Far from Bliss (Nights in Bliss, Colorado)

Ty felt the man’s wrist. No pulse. He hadn’t expected one.

“Shouldn’t you put on a mask?” Michael asked. “He could be contagious.”

“He’s not contagious. This wasn’t a virus.” Ty unfortunately knew a poisoning victim when he saw one. And he was fairly certain about which poison. He glanced back at Caleb. “He’s dead, and I believe CPR would be useless. I can smell almonds.”

“Fuck.” Caleb slid his cell back in his pocket. He breathed in. “Yeah, you’re right. I can smell it from here. CPR wouldn’t work. Cyanide stops the body from being able to use oxygen.”

“Cyanide?” Michael whistled. “Someone poisoned him? No one touch anything. This whole room needs to be preserved for Nate.” He turned to Lucy, whose hands were still shaking. “Baby, was this the room you were bringing the drink to? You need to tell me what happened.”

“I think she should talk to Gemma first,” Caleb said quietly. “It’s why I asked Nate to pick her up and bring her with him.”

“Why would she talk to Gemma?” Ty got to his feet. The victim’s face was bloated. He didn’t recognize the guy.

“Because Gemma is a lawyer,” Lucy answered.

“Who made the drink?” Michael asked, his voice going hard.

“Michael, wait for Nate.” Ty eased around the body. They needed to get Lucy calmed down. “I know you’ve been trained, but Nate has jurisdiction here.”

“And he would absolutely want me to make sure none of our potential suspects manages to slip out before he can question them,” Michael countered.

Lucy shook her head. “It wasn’t Van. He just poured the drink. It came from a bottle. It wasn’t mixed or anything. I watched him pour it. He wouldn’t hurt someone.”

Michael was on his walkie, talking to the head of security and requesting that he secure the bottle and the bartender.

“We should get Lucy out of here.” Ty was worried about how pale she was.

“Lucy, what’s on your shirt?” Caleb asked.

Michael looked down, and then he was going pale, too. “Did it get on you? Did he spill that drink on you?”

Holy shit. Panic threatened to overtake him. “Did you get any of it in your mouth or on your hands?”

“Ty, she’s okay.” Caleb eased around the body. “If she’d ingested cyanide, she would already feel it.”

“I feel fine.” Lucy didn’t sound fine. Her voice trembled. “He threw the glass at me, and it smashed against the wall over there. Some of it got on me but not close to my face, and not on my hands.”

“Let’s wash them just to be sure.” Ty wasn’t letting anything happen to her. “And we can change your clothes while we wait for Nate.”

“No.” Michael had stepped back, and his expression had gone dark.

“We’ve got plenty of time.” It would take Nate at least twenty minutes to get up here. Maybe longer if he had to pick up Gemma and Cam. “I’ll take her to our room and make sure we clean it all off her. I don’t want to take the chance that she might touch it and then get it in her mouth or eyes.”

“She can’t clean up, Ty. A man was murdered, and she was the last person to have contact with him,” Michael explained, his tone grim. “She can go sit at the table or we can set up a room for her, but she can’t change or clean herself up because she’s a walking piece of evidence.”

“She’s our girlfriend.” Ty couldn’t understand what Michael was doing. “She’s not a piece of evidence. She’s gone through something traumatic. We need to take care of her.”

“Ty, do you know who’s lying on that floor dead from a drink Lucy brought him? Do you recognize him? Because I do,” Michael said quietly.

He wasn’t sure why the poor dude on the floor was important. Lucy certainly hadn’t killed the man, and he worried the poison might get into her system. “I don’t care who he is.”

“It was Brock Foster.” Lucy had taken a step back. “I didn’t know he was in the room. I didn’t look down at the receipt.”

“Brock Foster is the guy who threatened her,” Michael clarified. “The man who tried to attack her the other day. He’s wealthy as hell and has a family who will demand answers. If we give them any rope, they will hang her with it. We have to be high and tight on this investigation or they’ll go after her. That means she cooperates with everything. Everything, Lucy.”

Ty’s stomach took a deep dive.

“And that’s why I called in Gemma.” Caleb didn’t seem bothered by the dead guy in the room. If anything, he seemed curious. “Lucy will be a suspect. She needs a lawyer with her.”

“She doesn’t.” Michael’s jaw had gone tight. “She only needs to tell us the truth and everything will be fine. Unless there’s something she needs to tell me. Is there a reason you would need a lawyer, Lucy?”