Page 28 of Nora
“I’ll ping you when I have anything,” Sabina said.
“You have no idea how helpful this will be,” Nora replied.
“Can I send Chad up to deliver the reports?”
Nora laughed. Chad Warwick was one of Sabina’s colleagues who’d worked with Nora and her friends a few times. He had a love-hate relationship with all of them. Mostly he loved them, but he was an easy man to tease, and Cyn and Six definitely pushed his buttons just for the fun of it.
She was about to tell Sabina to go ahead and try to get Chad to come up when the thought of Lucian flashed through her mind. She didn’t know why, but it sobered her. “Normally, I’d welcome his company,” she said. “But I’m sort of undercover so maybe next time?”
Sabina snorted. “Next time. Definitely next time. He’s always so worked up after seeing you ladies. It’s hilarious.” Cyn and Six riled him, but the devilish tinge Nora heard in Sabina’s voice made her think it wasn’t just her friends who enjoyed the results.
Nora made an offhand comment that she didn’t really believe about people being nicer to him, then she ended the call.
Staring at her laptop, she considered her next move. If Sabina was going to dig into the victims, then she needed to do the same with the suspects. And hopefully, sometime before the next murder, the two paths would intersect, and she’d be able to stop a killer.
CHAPTERTWELVE
Lucian satin front of the fire, his legs sprawled toward the flames and a glass of Cencio’s wine in hand. To his left, Nora, Willa, Angelo, and Craig were playing, of all things, the board game Life. He’d been prepared to go out to a bar after dinner, but when Nora changed her mind and decided to stay in, he’d done the same.
He hadn’t missed the suspicious look she’d given him. He had no doubt that she knew he suspected her of something. They were like two cats circling each other in a fight. No, that wasn’t quite right. They weren’tfighting, not in the usual sense of the word. But maybe playing something more like chicken, circling each other to see who would be the first to give.
Only he didn’t have much to give. He’d noticed her behavior, but he didn’tknowanything.
Or did he?
He took a sip of his wine and contemplated what he’d learned in the past few days. She’d been out running with the soldiers several mornings. She’d gone off at lunch to do something that had taken her longer than expected. She’d received a mysterious package, hand-delivered by young Andrew. And once she’d realized who was going out that night and who was staying in, she’d opted to stay in.
It was possible she’d simply changed her mind about going out. But it was also possible that she’d seen an opportunity to spend time with a few of the less social participants and had grabbed it. Willa, Angelo, Craig, Gerhard, Sophie, and James had stayed in, too. All except Craig were the quieter ones of the group. As for Craig, his decision to remain in for the evening had surprised him. It was possible he was developing a tendre for Nora. Or that he wanted to work on his relationship with Miles, who lay sprawled beside his handler with his head on Craig’s lap. It was also possible those two weren’t mutually exclusive.
But Lucian had been watching Nora all evening and if Craig was interested, he was pretty sure it was one-sided. What really piqued his curiosity, though, were her interactions with Gerhard and Angelo. If he hadn’t been trained himself, he would have missed her subtle probing. She managed to keep the conversation flowing, and yet pulled answers from both men that surprised him. Such as the fact that Gerhard’s first wife had died fifteen years earlier. He had twenty-year-old twins from that marriage, both of whom were now in college in Freiburg. And apparently, he had a bum shoulder that had precipitated his move from active duty to the training job he now held. He also disliked escargot. Lucian was in full agreement with the man on that.
As for Angelo, Lucian already knew a fair bit about him, as he’d been a poster boy for the Italian Army a few years earlier. His parents had died when he was a child, and he’d been put into a state-run orphanage. He’d grown up not far from where Lucian now lived but had moved away to join the army as soon as he was able. He’d gotten married a few years back, and he and his wife now had a two-year-old son. From the look on Angelo’s face when he talked about his family, Lucian guessed that with his wife and his son, he’d created the life that he’d never had.
Compared to Gerhard and Angelo, Craig was more or less an open book. At least when speaking to Nora. He was so open, in fact, that Lucian struggled not to roll his eyes every time the man spoke. He’d been good all night about minding his own business, but a man could only take so much. When Craig started talking about a drug bust he and his former K9, Annie, had, according to Craig, single-handedly orchestrated, Lucian couldn’t take it anymore. He opened his mouth to interrupt but closed it when his phone buzzed. Pulling the device from his pocket, he glanced at the name and really did roll his eyes.
Opening his texting app, he didn’t even bother to read the message from his cousin before responding.“I’m being nice. You don’t have to check in.”
“I don’t trust you, so thought I’d remind you I have my eye on you,”Violetta wrote back.
“You sound like Nonna.”
“One of the best women I know. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Nonna was badass, if not a little scary. She ruled over them with an iron fist, and at the risk of falling into the cliché of the matriarchal Italian family, no one crossed Nonna. Especially not any of her grandkids.
Taking a chance, he asked,“Do you know how Nora ended up here? Who asked her to step in?”
“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you believed me when I said the family had nothing to do with this and that you meant whospecificallyasked her?”
“Yes, please make that assumption.”
“I hear that eye roll.”
“I was hoping you would. Now can you answer the question?”
There was a long pause before he saw the bubbles popping up.“You know, I don’t actually know. I can’t recall if she didn’t mention it or if she mentioned it and I didn’t pay attention because I was getting ready for my trip.”He was mulling this answer over when another text from her came in.“Why don’t you ask? Do you think something’s wrong?”
Wrong? No. Something going on, though? Definitely. But did he want to share his suspicions with his cousin? She was on holiday, and there wasn’t much she could do. As soon as he had that thought, he laughed. There wasalwayssomething Violetta could do. She might be on vacation, but she wasn’t exactly out of touch. Not to mention that if he said something to Violetta, Cyn and Devil would know in the next five minutes. Part of him wanted to keep his suspicions from them. Part of him wanted to be the only one who held this secret. But then glancing at Nora, he changed his mind. If something was going on, it would be better if her friends knew. In fact, he couldn’t believe they didn’t. But Violetta’s concern was genuine, she didn’t know anything either.
