Romancing the Crown: Nina & Dominic: A Royal Murder

Joe nodded, smiling slightly at the sight of Nina Caruso on her knees, bending over to part the foliage in the flower bed. “Searching for tracks,” he observed. “You should hire her. She seems quite thorough.”

“Bite your tongue,” Ryan said, turning so that he blocked Joe’s view of Nina. That cute little behind of hers was enticing enough when she was standing up. “Why don’t you go phone for a guard to get over here?” he suggested. “You need to grab a couple of hours’ sleep and then get started on the other business.”

As soon as Joe started around front, Ryan stepped across the flagstones nearer to Nina. “We might as well go unless you’ve found something we overlooked.”

She glanced up at him, frowning. “Did you check for footprints around here?”

“We found the head gardener’s, but he has an alibi. Would you care to question him?” Ryan reached down and helped her up.

She brushed the soil off her hands and straightened her short jacket and skirt. Her dark, silky hair had fallen forward over one eye. Ryan had the craziest urge to brush it back in place for her. He shoved his hands into his pockets instead and backed off.

“I’d like to see him now,” Nina said, taking a huge breath as if to fortify herself.

“The gardener?”

She rolled her eyes, then closed them. Probably praying for patience. “No. I would like to see Desmond.” Ryan watched her swallow hard and brace her shoulders in defiance of her fears. “His body.”

Ryan’s hand, acting independently of his better judgment, took Nina by the elbow as he escorted her around the building. The driver had returned with the limo, minus Pavelli, who was probably giving the king an earful about the uncooperative American investigator.

Though Ryan knew it might help him gain information about Nina, he wished she would change her mind about going to the morgue. Hell, he wouldn’t even go there if it wasn’t necessary. It was, however, and he would be going anyway, whether she went or not. “I could drop you at the apartment. Are you sure you want to do this?”

She snatched her arm away from him. “Yes. I have to see him. If nothing else, I need to say goodbye.”

For a long, tense moment, Ryan held her gaze, trying to judge how she would hold up. “This is not like viewing the dearly departed in a funeral home, Nina. He’s on a slab. In the morgue.”

“Has… has there been an autopsy?” Her voice had dropped to a whisper again as if she couldn’t bear to ask the question out loud.

“No, not yet.” But there would be. Probably late this afternoon. “If we’re going, we’d better go now and get it over with,” he suggested. “Sure you’re up to it?”

She nodded, clutching her purse with white-knuckled hands. He wanted to take them in his and warm them a little because they looked so cold. Damn, she was tying him in knots. What was with him, wanting to touch her every chance he got?

He hated that she dredged up his protective instincts. Hell, she was a suspect, for crying out loud. How was he supposed to stay objective when she was batting those big brown eyes, pursing her lips and making him want to do a caveman act? This was not like him, not at all.

Damn Lorenzo and his bright ideas anyway. Why hadn’t he sicced her on the police? They probably weren’t doing diddly down at the station.

In the States, a private investigator would never have been put in charge of something that so obviously fell under official police jurisdiction, but the cops here hadn’t had the experience he’d had and the king and Lorenzo knew that. For the first time, Ryan regretted the royal appointment. More to the point, he resented its unwritten other duties asassigned clause.

“Come on, then,” he said to Nina. She got into the car and he followed her. At least he got to ride in style when she was along. He was sorely tempted to break open that fancy bar and try to get her drunk before the next stop. He could use a shot himself, but he’d sworn off.

As they cruised through traffic toward the new part of San Sebastian and King Augustus Hospital, Ryan felt obliged to give her some preparation. “When we get there, you’ll wait in the corridor. There’s a camera, so you won’t actually have to go into the lab. You’ll be able to view—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I need to see him. Up close.”

Ryan leaned his head back against the seat and pressed his lips together to stifle a curse.

She laid a hand on top of his. It felt delicate. Cool. None too steady. “Please?”

He caved, knowing it was a mistake. “Okay.” God, he was such a pushover. He was never like this! Never. What was the matter with him today?

Ryan reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone and punched in the number of the morgue. Ryan figured the least he could do was notify Doc to clean up things as best he could for Nina.

Dr. Angelo answered the direct line himself.

“McDonough here,” Ryan said and skipped right over the usual pleasantries in the interest of time. “Look, Doc, I’m on my way over there now with the sister of Desmond Caruso. We won’t be using the viewer. Our ETA’s around twenty minutes. Can you manage?”

As he’d expected, Angelo tried to dissuade him, using the same arguments Ryan had used with Nina. Ryan cut him short in the middle of a sentence. “She insists. Set it up, will you?”

Nina had focused all her attention out the car window as if she were trying not to listen to the conversation.

Ryan couldn’t help himself. He reached down and grasped the hand she had fisted on the seat between them. To his surprise, she didn’t jerk it away, but opened her hand and clutched his fingers like a lifeline. She didn’t look at him or acknowledge his gesture of comfort in any way whatsoever. But she was damn near cracking his knuckles.

“It’ll be okay,” he told her, inane as it sounded.

She didn’t answer, and neither of them said another word for the rest of the ride over to the hospital, but she kept that death grip on his hand.

Damn. He knew what this felt like to her and wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. Well, at least it wasn’t a husband she was going to have to look at. It wasn’t her child.

The sudden image and echo of a laughing little girl, blond hair flying in the breeze as she ran, skittered through his mind. Ryan gritted his teeth and forced his mind away from the past. Six long years had given him lots of practice, and he should have been more successful at avoidance by this time.

When the car stopped in front of the hospital, Ryan exited with a calmness he did not feel. He knew his face showed nothing that would betray the roiling in his gut.

He focused on the nearby man-made lake, the precision of the landscaping surrounding King Augustus Hospital, the pink marble of its unusual structure. All the beauty that disguised an approaching nightmare.

Automatically he opened the car door for Nina Caruso and gave her his hand again, this time to assist her out. He let her go as soon as she was steady.

But he needed the connection, even if she didn’t, and placed his hand under her elbow. Yeah. Gentleman to the core, official as the day was long, a steady rock to lean on. A consummate liar and a fraud. He was shaking inside like he had d.t.’ s. He was dreading the morgue, possibly more than she was.

He had been there before in the course of his duties. The reaction was nothing new. He had dealt with it and would again, but he knew it would always be the same. The memories would flood right through that dam he had laboriously constructed. And then he’d have to rebuild it.

Maybe if he concentrated on her reaction, he wouldn’t be dwelling on his own so intensely. With that in mind, he was maybe a bit too solicitous on the way through the hospital and in the elevator that led to the lower level.

“Just try to focus on the fact that what you’re going to see is not really your brother,” he advised, still holding on to her arm. “It’s just a lifeless shell he once used. Disassociate if you can.”

She frowned at him, her dark eyes curious. “Are you all right?”

Ryan took a deep breath and tried a smile that felt unsuccessful, more like a grimace. “Yeah, sure. You?”

“I’m okay,” she replied, still frowning as they stepped out of the elevator.

The smell hit him, and they weren’t even close to the lab. She looked as if she’d noticed it, too. “Chemicals,” he explained. A lie. It was the smell of death. “Breathe through your mouth.”

Her lips opened as she complied. Full, tremulous lips that begged him to draw closer, to warm them. To warm his own.

Yeah, he thought, go ahead and think about that, fight the other thoughts. No, he reminded himself, her lips were definitely off-limits. Better lock on to something else.

But what? The odor of the place seemed to seep into him, to permeate his sinuses, to leave its taste on his tongue. Nothing was audible but their determined breathing, the echoes of his footsteps and the click of her high heels on the tiles.

Someone had placed pictures along the corridor, perhaps to distract visitors from what was to come, but the paintings were made up of shapes he didn’t recognize, done in vapid tints that reminded him of badly colored Easter eggs.