“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.”
