Dread felt heavy on her overstressed body. “What’s happened?”
He sat in a fluid motion and turned to face her. “Austin’s dead.”
It hit her like a punch. If she was so smart, why hadn’t she seen that one coming? Through numb lips, she asked, “Did I kill him?”
“I don’t know yet. The preliminary evidence suggests not, but it’ll be a couple of days before my office gets the official autopsy report.” He looked at her hands lying in her lap. She had twisted them together, gripping so tightly her knuckles had whitened. He covered them with one of his own. “There’s more. I need you to identify another body. Can you do that right now?”
She managed to respond with a jerky nod.
“The photo will be difficult to look at,” he said quietly. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He pulled out his phone, and this time when he turned to her, he gripped her shoulder in a strong, bracing hold as he tilted the screen toward her. “Is this your divorce lawyer, Nina Rodriguez?”
It took a few moments for her frozen brain to process what she saw. Nausea surged, and she bolted for the bathroom. She slammed the door shut and locked it, then spun to heave over the toilet.
It was excruciating as her abused ribs protested. She struggled through it, and afterward she rinsed her mouth, splashed cold water on her face, and brushed her teeth.
Only when she was ready to face him again did she unlock and open the door.
He waited just outside. “I take it that’s a yes.”
* * *
She nodded.
Her expression was devastated. The color had leached out of her complexion, making the discolored bruises stand out, and there was a fragility in her gaze that he’d never seen before.
“This is about the Seychelles file.” She looked sick. “I got her killed, didn’t I?”
“You did not get her killed,” he said carefully. “Austin did. But yes, this is about the Seychelles file. At least that’s how I’m piecing together the information right now. Austin was desperate to get all the copies back from you—desperate enough to kill you to make sure you couldn’t talk. And Nina Rodriguez was the other one who knew about it, because she wrote it into your divorce settlement.” He paused. “How specific did she get in the wording of the settlement?”
“She was very careful. We didn’t want the documents to trigger extra scrutiny in the court system. We wanted the divorce to go through, so she just called it foreign investments.” She wiped her eyes. “Austin and I didn’t have any foreign investments. He knew what we meant.”
She looked like a feather could knock her down. Gripping her arm, he steered her back to the bedroom where she sank onto the mattress, lay down, and curled on her side.
He was too damn tired to resist the impulse that came next. Sliding onto the bed, he fit his longer, bigger frame along her slender, curved back and dragged the bedspread over them both. “I have to get a few hours’ sleep. After that, I should be able to cast more healing spells for you.”
“Fine, whatever.” Her whispered reply was listless, but she didn’t protest when he tucked an arm around her.
Hell, he didn’t know why he did it. Maybe to comfort her. Maybe to get some comfort for himself. Letting his nose come to rest in the soft curtain of her hair, he closed his eyes, and despite the burning bedside lamp and the mountain of things he had to do, everything fell away and he slept.
When he opened his eyes again, he knew he had gotten enough sleep for survival, but it wasn’t a true, deep rest.
From where he lay, he could see out the open bedroom door to the bottom of the stairs. The filtered light that shone down the stairs was stronger, more yellow. The day had advanced. Moving carefully so he wouldn’t disturb Molly, he pulled out his phone to check the screen. It was almost noon. He had slept for over five hours.
Pushing himself on little rest had become a way of life, so five hours was actually a good amount for him. Easing away from Molly, he stood and paused to regard her slumbering form with a frown.
He didn’t sleep with women. He hadn’t even when he had lived with his wife, now long dead. But it had felt good to curl around Molly and hold her in his arms. Too good. Worse, he didn’t