The Socialite and the Bodyguard (15 page)

“I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station with us, sir. We need you to answer a couple of questions.”

“Were you outside Mr. Landon’s bedroom around 9:00 p.m. last night as stated by his housekeeper?” the younger cop asked. He held a pen in his right hand, poised over his pristine notepad. He had a large cup of coffee in his left. He wasn’t drinking.

Nash inhaled the aroma of freshly brewed java, his mouth watering for a sip. They probably only had the damned thing to torture him.

“Did you go to Mr. Landon’s house last night?” the cop repeated his question.

Since they’d already done the whole line-up business and Al Landon’s naughty housekeeper had probably already identified him, Nash said, “Yes.”

“Did you go there to kill Al Landon?”

“If I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t have left a witness,” he snapped.

From the way the guy’s eyes narrowed, it hadn’t been the right answer.

He desperately wanted to know what she was thinking. The look she’d given him as he’d left with the police was cold enough to give him frostbite. He hoped she didn’t think he had something to do with her uncle’s death.

It all came down to how much she trusted him. He wanted her trust, he wanted her loyalty. He didn’t dare go beyond that and admit that he also wanted something more from her. She was the Popcorn Princess. He was a temporary bodyguard. What he wanted was impossible.

“Why were you outside Al Landon’s bedroom window in the dark?”

“I’m responsible for protecting Miss Landon.” That was as good a place to start as any, and true. “Her parents and brother died under suspicious circumstances. Her dog received a number of death threats. She just came back from Vegas where she’d nearly died in an elevator incident. I was checking the people closest to her, doing my job.”

The guy took notes. “Why would you think that Mr. Landon would be a danger to his niece?”

“Al Landon, Greg Landon and Kayla Landon together are majority stock owners of Landon enterprises. They are also each other’s beneficiaries in the event that any of them should pass away.” He’d learned that while searching Al’s files two nights ago—apparently, those three felt very strongly about keeping the business in the family.

“None of your damned business.” His blood pressure ticked up a notch.

The young man glanced nervously back at the two-way mirror behind him as if to remind himself that he wasn’t alone with the suspect. Others watched, ready to help. He turned to Nash and pulled his spine straight, put on his tough face. “I ask the questions, you answer. Are you sleeping with Miss Landon?”

Nash leaned forward, paused a second, dropped his voice as he answered. “You ask that question one more time and I’m going to cram that pen down your throat, followed by the notepad, and I’ll send the table after them.”

The guy’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Nash leaned back in his chair. The man needed a couple of years of experience, but he wasn’t bad. He was probably still in training. They let him have a go at the suspect, but likely his partner and his supervisor were behind that mirror, evaluating him. Nash didn’t want to be too hard on the poor bastard, but he wasn’t in the mood for a leisurely chat, either. And his private business was his private business.

“Where were you between 10:00 p.m. and midnight last night?” The man fully recovered at last.

Nash considered the time spread. The time of the murder. “Memorial Park.”

“Stargazing?” Buddy boy tried for humor.

But Nash wasn’t in a lighthearted mood. “Watching the front of the house.” While someone went in through the back and stabbed Kayla’s uncle to death.

“Why?”

“As I said, I thought Mr. Landon might be behind the trouble Miss Landon was having. I was just covering my bases.”

“Anyone see you in the park?”

“Not being seen was the point.”

The officer looked down at his notes then back at Nash, trying to conceal his frustration, but failing. He took a sip of his coffee at last. Got up, picked up all his stuff. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He was gone for two hours. Nash was just about frothing from impatience by then, considering a breakout. He could have done it, hell, he could have done it with one hand tied behind his back. The only thing that held him back was that it would complicate things and, for Kayla’s sake, he was determined to avoid complications. He needed to be able to fully focus on keeping her safe.

“We’re going to let you go for now, Mr. Wilder. Don’t leave town.” Nash was already at the door when the man called after him. “Any ideas who might have wanted to harm Al Landon?”

He almost didn’t respond. The cop wasn’t on his favorite-people list. Then he reconsidered. “Might want to check the housekeeper. Landon was doing her. Knife in the heart…Could be a crime of passion,” he said as he let the door swing closed behind him.

But he didn’t believe that for a minute.

S
HE HAD
her secretary cancel all her social appointments for the next week or so. But as Kayla sat in the living room, she was beginning to consider whether that was a mistake. She might go crazy with nothing to do.

She was responsible for her uncle’s death.

If she’d been there last night for dinner, her bodyguards with her, nobody would have been able to get near Al.

He’d died thinking she was mad at him. That clawed at her heart.

Her eyes burned. She’d cried all her tears. All that remained now was that numb, cold shock that had overtaken her after her parents’ deaths and after Lance’s. Somebody was murdering her family one by one and she was powerless to stop the man.

It had to do with the money that had disappeared, she was sure of that. And it had to do with her. Everyone she’d told was dead now, everyone but Nash.

Thank God she had never said anything to Greg. She couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him.

“Are you okay?”

She looked up as her brother came in from the kitchen. He came over with that slow, meandering gait of his and gave her a hug, and she melted into his embrace. Greg was the baby brother she had raised because their parents had been too busy with the business.

She held him tight, but he held her tighter. Too tight. She wiggled to loosen his arms after a while. Greg wasn’t always good with hugs. At times he seemed almost incapable of showing affection, other times he overdid it. But Kayla loved him as he was, loved him and swore to protect him.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You okay?”

He nodded, looking puzzled. While Kayla’s distress disturbed him, he had taken the news of Uncle Al’s death with little upset.

“Want some cheesecake?” Margaret, Al’s housekeeper, had baked up a storm to keep herself busy, needing Stanislav’s help to get all the boxes up to the penthouse apartment when she’d come by to visit Kayla earlier.

They didn’t talk much. She’d been a mess. Both of them were.

“I want popcorn,” Greg said.

“You don’t have to do that now,” Kayla told him gently. Greg didn’t like popcorn, but he’d figured out back when he’d been a toddler that the way to gain his father’s approval was to pretend that it was his favorite. “I’ll get you cheesecake.”

“Okay. With chocolate drizzle?”

“With chocolate drizzle.”

She walked to the pantry and brought the box out, placed it on the kitchen table and was putting a slice on a plate for Greg when Nash walked through the door.

He looked annoyed and tense. “I’ll take a slice of that,” he said and went straight for the coffeepot.

“How was it?”

He faced her, cup in hand. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I did it?”

“I don’t need to. I trust you, Nash.”

His masculine lips stretched into a thin smile and his gaze softened, his shoulders relaxing. He drew a slow breath, then, still holding her gaze, took a gulp of coffee.

Her heart turned over in her chest. The plate wobbled in her hand as the realization hit her: she trusted him because she knew him with her heart.

S
HE WAS
killing him. Nash watched from across the room as Kayla pretended to go through some company paperwork. In the past three days, since her uncle’s death, she had become a different woman. Gone were her sassy attitude and the spark in her eyes. He wanted to pick her up and carry her to her bedroom, comfort her, do whatever it took to erase the bottomless sadness from her eyes.

He wanted to make love to her.

He was a guy. In times of crisis, his thoughts were decidedly primal. Fighting any enemy for her and making her his were as primal as thoughts could get.

He picked up a tray of cheesesteaks he’d had delivered. On second thought, he chose just one—best not to overwhelm her—slid it onto a plate and grabbed a bottle of mineral water to go with it.

He crossed the room. “You should have a bite.”

She hadn’t eaten anything today, and it was past noon. She’d lost weight in the last couple of days. Her silk shirt hung on her slim shoulders.

She glanced at the plate, then looked away. “I need to get this done. I might be too tired later.”

Or too upset. Her uncle’s funeral was called for 4:00 p.m.

“One bite.” He pushed the food toward her, until she had to take it to keep the plate from toppling over her paperwork.

She moved to put the plate down.

“One bite.” Nash stopped her.

She gave him an annoyed look.

“Let’s talk about security measures for this afternoon.” He waited while she took the first bite, then went on talking to distract her from realizing that she kept on eating. “You, your brother, Joey and I’ll go together and stay together. Joey will be Greg’s detail and I’ll be yours.” Mo was in the hospital. His leg wound had gotten infected and they had him on an antibiotic drip. He wouldn’t be back before tonight. “There’ll be some cops there, too.”

Her gaze went wide.

“In case the murderer shows up.”

She swallowed hard. Pushed the plate away.

He put it back into her hands. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there. And even if the bastard comes to gloat, he’ll be keeping a low profile. He wouldn’t dare attack at a public affair.”

She’d somehow gotten a streak of ink on her cheekbone from her pen. He reached up to rub it off with the pad of his thumb.

She went completely still.

Joey was out with Greg, taking Tsini for a walk. Nash had asked Joey to stick as close to him as possible. Not only to protect him, but also to figure out where his money was going. Now that they were back in Philly, he was determined to solve that puzzle.

Although, at the moment the only thing Nash was interested in was the lovely puzzle right in front of him.

They were alone in the apartment.

And now that he’d touched her velvet skin, he didn’t want to let go.

He leaned forward.

She jumped up so fast that she nearly upended her leftover sandwich over his head.

“I have to start getting ready. I’ll be taking a shower.”

The exact wrong thing to say.

He hadn’t been able to forget their shower at that Vegas hotel yet. Just hearing her say the word caused a riot in his pants.

He leaned against the back of the sofa and let her go. And hated watching her walk away.

He never had trouble with letting women walk away from him. Hell, he preferred it. They saved him the trouble. But watching Kayla practically run from him twisted something inside his chest.

He pulled out his cell to make a couple of calls.

“Nothing in Landon’s e-mail,” Nick Tarasov said. Nash had asked him to hack into Al’s account back when he’d thought the man might have had something to do with Kayla’s Vegas accident. “Mostly business, with some quick notes to Kayla, and a few dozen hot-and-heavy love letters to a woman named Margaret. I checked his deleted files, too. Couldn’t find anything.”

And if Nick Tarasov couldn’t get dirt off someone’s computer, it wasn’t there.

“No hint why someone would want him dead?”

“Not unless Margaret had a husband.”

Nash had already investigated that angle and come up with nothing. Margaret Miller had no other boyfriend, no family. For the past ten years, she had lived for Al Landon and was now devastated by his death.

“I’ve been meaning to call you, actually,” Nick said. “About that seed money.”

Oh, hell. “Lost it all, didn’t you?” There went his life savings. He drew a deep breath. It’d been the right thing to do. Nick and Carly were good people. They were raising a family. He’d shown his support. They could have just as easily succeeded. “That’s okay.” He probably wasn’t ever going to retire anyway. In his line of work, people didn’t figure on a long life expectancy.

“We got the patents, actually,” Nick said.

He didn’t want a lengthy explanation now. “It’s fine, Nick. Really. Tell that gorgeous wife of yours that she can cook me a couple of dinners and we’re even.”

Nick laughed on the other end. “You should be cooking for her. She put the final deal together with a big Mexican telecom company. Your cut should come to a little over two million.”

His pulse kicked up a notch even as his mind struggled with processing the words. “Say it’s not in pesos.”

“American dollars it is.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“Possibly. But first, you’ll be stinking filthy rich. There’ll be more money coming in. You own major stock in the company.”

They talked for another few minutes, until Nash’s head was swimming. Then he put all that out of his mind and focused back on the task at hand. Money was nice, but Kayla was still in danger. And Kayla meant more than a couple of million dollars to him. In fact, Kayla meant more to him than anything else.