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‘I’ll do a pie chart,’ he promised in a low gravelly voice.
I moaned and started to slide down his body. Time to reward him for good behaviour.
Who needed sleep anyway?
I awoke feeling refreshed and revitalised. Greg had been right: I’d needed a recharge. Our time together had kick-started my batteries and a visit with my family would do the rest.
Can we clean ourselves now? Esme asked eagerly. She loved a shower.
Absolutely!
Greg had rolled out of bed an hour earlier to relieve Tristan from his place at the security desk so I could happily make the shower as hot as I wanted. I luxuriated in the heat rolling through my muscles and Esme made happy noises in our head.
I dried and dressed before carefully toning and moisturising my face. Fresh faced and dewy eyed, I moseyed back into my bedroom to find a huge bacon baguette waiting for me, liberally doused with tomato ketchup with a side of fried mushrooms. Yum. I devoured the breakfast of champions as well as the latte that was standing next to it. This was my super-fuel; screw avocados, give me bacon any day of the week.
I bounced down to my office and gave Greg a blinding smile. ‘Morning!’
‘Morning, sweetheart. I’m guessing from the grin that Finley dropped off your sandwich?’
‘I didn’t see him, but yep. He’s a great chef – everything tastes amazing. We should give him a raise. Hopefully that way he won’t turn evil and try to kill us all.’
‘Mrs Dawes wasn’t our fault,’ he said firmly. ‘She was off her rocker before we even met her.’
‘I know, but she hid it so well.’ I sighed. ‘I hate that.’ I gave him a long kiss before I finally sat behind my desk. ‘Any more thoughts on Larsden? I guess we should go through his room and see if he helpfully left any incriminating evidence.’
Greg frowned. ‘We should probably have done that last night.’
I shrugged. ‘Probably, but you started talking about pie charts, so… Besides, I’m an accountant and you’re a soldier. Investigating crimes is Jess’s thing.’
‘We worked pretty well together last time,’ he pointed out.
‘Oh yeah, we’re totally going to find the killer,’ I said with supreme confidence, ‘but Jess would do it faster. With less bumbling.’
‘We don’t bumble! We mismanage. And of course Jess would do it faster – all she needs to do is walk around asking people if they killed the victim and wait for one of them to lie.”
‘Yeah, that lie-detector shit really is an unfair advantage. Come on, let’s go and invade Larsden’s privacy.’
Greg nodded. ‘Just let me find someone to cover the desk.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘We can leave it unattended for one little minute.’
‘No, we can’t,’ he said firmly. ‘DEFCON 1, remember? The desk is always covered.’
‘Fine, if you must. But frankly, staring at the security feeds is like watching paint dry.’
‘Even so.’ He marched out and came back a moment later with Ethan in tow. Shoving him at the desk, he ordered, ‘Watch the feeds.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Let’s go.’
I picked up the master key that opened all the guest rooms and checked to see which one Larsden had been in. ‘Elton Suite,’ I murmured. ‘First floor.’
Greg led the way and I traipsed happily behind him, enjoying the view of his buns of steel as we trotted up a flight of stairs to get to the first floor. It was still early and the place had a sleepy, restful feel. We moseyed along a wide corridor lined with a red carpet and with various ancestral paintings hanging on the walls. It was long and dark, and I almost tiptoed along it; I didn’t want to wake any of my ‘guests’. It was too early to deal with Kearns or his lackeys.
We paused outside Larsden’s suite. We needn’t have bothered with the key because the door was slightly ajar. Greg pushed it open and preceded me into the room. It was a God-awful mess. Fuck.
I grimaced, filled with self-recrimination. Why hadn’t I thought to come here last night? We had totally mismanaged the situation. It was an absolute balls-up; even worse, though we hadn’t thought to search his rooms someone else clearly had.
‘This isn’t him being a slob,’ I said. ‘Someone’s tossed the damned room.’
Greg looked as vexed as I felt. ‘The question is, did they find what they were looking for?’
