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“According to the daily log, that’s exactly what they carried away, yes,” the other man confirmed ruefully.
Darius’s curiosity deepened when he heard a deep breath whoosh from Mia’s lungs.
“Thank God,” she groaned, her tone one of obvious relief. “At least I haven’t imagined the disappearance of the rug,” she added worriedly.
Darius took the empty glass from Mia’s trembling fingers and held it out to Ron. “Could you get Miss Smith a refill, please.” Once again, he waited until the other man had left before questioning Mia. “What was in the carpet?”
She looked at him, then turned away again. Her arms were tense about her bent knees, the tightly laced fingers of her joined hands showing white at the knuckles.
“Mia?” he prompted gently.
Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “When Honey and I entered the apartment, Giles Fletcher’s body was lying on the large rug in the middle of this room. His throat had been cut.” She swallowed again. “The rug is no longer here, and I’m sure I saw Mr. Fletcher’s body lying on it. Adding two and two together, I believe his body was carried out of here inside the carpet.”
Exactly what Darius had thought she was going to say.
CHAPTERFIVE
“I thought only people like the Mafia kept doctors on the sort of retainer which required them to make emergency house calls the moment they were summoned, day or night. I suppose the same could be said of very rich people,” Mia added after several seconds’ thought.
She’d still been in shock after blurting out to Darius what she’d seen. Too much so to raise any objections when he’d instructed the guy called Ron to lock up Giles’s apartment while he took Mia and Honey up to the penthouse apartment. Thankfully, Darius had kept a supportive arm about Mia’s waist after helping her to her feet; otherwise, she was pretty sure her knees would have given way and she would have dropped onto her bottom again.
Darius kept his arm about her as he made a phone call on the way up in the elevator. A call in which, when it was answered, he’d requested the immediate presence of the doctor to his apartment.
Now, within the time it had taken for Darius to make her a mug of sweetened tea, one of the men from the reception desk had telephoned to say the doctor was downstairs asking to be allowed up to Darius’s apartment. He’d immediately granted that request.
He now gave a dismissive shrug of those broad shoulders beneath the black T-shirt he wore with blue jeans and heavy boots. “Well, I can assure you that neither I nor any member of my family belong to the mafia.” He frowned. “But we do know the heads of the London Italian Mafia and the Russian bratva.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “But only because our business dealings occasionally overlap.”
She widened her eyes. “Theyoverlapwith the Italian Mafia and Russian bratva?”
“Occasionally,” he repeated in a voice that brooked no further questions on the subject.
“I’m pretty sure you could be a part of one of those organizations if you wanted to,” Mia stated ruefully.
He scowled. “Not sure that’s a compliment.”
“Not sure I meant it as one,” she acknowledged before sobering to look at him from across the other side of the breakfast bar where she was perched on one of the high stools. “Shouldn’t we have called the police by now and at least reported the men having ransacked Giles’s apartment?” It seemed odd, now that she was capable of rational thought, that no one, not Darius nor the security man, had suggested reporting the incident to the police.
Darius eyed her with amusement. “Do you have any idea how long it would take the police to arrive at what, to all intents and purposes, looks like a simple burglary?”
“But there was a dead body!”
“That only you saw.”
Her shoulders dropped. “You don’t think they’ll believe me.” She looked up at him. “Is that because you don’t believe me either?”
“There’s no denying that you were unconscious when I found you, and that you have a lump on the back of your head the size of half an egg.”
“But I could have fallen over and hit my head on something,” Mia realized heavily.
“The fact the apartment has been ransacked and Honey appears to have been shut away in one of the bedrooms after you were rendered unconscious says otherwise.”
“But you don’t believe I saw a body before someone hit me,” she stated flatly.
He didn’t answer her, but instead took a leisurely sip of his own tea as he leaned his hip against the granite workstation in the middle of the large kitchen.
