“I guess that’s it,” Ryan said, backing away from the table as the doctor covered the body. A memory flashed. Another covering up, the finality of it triggering something savage in him.
“I’m ready to go,” Nina said.
“Thanks, Doc,” he muttered to Angelo as he guided her out. “I’ll call you later.”
He would have to come here again, Ryan thought with resignation. After the autopsy, he’d have to come back. It never got any easier.
She appeared to be completely recovered, Ryan thought when they exited the elevator on the ground floor. Dry-eyed and composed now, she seemed to be in deep thought. Not at all the emotional wreck she might have been after seeing a beloved brother’s dead body.
Ryan filed away the impression that the bond of affection between Desmond and Nina Caruso must not have been all that tight if her grief was this superficial.
Chapter 3
When they emerged from the hospital, Ryan sucked in a deep breath of fresh air. Better. He squinted against the bright sunlight, welcoming it.
The limo cruised up to the curb and Ryan automatically reached past Nina to open her door. She slid inside.
When he got in, she turned to him and said the last thing he would have expected. “He wasn’t struck from behind.”
“No,” Ryan agreed as he fastened his seat belt and motioned for her to do the same.
“Then whoever did it was facing him, holding the statuette?” “Yes, given the placement of the wound.”
“Could I see the weapon?” she asked.
He sighed. “Nina, you’re taking this Murder She Wrote business a little too seriously, you know that?”
“Maybe,” she admitted, “but I think you should humor me. I do have permission to assist you.”
Well, hell. Ryan couldn’t tell her the real reason the king had sent her directly to him.
“Okay. Tomorrow. We’ll go over the evidence then. Today I think you’ve done enough, don’t you?”
She looked pointedly at her watch. “It’s barely one o’clock.”
“We’ll grab a bite of lunch and drop you at the apartment so you can rest.”
“But—”
“No buts,” he warned. “This is not the only case I’m working on, Nina. There’s plenty I have to do this afternoon that has nothing to do with this. I can’t drag you all over the island while I take care of business.”
“But tomorrow you’ll be back on this case, right?”
“Yes, tomorrow morning.”
“And I can go with you?”
He nodded emphatically. “Now, what would you like to eat?”
In a self-conscious gesture, she tucked her hair behind her ears, crossed her arms beneath her breasts and looked out the opposite window. “Oatmeal,” she mumbled.
“Excuse me?”
Defiantly, she turned her head and pinned him with a glare. “I said oatmeal. With wheat toast and butter and cinnamon. And hot tea. Earl Grey with lemon.”
“You’re joking, right? I don’t know anywhere in San Sebastian that serves oatmeal.”
She raised one dark brow in challenge. “Well, you did ask.”
Ryan shook his head. He’d known she would be trouble from the minute he’d laid eyes on her. “Your wish is my command. Apparently that’s turning out to be my phrase for the day.”
He leaned forward, pushed the intercom button and ordered the driver to stop at the nearest grocery.
“You’ll have to cook it yourself unless you want me to send you back to the palace,” he told her emphatically. “I don’t do oatmeal.”
* * *
Almost an hour and three grocery stores later, Nina Caruso, her oatmeal, Earl Grey tea, and various other containers of comfort food were safely deposited in the apartment adjacent to his.
She could eat her wallpaper paste and take a nap. He had to figure out how he was going to solve this murder while she was poking her lovely little nose into every aspect of it. All in all, he’d rather stick pins in his eyes, but he had his orders.
Her presence and demands had crowded out the possibility of his lapsing into a couple of hours of depression after the visit to the morgue the way he usually did. For that distraction, he ought to thank her.
It bothered him that she hadn’t seemed all that upset to see her brother’s body. Oh, she’d acted nervous and cried a little, but that could have been for show. Ryan just wished he hadn’t had his own renewal of grief to deal with at the time. He could have been a hell of a lot more accurate in judging whether hers really existed.
He arrived back at his office and went over the other cases he had pending, made a few necessary phone calls and worked on putting Nina Caruso out of his mind until Joe called just before six. “Turn on the news,” Joe advised.
Ortano’s news clip stated that Nina had never been to the island before. She had come now to see that the investigation of her brother’s murder was carried out expeditiously and to offer what assistance she could. Her words to Ortano verified that.
Other than stating the family connection and capitalizing a bit on the emotional aspect of the event, the reporter had little to add of any consequence. The clip was surprisingly low-key. The video was fantastic. Ryan switched off the set and returned to the phone call.
Joe assured Ryan that calls between Nina and her brother—all except the last of which had originated with her—had been few and far between and of brief duration. The last had been two weeks ago, placed from Desmond’s guesthouse to La Jolla, California, where Nina lived. She had neither made nor received any calls since she’d arrived in Montebello.
As for her possessing a motive to have Desmond killed, Joe had not discovered one. Fear, Ryan dismissed. Revenge or jealousy were possibilities. Greed was a contender, too, but Joe assured him that Nina Caruso had a substantial trust fund and a very healthy investment portfolio.
There was an insurance policy her father had taken out on Desmond when he was a child. The premiums on it were paid through a trust which, now that the original capital was no longer needed, would also become Nina’s. But was that enough to prompt her to arrange a murder when she was already fairly well off?
Ryan’s gut told him no. At least, he hoped that was his gut and not another part of his anatomy.
When he called her around seven o’clock to make dinner arrangements, he received no answer. Jet lag must have finally caught up with her, he supposed. Just as well, Ryan thought, totally denying the spark of disappointment he felt that he wouldn’t see her again until morning.
Maybe
