man should sleep past. Even on his days off. Although, given recent events, he had meant to deactivate it the night before. But then a beautiful private investigator had let him into her bed, twice.

All thoughts of the alarm and pretty much anything else had gone out the proverbial window the moment their lips and bodies met.

Afraid he had woken her, Oliver rolled back over, ready to laugh that they had slept in. He was disappointed her side of the bed was empty. The rest of the room was, too. In fact, he couldn't hear any movement in the apartment.

“Darling?” he called, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He stretched wide and noticed a note on the nightstand.

“‘Tying up a loose end with Nigel. Didn't want to wake you. Be back by lunch,'” he read aloud.

He read it again as if it would make more sense. It didn't. Of course the maddening woman wouldn't give him more information than that. What loose ends were left?

Oliver picked his phone back up and went to his recent call list. He sighed and made a mental note to take her by the police station to get her phone back. Now there wasn't a way to reach her directly. He was about to put the phone down when he noticed the most recent call was placed earlier that morning. Darling had used to his phone to call Nigel.

It was a bold move. One she wouldn't have made unless she had a solid lead on something.

Suddenly Oliver's calm wasn't as resolute. A sinking feeling of apprehension slunk in.

He dialed the number again and put it to his ear.

It went straight to voice mail.

“Okay,” he said to the empty apartment. “Time to get dressed.”

Five minutes later Oliver was in his rental and driving toward Nigel's vacation home. He could have called Thomas, Grant or Nikki to let him talk to Darling if she was with Nigel, but after his talk with Nikki the previous day, it didn't feel right. Darling wasn't in trouble. He was just being overprotective. Jane Doe's, or rather Jean Watford's, killers had been caught. The men who had taken Darling were being held...or were they?

He rolled his shoulders back. The seed of doubt that had sprouted in his mind was growing, but there was no need for it, he tried to reason with himself. Yet it was a pill he couldn't seem to swallow. The closer he got to the vacation home, the more his nerves pricked. Why, he wasn't sure, but he knew he wouldn't shed the sudden restlessness until he set his eyes on a certain sneaky private investigator.

Oliver was sorely disappointed that no one seemed to be home when he arrived outside the gatehouse. No cars were in the driveway minus one he believed to belong to George. His aversion to calling Nikki was starting to ebb. He pulled his phone out just as it buzzed against his palm. It was a Maine number but not one he recognized.

“Oliver Quinn,” he answered, getting out of his SUV to look into the gatehouse for its guard. He mentally snorted at its emptiness. He was probably goofing off somewhere, not doing his job.

“Hello. I think this is the number I was supposed to call. Barb said some people were looking for me?” a female responded, uncertainty clear. There was a blanket of noise in the background.

“Harriet Mendon?” Oliver guessed.

“Yeah, that's me! Now what's this about?” She didn't sound mad or scared. Only curious. An older Darling, he quickly mused.

“The woman at the gas station you stopped at on the way out of Mulligan the other night—the one with the red hair—was—” Oliver paused and changed where the statement had been headed “—she died the next morning.” There was a tiny gasp, but she didn't interrupt. “There was a guy—a bad guy—who thought whatever it was you two talked about might have been something that could have hurt him. We just wanted to make sure if you saw him to call the police, but you shouldn't have to worry about that anymore. He's with the police now.”

“Oh, wow, I leave Mulligan for the first time in ten years and suddenly it gets exciting,” she answered after a beat. “I am sorry about that young woman, though. She was so happy and vibrant. Made me feel young again just talking to her. How did she die?”

“I'm not sure,” he lied. Jean's death was probably already splashed across the local paper. Harriet would be able to read about it all when she got back. Oliver didn't want to rehash the details.

“What a tragedy. I can't imagine what the man thought she told me. We only talked for maybe a minute. Nothing out of the ordinary. She was just excited to meet up with her dad and relax for a few days.”

Oliver stopped, his hand against the SUV door.

“Her dad? I thought she was in Mulligan on business,” he said, recalling the reporter's words from the previous night's news.

“I don't think so. I remember her specifically saying she was going to spend time with her dad and enjoy some downtime,” Harriet said. “She was smiling ear to ear. Does that sound like she was about to work to you?”