Hot as Hell (6 page)

“Well?” she asked.

“The lack of a pulse pretty much confirms my diagnosis. He’s dead.”

“Oh my God.” She paced around on the far side of the bed, taking turns peeking over the bedspread and breathing heavy into her hands. “Ohmigod. Ohmigod.”

“Lexy.” He said her name nice and firm to get her attention.

She stopped walking around and mumbling. “What?”

“The call.”

“Right.” She fumbled with the phone. Her hands shook so hard that she knocked the receiver onto the floor. “I just can’t believe this.”

Neither could Noah. Scaring the shit out of Lexy for making a bad safety decision fit in fine with his evening plans. He was prepared to lecture her, then call it a night. Go back and take his usual cold shower. Instead, waiting around for the coroner moved onto his schedule.

A dead guy on her floor qualified as a disaster. Noah had seen enough suffering to last a lifetime. He never wanted Lexy this close to violence. Hell, he traded in his old life for a desk job to avoid more violence, or at least deal with it in a new way.

After a quick look to make sure Lexy had started dialing, Noah sized up the situation on her floor. The fall smashed the dead man’s face into the carpet and on top of a few of Lexy’s precious folders. Noah could see blondish hair. The bigger question came with the guy’s outfit. A black T-shirt and pants. Not exactly the best choice for hanging around a hot climate. The scene looked less like a case of Lexy’s sloppiness and more like an issue of someone trying to steal something out of her room.

Noah had no idea what she could have that someone would want enough to die for. And if the dead guy was a bad guy, why the hell was he dead? Exactly how many bad guys were wandering around the desert?

After a few minutes of animated conversation with the 911 operator, Lexy hung up the phone. She sat down hard on the bed. “The police are on the way. So is Tate.”

Half of that information amounted to good news. “How did Tate find out?”

“I called the front desk first and had someone track him down.”

“Couldn’t have been too hard, since he was at the party.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Not.”

“A private evening aerobics class, I assume.”

“Something like that.”

The entire resort and every law enforcement officer in the area would track through the room within the next hour. There would be questions and more questions. Seeing the dead guy’s face might make a few of those easier to answer, but Noah knew not to touch the body. No matter how much he wanted to.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

He forgot about the anxiety balled up inside of him. Seeing Lexy hurt knocked into him like a kick in the chest.

“We’re going to wait for the police and then take it from there,” he said in his calmest voice because he wanted her to stay calm.

“But, I—”

He slipped his hands into hers and lifted her off the bed. With his arms wrapped around her waist, he pulled her close and let his body warm her cold skin. “At least there’s one positive here.”

She stared up at him. “What in the world could that be?”

“Tomorrow’s hike is probably canceled.”

L
exy stayed anchored in her room’s doorway while Tate, the detectives, and numerous medical personnel buzzed around. The chill racing through her finally slowed down to a jog when Noah got permission from the police to grab one of her sweaters. When Noah threw it around her shoulders, then left his arm resting there, she did not argue. His strength and self-assurance calmed her.

All the people, all the lights, all the noise from the conversations of her fellow guests standing on the stone path just outside her room, it all worked together to ease the fear churning in her stomach. Maybe there was something to the strength-in-numbers theory.

Being pinned to Noah’s side helped, too. So did the two no-nonsense police detectives circling around the room with the guns strapped to their sides. They came in, pushed Tate around, and had been issuing orders ever since. Even Noah stayed out of their way, which was quite something because one of the officers, Detective Ellen Sommerville, was about twenty-five, all of five-foot-three, and a smidge over a hundred pounds.

But she could yell. Despite her slight stature and fresh-faced college co-ed look, she walked in and ordered the ambulance crew members here and Tate over there. Unfortunately, the “there” included letting him back in the room.

Detective Rob Lindsay was a good two decades older and one foot taller than his partner. He refrained from yelling, but his hand never left the top of his weapon.

Lexy liked both officers immediately. They qualified as the most sane people she had met at the resort since arriving.

“How can we keep this quiet?” Tate took turns rubbing his temples and talking at the speed of sound as he paced the small space between Lexy’s bed and the bathroom door.

Lexy winced as his foot tangled in one of her discarded sweaters. She wanted to pick up the room before half of Utah showed up at her door. Noah insisted she leave everything right where it was. Something about her clothes being part of a crime scene.

She just wished they were hanging up or in a suitcase or something. Whenever her life jumped out of control, her living space went to hell. She hated the habit. Letting her belongings get to this point clashed with the vow she made at fifteen not to follow her parents’ pathological pack-rat tendencies.

Noah was one of the few men she let into her family’s secret mess. Now every law enforcement official in the area would get a peek at the private battle she fought.

“Mr. Carr, while I appreciate your desire to handle the PR here, a man is dead,” Detective Sommerville said as her gaze locked on Marie.

Marie was hard to miss, since she stood in the bathroom entry wearing only a short silky robe. One that became see-through with the bathroom light glaring behind her.

“Call me Tate.”

Detective Lindsay put a quick end to Tate’s attempted flirting with his partner. “What we need is for you and your lady friend—”

“She’s my employee.”

Detective Sommerville looked skeptical. “Whatever you call her, the two of you should leave the room.”

“You can’t talk to him that way.” Marie shuffled into the middle of the conversation, boobs first. “He owns the place.”

“Shut up.” Detective Sommerville ended her comment with a dismissive look at Marie’s wardrobe choice.

Noah bent down from his position in the doorway and whispered into Lexy’s ear. “I like these detectives.”

That made two of them. “Probably because they carry guns.”

“They’re pushy and they’re pushing the right people around. Namely that Tate idiot.”

“Tate’s not that bad.” Lexy said the words, but it was getting harder and harder to stick up for the guy. The fact that he wore only a white undershirt and boxers made it easier to file him in the loser horndog category.

“Tell that to Marie’s husband.” Noah tilted his head toward the even bigger mess than the room, this one human. “She’s a classy one.”

“Would it have killed Marie to put on some pants?” Lexy whispered back.

“I’m not convinced she owns a pair.”

Someone on the police force walked around with a video camera. Another guy took photos.

“This is a circus,” Lexy said.

Noah tightened his hold on her. “Everything has to be catalogued.”

“It’s just so disrespectful. A man is dead and everyone is traipsing in and out like it’s no big deal.”

“Tate certainly thinks it’s a big deal.” Noah nodded in the other man’s general direction. “He hasn’t figured out that Sommerville is the bad cop of this duo.”

Lexy watched Tate try to convince Detective Sommerville of something. She was not buying whatever he tried to sell.

Detective Lindsay broke away from Tate’s raving and came toward Noah. The detective’s wrinkled khakis and stained white oxford suggested the guy was busying doing something else when he got the call about the crime. His short salt-and-pepper hair looked combed, but only because he kept running his fingers through it.

“Okay, folks. What can you tell me?”

“Nothing more than what we said when you first got here,” Noah said.

Detective Lindsay nodded. “Looks like the guy tossed the place before he got smashed in the head with the lamp.”

Lexy refused to look at Noah. “No one messed up the room.”

The detective tapped his pen against his pad. “What?”

“I did that,” she said, swallowing more than a little pride.

“All this?

“Yes.”

From the detective’s frown, Lexy guessed he missed the lost-pride thing. “You mean after you saw the body?”

And there went the last little bit of it. “When I was picking out an outfit to wear to dinner.”

The detective laughed. When no one joined him, he sobered. “Seriously?”

“She got a little carried away,” Noah explained.

Before Lexy could debate the wisdom of grabbing for the officer’s gun and threatening both men with it, understanding dawned on the detective’s face. He glanced at Noah with a man-to-man smile. “My wife is the same way.”

“This bad?” Noah asked.

“Well, no.” The detective’s gaze roamed over the room. “It looks as if everything you brought is on the floor.”

Lexy rushed to ask a few questions before Noah and the detective bonded over the eccentricities of women. “Did you say somebody hit the man with a lamp?”

“Smacked him right in the base of his skull. Cracked it wide open. Blood spurted—”

“Hey!” Noah shifted until his body shielded hers. “Tone it down.”

Lexy normally would have protested Noah’s overzealous protective streak. Not tonight. The evening’s events stole most of her energy for fighting.

“I apologize for my partner’s choice of words.” Detective Sommerville joined the threesome. “We don’t see a huge number of murders here.”

“Still don’t have to get so damn excited about it,” Noah mumbled.

“Intrigued, not excited,” said the younger detective as she tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear.

The elder detective’s gaze wandered to the other side of the room. “You handle this. I’ll go check with the lady in the robe.”

“Thought you might volunteer for that duty.” Detective Sommerville watched her partner all but run for the half-naked chick in the bathroom.

“He should consider wearing armor,” Noah suggested.

“He can handle her. He has one just like her at home.” Detective Sommerville swallowed her growing smile. “So, is anything missing in the room?”

“How could you tell?” Noah asked.

The snide comment earned him an elbow in the stomach. Lexy would have done more if the cop were not standing there witnessing the whole scene. “I haven’t had a chance to check.”

The detective took out a flip pad and pen and started taking notes. “Did either of you know the victim?”

Noah shrugged. “No idea.”

“What does that mean?” Detective Sommerville asked.

“Hard to tell his identity with his face pushed into the floor,” Noah said.

“Just a sec.” The detective stepped over the piles of clothes to the other side of the bed and whispered something to the ambulance guys as they lifted the victim onto the gurney.

“What is she doing?” Lexy asked without taking her eyes off the petite policewoman.

“Probably wants us to try to identify the body. We might know him.”

She gave in to the frustration percolating inside her and threw her hands up in the air. “How is that possible? Every person I know in Utah is standing in this room.”

“It’s a formality.” Noah massaged the back of her neck with a gentle touch.

He had always been this way. So reassuring and soothing. Under that gruff and guarded exterior lurked an understanding and acceptance of people’s vulnerabilities. If only he could open up and let her know the rest of him.

“You seem to know a lot about this police procedure stuff,” she said.

His gaze moved around the room, taking it all in and ignoring her. “Uh-huh.”

The signs were all there. Enough time and arguments had taught her that a nonanswer about his past was her
real
answer. He was right in that when it came to his past, he never overtly lied. He just never volunteered the truth or one iota of information. The stealing was a different issue.

“Were you ever a policeman?” When he ignored the question, she pinched him.

“Hey!” He rubbed his arm. “What’s with the nails?”

“Were you ever a cop?”

“No.”

Funny, but she would have bet money on him saying yes to that one. “How about something policelike?”

“
Policelike
is not a real career.”

“You know what I mean.”

He pressed his lips together with a smack. “I actually don’t.”

Her arguments and questions died in her throat when the medical crew lifted the gurney up to waist height and rolled it over. A white sheet draped the body. Knowing a human lay under there made bile rush up the back of Lexy’s throat.

“Mr. Carr. Ma’am.” Detective Sommerville motioned for all of them to come over to the gurney. She did not even bother to use Marie’s name, a fact that made Lexy smile despite the nervous energy attacking her insides.

“Again, call me Tate,” he said as he walked over.

The female detective ignored his request a second time. “We need you all to look at the body. See if you can tell us who he is, or if you’ve seen him around.”

Tate straightened to show off every inch of his six-foot frame. “He is no one affiliated with the spa, I assure you.”

“How about we look at the guy before you make that kind of pronouncement, hmmm?” Detective Sommerville said with an authority that belied her size.

Tate did not give up the fight. “I doubt—”

Detective Somerville lifted the sheet back. “Well?”

Marie gasped.

Tate made a sound closer to a gurgle. “Charlie?”

Lexy had been trying not to look at the body, but Tate’s comment captured her full attention. “Henderson?”

Noah studied the dead man’s face before turning back to Lexy. “The guy from this afternoon?”

How was she going to get out of this
? “Looks like him.”

Because it was him. The guy accused her of stalking and then wound up dead on her floor. Any way she examined the time line, it did not look great for her.

Or for Noah.

“Sounded like you all agree this is Charlie Henderson.” Detective Sommerville eyed Lexy, too. “Ms. Stuart? Anything you need to tell me.”

Lexy swallowed hard. “No.”

“Do you know him, ma’am?”

“I don’t
know
him know him.”

“Is that English?” The harsh edge returned to Noah’s voice.

“He works here,” Tate said.

“Wait a minute. We’re going to go one at a time.” Detective Sommerville pointed her pen at Tate. “Tell me what you know.”

“He works security here. Well, I guess you would now say worked.” Tate’s gaze did not leave the dead man’s face. “He walks the premises, checks on problems, that sort of thing.”

“Does he have access to the inside of the rooms?” Detective Sommerville asked.

“Well, yeah, but only in emergencies,” Tate said.

“Since he’s dead, I’m thinking we have an emergency.” Noah kept looking at the dead man’s face as if trying to memorize it.

Lexy did not have to. She had seen Charlie Henderson’s face every time she opened the file she dragged with her from home. She followed the guy to the spa, he confronted her, and now he was dead.

Detective Lindsay took over and grabbed Tate by his elbow. “Mr. Carr, come outside with me.”

“Why?” A squeal replaced Tate’s otherwise even nature.

“You and I need to talk, sir.”

Tate tried to break free from Detective Lindsay’s grip. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Stop moving.”

“But I—”

“We need some privacy,” Detective Lindsay said as he led Tate and Marie outside. “So does Ms. Stuart.”

Yeah, Ms. Stuart needed something all right. Something like a drink or a few days in bed. Charlie Henderson dead in her room. Somewhere along the line they had ventured into nightmare territory.

She peeked at Noah out of the corner of her eye and noticed the locked jaw and cold eyes. No way was Noah going to let this subject go. And now they would both be suspects in Henderson’s murder.

She hated this supposed spa.

“Ms. Stuart?”

Lexy was so stunned, her body so stiff with shock, that she almost missed Detective Somerville’s questioning tone.

Noah did not wait for Lexy to regain her senses. “No more verbal games, Lexy. Who is he?”

Lexy bit down hard on her bottom lip. She tried to think of a way out of this situation. Like, maybe an earthquake could strike and save her from having to answer.

“Lexy?”

“Ms. Stuart?” Detective Sommerville said her name at the same time Noah tried to get her attention.

Lexy looked from the detective to Noah and back again. Yeah, no way to run from this part. She had to come clean.

At least a little clean.

“He’s the reason I came to Utah.”