Private Bodyguard
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He left his spot in the kitchen next to the back entrance and walked down the long hallway to the front. Grant, off duty until seven that night, was sitting in the dining room, reading one of the many books he had brought with him. He looked up as Oliver opened the front door.
“Something is up,” Oliver said over his shoulder. A police cruiser was parking next to his rental SUV. Two male cops got out. “I need you on duty right now,” he added, seeing their facial expressions. This wasn’t a courtesy visit.
“Good afternoon, officers,” Oliver said when they were a few feet away.
“Afternoon,” the first one responded. He was in his upper fifties and had almost no hair left on his head. He was built strong but didn’t look intimidating with his short height. “I’m Officer Barker and this is my partner, Officer Clay.” He motioned to the much younger black man next to him, whose lack of hair looked more intentional than his partner’s. “You must be one of Mr. Marks’s bodyguards.”
“Yes, sir. How can I help you?”
Officer Barker looked considerably more uncomfortable than Officer Clay. They shared a glance before Barker straightened his back and answered.
“We need to talk to Mr. Marks,” he said. “Now.”
“Okay,” Oliver said. He turned to nod at Grant, who had been hanging back in the dining room to listen. “Can I ask what about?” Oliver ventured as Grant walked out of the room, heading for the stairs.
Again Oliver caught the feeling of unease that passed between the officers.
“Something’s happened,” Officer Clay answered. Oliver instantly recalled Darling’s voice mail. “We shouldn’t say anything more until we’ve talked to Mr. Marks.”
Oliver wanted to push for more answers but had to remind himself that he was the bodyguard, not Nigel’s personal assistant. He let the officers stand in silence until the man of the hour made his grand appearance.
“Officers,” Nigel said, a question already in his tone. “What can I do for you?”
“We’ll give you some privacy,” Oliver said, falling back into the house with Grant but maintaining a sight line. Nigel didn’t seem to notice, and as soon as they were out of earshot, the officers began to talk in lowered voices.
“What’s going on?” Thomas asked. He had come down the stairs with Nigel, face filled with curiosity. Not that Oliver could blame him.
“The cops are here,” Grant answered. He turned to Oliver. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Oliver watched as Nigel’s entire body visibly tensed.
“No,” he answered. “But I can guess it’s probably not good.”
Probably not good was an understatement. In less than five minutes, Nigel Marks was in the back of the cop cruiser and as mad as a hornet. Before they had driven away, the businessman had asked Thomas to call his lawyer.
“About what?” Thomas had asked.
“I’m being accused of murder,” Nigel had bit back.
All three bodyguards didn’t have time to hide their surprise.
Oliver had had many interesting things happen in his line of work, but he could definitely say a client being accused of murder was a first. No matter the new unique circumstance, he couldn’t forget he was team leader. He sent Grant and Thomas—who had followed Nigel’s directions and was calling Nikki to get the man’s lawyer’s information, and also an earful of confusion from her—to the police station. There they would continue to work as his bodyguards until Nigel was officially convicted of the crime or cleared of it.
Oliver made sure George knew he needed to keep an extravigilant eye on the gate and jumped into his rental, already calling Darling. It wasn’t a coincidence she had called. She knew something.
She always did.
Minutes later, Oliver pulled into the lot of the Mulligan Motel. The coroner’s van along with two police cruisers were parked next to the entrance, while a few guests stood around, but he had eyes only for one woman.
Darling was sitting on a bench next to the lobby’s front door, concentration aimed at her phone. She had been brief during their call but had admitted they had found a dead body. Though how it was linked to Nigel, he wasn’t sure yet.
“Apparently my questions are going to have to be asked a little earlier than planned,” he said by way of a greeting. It made the woman jump, but she didn’t appear angry when she met his eyes. His body tensed at her gaze.
“Believe me, you aren’t the only one who has questions.” She stood and stretched. He was acutely aware of her five-five height, having to incline his head down slightly to look at her. A memory of how easy it was to pick her up into his embrace flashed across his vision. “Where is Nigel, and why aren’t you with him?”
Since Nigel was a client, what went on in the man’s private life was confidential. Oliver was under contract, which meant, unless it was public information, he couldn’t divulge the fact that the businessman had been taken to the jail. Even if the person asking was Darling.
“Grant and Thomas are with him,” was all he gave her. “Now, what’s going on here, and how is it connected with Nigel?”
Darling was visibly trying to hide her anger at not being given a full answer, but she reined in the emotion along with any words born from it. She pushed her shoulders back when she was no longer actively trying to hide her displeasure.
“A body was found in the room your boss was staying in last night,” she answered. Oliver didn’t correct her with the difference between boss and client. His interest level had jumped off the charts instead. He was about to push for more when the Mulligan Motel’s front door swung open and the deputy walked out. His mouth was set in a grim line, one that thinned when he saw Oliver.
“I’m surprised you’re here,” the deputy said, coming over. “I thought you’d be at the station.”
“So Nigel was arrested?” Darling cut in before Oliver could comment.
“He was picked up a few minutes ago,” Derrick said, relieving Oliver of having to withhold the information. Even though Darling kept her face guarded, he didn’t miss the satisfaction that the cop’s words brought her. “Which is why I didn’t think you’d be here,” Derrick said to Oliver.
“The rest of the team is with him,” he repeated. “I came here to find out what’s going on.” Oliver sent a pointed look to Darling. “And how you’re involved.”
Darling crossed her arms over her chest.
“I was actually about to ask the same thing,” Derrick said. The two of them focused on the private investigator. She shifted under their collective gaze. A long exhalation escaped between her lips.
“I was working a case,” she admitted. “It led me here and, to my surprise, right up to a dead body. But as soon as I found it, I called you,” she said to Derrick.
The cop outdid her earlier sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What’s your case?” Oliver had to ask.
Darling set her jaw. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Dammit, Darling, a woman is dead. You need to tell me everything you know,” Derrick said with tried patience. Oliver guessed murder wasn’t a normal occurrence in Mulligan.
“So it is a woman, then?” she asked. Derrick nodded. It was her turn to skate around a direct answer. “I didn’t look hard enough. How was she killed?”
“And how is Nigel connected, again?” Oliver tacked on.
The deputy wasn’t happy about the questions. “It’s my turn to say ‘no comment.’” Darling opened her mouth to argue, but he held up his hand. “This is an ongoing murder investigation, Darling. I can’t give you anything right now. Not even for old times’ sake.”
Oliver didn’t like the way he said the last part or the way the deputy brought up their shared past. The past that Oliver’s past few years didn’t even touch. However, a small part of him did feel a sort of odd joy to know that whatever relationship they’d had was now seemingly over.
“Now, please go wait inside so I can take your statement,” the deputy said to Darling before focusing on Oliver. “And I suggest you head to the station. We’re going to need to talk about that client of yours.”
He was gone after that, leaving Oliver and Darling speechless on the sidewalk.
“You said Nigel was the last to see the woman alive?” he asked, voice low and serious.
“He spent the night with her, Oliver.”
“Are you sure?” Nigel had said he was in his hotel in the city until the morning. Neither Grant nor Thomas had said otherwise. “It could have been a mistake.”
Darling’s lips turned down. “It looks like Nigel Marks isn’t the saint you thought him to be.” There was no mistaking the undercurrent of anger that coursed through her words. He was a step away from a dangerous territory with her.
“This isn’t how I pictured running into you after all of these years.” Silence stretched between them as neither had a response ready for the topic of their past. Oliver then continued, “I’d still like to catch up, but it looks like tonight might not be good.” He had already started a mental list of things he needed to do. “Can I treat you to breakfast tomorrow instead?”
Darling seemed to be thinking it over. Eventually she nodded before she, too, disappeared back into the building. Oliver retreated to his SUV, pulling his phone out to call Nikki along the way.
The job was officially no longer boring.
Chapter Four
Darling chewed on her bottom lip, not stopping until she tasted lipstick. She was standing in the lobby of Acuity the next morning, staring into a folder, confused beyond belief.
The afternoon before had blurred by after she’d given a statement to Derrick and then been ushered home. He wasn’t happy with her investigating, or the fact that she wouldn’t say for whom, and had in so many words let her know that she wouldn’t keep that secret for long. So instead she had tried to reach Mrs. Marks. The resort manager she had spoken with had taken a message and promised to give it to her when she returned.
It had eaten Darling up as she lay awake in bed, fuming that Oliver knew more about what was going on with Nigel than she did. Here he was, stepping into her town, and he had already managed to be on the inside loop with the infamous Mr. Marks. She could have called Oliver, sure, but her pride had shut that idea down quickly. Admitting she needed the fair-haired man in any capacity was something she refused to do ever again.
After only a few hours of rest, she had opened Acuity to find a folder filled with curious things lying on the hardwood floor, slipped under the door as an unmistakable greeting.
Now between her hands were four eight-by-ten pictures of Nigel Marks with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Each picture—printed on glossy card stock and dated—was focused on the businessman and a red-haired woman in four varying shows of affection. The first two had them in an intimate embrace, while the third and fourth were of the two sharing meals. In one of those, Nigel was even holding the woman’s hand, a smile splitting his lips. None of the four pictures had a clear shot of the female’s face, but there was no denying it was the same woman in each and that the couple was happy. All pictures were dated from the previous December up until March, the month before.
Elizabeth Marks had been looking for proof that her husband had been seeing another woman in secret. From what Darling could tell, she was holding that proof.
But why?
She stood there, cycling through each picture again, when a knock at the door made her jump. The folder fell to the floor. She hurried to pick it up when she noticed there was something still inside it.
“Knock, knock. It’s me,” called Oliver from the other side of the locked front entrance. “You in there?”
Darling didn’t immediately respond. Her eyes were glued to a newspaper clipping that had been stuck to the inside of the folder. It was a picture of her parents that she knew to be almost nine years old. However, it was the words written in red across it that grabbed all her attention.
Do the right thing this time.
“Hold on,” Darling said after another knock sounded. She hoped Oliver didn’t catch the waver in her voice. She put the pictures, including the clipping, back into the folder and tucked it under her arm to unlock the door.
“You okay?” Oliver asked immediately. Perhaps her poker face wasn’t at its best today. He wore a zip-up black jacket over a black shirt that looked good contrasting with his lighter hair. Staying away from the all-black bodyguard stereotype, he’d donned beige cargo pants with more pockets than she cared to count. She didn’t recognize the brand of tennis shoes, but she bet that he could run fast in them if needed.
“Yeah, just tired,” she lied, leading him into the lobby. “Let me just freshen up and I’ll be ready to go.” She stuffed the folder into her purse and excused herself to the bathroom. There she turned on the faucet and took a deep breath.
What had briefly felt like a gift that could close her case against Nigel now felt tainted and wrong. As far as she knew, no one in Mulligan was aware of her parents’ past, especially the quiet part she had played in the background.
Do the right thing.
She didn’t need to wonder what that meant.
Whoever had sent her the folder wanted her to turn it in to the cops. But why not just do it themselves? If the red-haired woman was the same one who had been left in the tub, that meant the pictures definitely linked the two before the hotel room. Why would they give them to her?
Darling ran her hands under the cold water but didn’t splash her face. For the first time in a long while, she had taken pains to look nice. She wore a pale pink blouse that dipped down into a V—not enough to be seductive, just feminine—a pair of comfortably tight light blue jeans and dark brown boots that folded down at the ankle. Her hair was twisted up into a purposefully messy bun so the yellow daisy earrings she loved so much could be seen with ease. A subtle coral tinted her plump yet small lips. They were downturned at the moment.
She’d convinced herself that Oliver’s presence in Mulligan was a good thing. What Oliver had done in the past had broken a big part of who she was, but she liked to think she had come out stronger because of it. As soon as she had turned eighteen, she had left California, her family and all of those bad memories behind. There was no reason to dredge them up now. If she could keep her head up while Oliver was in town, then she could get through anything.
That thought alone pushed a wave of new purpose through her bones until it made her stand taller. Putting away the man behind the murder of the woman in the tub was more important than her failed love life. Nigel Marks’s mistress deserved better.
Darling eyed her purse before nodding to herself in the mirror.
She did need to do the right thing.
“You ready for some breakfast?” Oliver asked when she emerged. He was talking to her but looking around the office’s lobby. Pride swelled in her chest.
Acuity Investigations was housed in an old strip mall that predated half of the other businesses in Mulligan. Acuity was at the tail end of the shops, next to a narrow road that deposited drivers back on Main Street. The reason Jeff Berns, Darling’s former boss, had rented the particular space was its proximity to traffic yet its backdoor access so clients could be as discreet as they wanted.
Darling remembered the first time she had walked into Acuity. The cream-colored walls, leather and oak furniture, pictures of boats nestled in calm water and slightly musty smell had been a sharp contrast to what she referred to as her former life. Instead of turning her nose up at Jeff and his place of employment like her parents would have, Darling had embraced it with vigor.
Acuity wasn’t fancy or elegant, but it was important to her. As Oliver’s eyes traveled along the hardwood floors to the heavy oak door that led to her office, in the back of her mind she hoped he felt that truth ring through his bones as she did.
“Actually, would you mind if we swung by the police station really quickly?” Darling asked when his eyes finally moved back to hers. “I need to give something to Deputy Derrick.” When he didn’t immediately respond, she tacked on, “If you don’t have enough time, we could reschedule.”
“No, it’s fine,” he answered. “Just as long as we actually eat afterward.”
Darling slipped into her black faux-leather jacket and smiled inwardly at its comfort before ushering Oliver out and locking the door behind her. They walked in silence up to his SUV. She was oddly saddened when he didn’t open the door for her. The Oliver from younger years had not only opened the car doors for her but also occasionally put on her seat belt, laughing and mock-admonishing her about the importance of car safety.
The memory tugged at long-forgotten heartstrings. Now as they settled into their seats, the disconnect between the present and the past stretched between them.
“Is this visit for business or pleasure?” Oliver asked as the SUV pulled out of the parking lot.
She gave him a sideways glance. “Business.”
He nodded to the road. “Does it have to do with Nigel?”
“It does,” she admitted.
“What is it?” he ventured.
“Something very important.”
She didn’t elaborate and he didn’t push.
“I don’t think he did it, Darling,” Oliver said. “I don’t think he killed that woman.”
Darling couldn’t help the reflex to tense up, her body readying automatically for a verbal spar. It was a response she had picked up out of necessity as a young female investigator. She rolled her shoulders back to ease the new tension and answered with a controlled voice.
“Did he admit to being at the hotel last night?” she asked.
She knew Oliver sensed the mood change. He shifted in his seat and lost his smile.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask. As soon as he was released, he locked himself in his study with his lawyer and son. They were still there when I left.”
Darling’s control cracked. “They released him?”
Oliver nodded. “I don’t think there was enough evidence to hold him.”
“But he was there,” Darling exclaimed. “He spent the night with her!”
“Just because he spent the night with her doesn’t mean he killed her, Darling.” Instant anger filled her veins at how he said her name, as if she was some confused child.
“So, what, it’s just a coincidence, then? You can’t comprehend that a man like him, an adulterer, could ever do something like kill his mistress?”
She watched as his jaw hardened. “We don’t know for sure he was having an affair,” he said. “The visit could have been business-related for all we know.”
Darling laughed. “Oh, you’re right. They probably just sat around and talked business all night.”
“It’s possible,” he tried, but Darling wasn’t having it. Defending men like Nigel, bending to their wills, was unforgivable in her book. Heat rose from the pit of her stomach, but it wasn’t embarrassment. It was the force of an old wound breaking open. She yanked the pictures from her purse right as they turned into the station’s parking lot.
“He seems to like to talk to women in secret,” she said, barely able to keep her voice level. Oliver took the pictures from her hand and cycled through them just as she remembered the clipping was on the bottom. Operating on the assumption that Oliver knew he was dealing with an angry Darling, she snatched the pictures back and threw open the door. “I’ll be right back.”
She marched into the weathered, blue-painted building without looking back. Her head was almost spinning with the range of emotions she had experienced in such a short amount of time. It amazed her how Oliver brought out the worst in her, no matter what attitude she wanted to convey. Instead of seeming put together, she had come off as truly childish in the end. Her cheeks heated; this time it was all shame.
The Mulligan Police Department was poorly insulated. Derrick had liked to joke that was one of the reasons the town’s crime rate was so low. No one wanted to spend the night in the cells. She hadn’t even liked spending the morning in one. Darling wondered how Nigel Marks’s act would shake the community’s relative peace and quiet. She made a mental note to grab a newspaper after her breakfast date was finished to see how the media had handled it.
“Hey, Trudy,” Darling greeted the bundled-up secretary. She was the first and only barrier between the front doors and the bullpen.
“Darlin’ Smith, I hope you’re not in trouble again,” she said. Her tone was laced with disapproval. Trudy had more grandchildren than most people had fingers. She was proud of this and often acted as Mulligan’s mother hen, believing she had earned that right even more with every relation that had come from her and her children.
“Not today,” she said with a small smile. “But I do need to see Derrick. Is he in?”
“No, ma’am. He should be in soon, though. Do you want to wait?”
“Um, no, but can I just leave something on his desk?” Darling flashed the woman the folder, though the pictures were in her other hand. Trudy nodded and let Darling around her to the rows of desks. Another cop sat focused on his computer and didn’t seem to notice or care as she went to Derrick’s space in the corner. Glancing at a picture of Derrick’s niece and nephew positioned next to his keyboard, Darling felt as if she was making a good decision by turning the evidence in. Derrick wasn’t her Mr. Right, but he was a good, just man.
However, in true Darling fashion, she quickly snapped pictures of each individual image and their corresponding dates before slipping them into the folder, minus the newspaper clipping. She stuffed that into her back pocket.
A source dropped these off at my office today. Darling.
She scribbled down the lie and was suddenly glad that Derrick and his questions weren’t there yet. He’d call her, no doubt, but not until after he had investigated the evidence. If he caught her now, it would be the other way around, a thought that made her hightail it out of the station.
Dodging one ex only to get into the car with another.
* * *
THE RED LEAF was one of two local coffee shops in Mulligan. Like the town, it was quaint, yet endearing in its own right. They also made a mean coffee, Darling said after she had returned from the station. She hadn’t apologized for her outburst, but he hadn’t expected her to, either.
Bailing Darling Smith out of jail had never been on Oliver’s list of scenarios for when, and if, they ever met again. Sure, he’d thought of the possibility of crossing paths when he went home to California to visit family. Maybe even a random encounter in an airport as he traveled for work. But never like this.
Occasionally, he’d wonder what he would say to her during a chance encounter. How have you been? Isn’t the weather nice? Have you cut your hair? They weren’t good greetings, but how else could he skate around the topic of their past? Now, as they sat across from each other in a worn leather booth, he doubted such a thing could be accomplished. Darling hadn’t forgotten or forgiven what he’d done, and he couldn’t blame her for that.
He hadn’t forgiven himself yet, either.
“Expecting a call?” he asked as she took care to adjust the volume on her cell.
“Expecting? No. Hoping? Still no, but I can’t ignore it.” He raised his eyebrow so she explained, “Work-related.”
“Ah, I know the feeling.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and placed it on the table, as well. With the recent changes in the job, Nikki had made it clear she wanted all guards to have their phones on at all times, even when they were off the clock.
“So, I have to ask. You didn’t seem at all surprised to see me yesterday... Why?” she asked, getting the conversational ball rolling. Darling had never been a fan of silence.
Unlike the seventeen-year-old he had left behind, this Darling was all grown and all woman. Oliver couldn’t deny she was beautiful—she always had been—but now there was something more as he really looked at her. The way her dark green eyes bore into his, trying to figure him out, was so fierce it almost shook his resolve to leave the past just where it was.