Inspector Rames

Chapter 57

A scream ripped through my ears, and I fell to my knees. The body of a woman was lying on the street in front of me, her blood soaking into my jeans. There was a knife in her chest, but the blood was running from her back...

Running, running, running...

I woke up with a gasp.

"Amber?" Alex tightened his hold on my waist, pressing his face into the crook of my neck. "It was just a dream."

We were so close to Ruby.

Alex peppered kisses up to my earlobe. I wanted to relax in his arms, but the nightmare had left me tense and cold, and light was slipping beneath the curtains. I pulled away from him. "Why hasn't the alarm gone off? It must be way past seven."

"Because you set it." Amusement crept into his voice. "I'll never know why, but that probably has something to do with it."

I snatched my tabphone off the bedside table and tried to unlock it. The screen didn't even light up. "Oh, great. It's broken."

"Or just dead?" he suggested. The mattress moved as he got up.

Just dead. I swallowed and put it on the charging pad. "Right."

Alex went straight into the bathroom while I got dressed and trudged into the kitchen, where I'd finally removed the punch bag and replaced it with a table. I'd also replaced my broken coffee machine with Alex's.

I fed Mitzy, then put four slices of bread in the toaster and started making coffee. My mind wandered as I worked. We needed to crack Ethan today and find out who Iberia had been sleeping with. Maybe the mysterious woman would connect the dots between the bride and Ruby. Maybe she was even the murderer.

The toast popped up just as the coffee started to brew, and I grabbed a random knife to butter it. We needed to grill the others properly, too. None of them but Jade had admitted that William Sharpe had hated Iberia, so what else were they hiding?

The coffee finished brewing, and I grabbed the pot. After we'd spoken to Ethan, we'd talk to Jade. Much of everyone's attention yesterday had been on Iberia. Perhaps if we got the maid of honour alone today, we could have a thorough discussion about Ruby and the darker corners of her life. I wanted to know if there was anyone other than Iberia who would have been angered by the affair --

Something sliced my palm open. My fingers loosened around the coffee pot, and it fell to the floor and shattered. The large knife that I'd accidentally squeezed went with it. Mitzy, who'd been watching me from the other end of the kitchen, shot out the door.

Broken coffee pot. Knife on the floor. Blood streaming down my palm. I stared at it all, wondering which danger to sort first. Dead bodies, I could do. I wasn't sure about a catastrophe in my kitchen.

Alex filled the doorway, his hair damp and his shirt unbuttoned. "What was that?"

"I've broken the coffee pot." Finally coming to my senses, I picked up the knife and tossed it in the sink. Then I waved my bleeding hand beneath the tap. "Watch the glass."

Cold water hit my palm, stinging the wound. It was a long, ugly gash, but I didn't think it was too deep, just very painful. And cold.

I gave up as Alex reached me. His fingers latched onto my wrist and tugged it back under the water. "How did this happen?"

"I was thinking. With a knife in my hand. Now we can't have coffee and there's blood on our toast. Sorry."

"Never mind the coffee or the toast." His grip on my wrist tightened. "You might need stitches."