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Mulligan Motel,” she paused for a moment and then dove in. “There’s a body in room 212, wrapped up in the tub.”
    â€œA body?”
    She nodded. Then, realizing he couldn’t see her, she said, “And Derrick? The last person seen leaving the room was Nigel Marks.”
    There was silence on the other end.
    â€œStay there and tell Dan don’t let anyone else in that room,” he finally said. “And I mean it, Darling. No one else goes in there.”
    Darling agreed to his no-tampering-with-a-crime-scene rule. Suddenly her morning indiscretion didn’t seem as bad. She even bet Oliver’s need to question her would disappear when he found out.
    Oliver.
    She pulled his card out of her back pocket and looked at his number.
    If Nigel did kill whoever it was in the tub, where did that leave Oliver?

Chapter Three
    Oliver didn’t answer when Darling called him.
    Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt she owed it to him to give him a heads-up that the man he had promised to guard was about to need a lot more protection than he could offer. Oliver had said she wasn’t a threat, vouching for a woman he no longer knew. Plus, it was no fun to be blindsided. She knew that from experience.
    â€œThis is Oliver Quinn. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible,” his voice mail recording answered. Darling felt her face heat up after the beep to leave a message came and went. She realized then that giving him a heads-up might also give Nigel one before the cops were even able to see the body in the tub. She didn’t want to be the one responsible for giving the number one suspect time to lawyer up or possibly run. Although he probably had already done one or the other. It wasn’t as if the body could have gone unnoticed for too long.
    â€œUm, hi, it’s Darling,” she floundered. “I need you to call me as soon as you get this. Something’s happened. Thanks.” She let out a long sigh as she ended the call. She liked to believe she was a very confident and sure woman, but mix any part of Oliver into her life and she suddenly felt off her game.
    Darling went back up to the second floor to find Dan, trying to push thoughts of her ex clear out of her head. She had walked into the crime scene that, most likely, her current client’s husband had created. That gave her a new set of problems and concerns without adding the complication of the man from her past.
    â€œI talked to Deputy Derrick,” Darling told Dan, who was standing in the doorway to room 212. “He said no one else needs to go in there until they get here.”
    Dan didn’t answer right away. His eyes were stuck on a point somewhere in the main room. She wondered if he had peeked in the bathroom yet. When he met her gaze, she knew he had. He looked haunted.
    â€œDo you think he really did it?” he asked. “Nigel. Do you think he really killed her?”
    Darling shrugged. “I can’t say for certain, but I can make the leap and say I think there’s a pretty good chance he did. You said yourself that he stayed the night here.”
    Dan nodded, but there was no enthusiasm in it.
    â€œDo you want me to wait in the lobby and send the cops up when they get here?” she asked when it was clear Dan wasn’t going to talk. He nodded again and returned to staring into room 212. She patted him on the shoulder and made the walk back, thinking a dead body in your hotel couldn’t be good for business.
    Darling sat behind the desk again but didn’t let her mind wander. Instead she thought about Elizabeth Marks, the only other woman who knew about her husband’s affair. Or, at least, she had thought so. If Nigel went to jail for murdering his mistress, she’d be in the clear to take what was hers, and possibly his, and leave without any strings attached.
    A coldness seeped into Darling’s heart.
    She pulled her phone out