Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Just as Natalie was hoping an end to this conversation, and this very long day, would be imminent, Liam had walked in with his bombshell of an announcement.
Right on his heels, was Gabe.
The meeting room was getting mighty crowded. Worse, it seemed that having an audience only fueled Lionel’s already overly dramatic nature.
“I knew it. I did not expire from natural causes. Someone snuffed out my brilliance and against all odds the neanderthal has uncovered the proof.”
“Humph. I see you don’t yell at him when he insults Liam. Just me,” Gabe said with a scowl.
Natalie sighed. Ignoring Gabe, she said, “Lionel, why in the world would you assume you were murdered?”
Granted, she might have pictured his untimely death a time or two since meeting him, but that was just a fantasy. A daydream to brighten her day.
“We’ve been over this, Miss Chase. I was in excellent health at the time of my death.
Given that, how else would you explain such a sudden death aside from someone wanting me dead?
” Lionel asked with a sweeping gesture to include everyone in the room even though only Natalie and Gabe could hear him.
In response to Natalie’s prior mention of murder, Liam shook his head. “A contusion does not prove or even indicate murder as a probability. Graves could have easily fallen backward and struck his head while suffering a coronary.”
“Actually, falls are a common reason for death among the elderly, especially those on medication. Dizzy spell. Fall. Ahhh. Crack. Brain bleed. Dead. It’s on my reference list,” Harper informed them while acting a deadly fall in a weird kind of charades-like pantomime.
“I’m afraid to ask but your reference list of what?” Natalie braced herself. She never knew what was going to come out of Harper’s mouth.
“Various causes of death,” Harper answered matter-of-factly.
“And why do you have a list of various causes of death?” Natalie asked in what she felt was an obvious follow-up question.
“For when I kill characters off in my books. Can’t keep repeating the same way.”
Lionel frowned. “What…Kill… I thought she wrote romance.”
“I’d actually like to see that list,” Gabe said.
Liam lifted his chin in Harper’s direction. “Harper’s right. Forensic medicine isn’t my specialty, but the head injury could be from any number of things—”
“Yes, such as someone bludgeoning me to death,” Lionel interjected.
“I’d like to bludgeon him,” Gabe grumbled.
Since Liam heard neither, he continued, “but still, I do think we should call the sheriff’s department.”
Natalie groaned. She and the local law had a complicated past—as in she seemed to have the inability to not embarrass herself in front of them. “Do we really have to? You said yourself it’s probably nothing.”
Liam tipped his head and stared at Natalie. “Nat. It’s the right thing to do. Just in case.”
“Can we at least wait until tomorrow. It’s getting late. And I’m so tired and hungry. If we call now you know they’ll be here forever. We can call in the morning. It’s not like a few more hours will matter. It’s not like he’s ‘fresh’.”
“Fresh? Good God, woman. Have some decorum. This is my body we’re talking about.”
“I meant, they do something to preserve the… bodies in Albany. Right?” she asked.
They must. Gabe’s corpse had been out on Liam’s table for like years now. Not even refrigerated.
“In med school for surgical training we practiced on frozen cadavers. But the cadavers I receive for my research her are embalmed, yes.” Liam nodded.
“I’m really not comfortable with this conversation,” Lionel announced.
“That won’t stop them. Believe me,” Gabe told him.
“All right. We’re getting nowhere here. I’m making a decision. We’ll call the sheriff in the morning. Until then, this conversation is over.” Natalie glanced at Harper. “Sorry. I’m not kicking you out.”
“No worries. I need to get home anyway. I want to talk to Gabe and Millie about what we discussed about the book anyway,” Harper said, unaware Gabe was right there.
“What’s this now?” Gabe asked.
No way was Natalie opening that can of worms.
“You’ll see,” she said simply then turned to Liam. “Do you agree? Tomorrow?”
“All right. Tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” Peace and quiet was in sight.
Though not as close as she would have hoped.
It took a bit more persuasion to talk Lionel down from his insistence they must solve his murder immediately. Ideally that night, proving he was delusional.
It took a lot of convincing, namely Natalie threatening to ship his body back to Albany, for him to agree to stop obsessing and wait until morning. But finally he consented to follow Harper home to facilitate the labor negotiations with Gabe and Millie.
That discussion had the potential to get ugly and a small morbidly curious part of Natalie kind of wanted to be there for it.
“Hey.” Liam’s voice and the warmth of his breath against her ear as she faced the stove waiting for her soup to heat sent a shiver racing down her spine.
“Hey, yourself.” She leaned back against him, enjoying the feel of his hard body behind hers. “This is nice. Peace and quiet at last.”
“Mmm. For now. But tomorrow morning, not so much.” He sighed. “I was hoping to have at least one year without a murder dropped in our laps.”
She spun at his words. “So you do think it’s murder?”
“No. I honestly don’t. But from the half of the conversation I could hear, Graves does.”
“Lionel wants it to be murder because he refuses to accept that at eighty-whatever he wasn’t as healthy as a twenty-year-old.”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to stir the soup. When it started to steam, she flipped off the burner and turned back to face Liam.
“But the good news is, Lionel and Gabe followed Harper home. And I’m sure once Lionel gets a look at that big Victorian with all the room, he’ll be moving himself into one of the guest bedrooms, whether Gabe likes it or not.
I can’t imagine he’ll come back here tonight.
So…” Natalie walked two fingers up Liam’s chest. “It looks like we’ve got the night to ourselves. ”
Liam emitted a low growl, deep in his throat. “Will that soup hold for twenty minutes or so?” he asked as he ran his palms up her arms.
“Only twenty?” She frowned.
He lifted a brow. “I was being considerate. You said you were hungry.”
“Yeah. I really am.”
“I know.”
“But I can wait a little bit.”
“I know that too. I know you, Natalie.”
“Yes, you do. Now come on. You’ve got twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes before we eat. There’s no clock after dinner.” He hauled her up against him until her feet were off the ground.
“Oh. Okay.” She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her toward the bedroom. “We’d probably better hydrate too, as well as eat.”
As he tossed her onto the mattress, he said, “Definitely.”