More Than a Mission - Caridad Pineiro [49]
“Hold up, Nat,” she called out and her sous chef’s knife paused in mid stroke.
“Something wrong?” Natalie asked.
Elizabeth stood next to her and gazed down at the morels Natalie had been cutting. “These came in our regular delivery?” Even as she was asking, she plucked two slightly different-looking morels from the basket and laid them out side by side on the cutting board.
She grabbed a paring knife from a knife holder and carefully split each morel in half. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath.
“Something up?” she heard and turned.
Aidan was at the end of the table, watching them intently, ice bag pressed to the injured side of his face.
“You are obviously. Are you sure that’s wise?” she asked, concerned since he appeared a little too pale for her tastes.
“I’m feeling better. I just wanted to drop in and let you know I’d be back later,” he said and walked directly over to where she was standing. “So, what’s up?” he asked again and motioned with his head to the morels. He immediately grimaced, the action obviously painful.
He should have rested some more, she thought, annoyed that he was possibly making his injury worse. But first, she had to deal with the problem sitting before her on the cutting board.
She motioned down to the morel pieces. “The delivery we received this morning was tainted.”
Was it her imagination or did Aidan’s face harden at her words? She carefully explained to Nat, so that she would know for the next time. “See the differences between the two mushrooms here? The cap on this one is only connected at the top and the inside of the stem isn’t hollow. That’s a false morel.”
“And that would be a problem because?” Aidan asked.
“It’s poisonous. Not as poisonous as the aminita mushrooms, but definitely deadly,” she replied.
His eyes turned cold, the lighter flecks of blue becoming like shards of ice. “You seem to know a lot about things like that,” he challenged.
She twirled the sharp paring knife around once in her fingers before spiking it into the cutting board so that it stood upright, tip embedded in the wood. Expertly and efficiently. “It’s my job to know things like that,” she responded, angry with him on a variety of levels, including that he seemed to be questioning her expertise on culinary matters.
“I bet it is,” he replied gruffly, tossed the ice bag to her, and walked out the door without a backward glance at the two of them.
“What’s with him?” Natalie asked as she followed his stiff retreating back.
Elizabeth shrugged. “For the life of me, I don’t know.”
Her job. Yeah, right. World-renowned assassin. Aidan’s head was pounding with all the facts running around in his mind and the conflicting emotions they raised.
He’d had his doubts about Lizzy, but with each passing minute, there was yet more and more evidence piling up against her. The tunnels. Shoe size. The attack. Those damn poisonous mushrooms and of course, the too-vivid reminder of her adroitness with a knife.
Back at the hotel, a concerned Lucia hovered over him like a hummingbird, inspecting the blow to his head.
He brushed her off with a weak swipe of his arm. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Really?” she asked and examined his face, sensing that his anger was about a multitude of things beyond his injury. “Well, then I guess we can call Xander and hear what else he has to report.”
In a way, it was almost the last thing he wanted to hear since he suspected that the DNA test would clinch the determination that Lizzy was indeed the Sparrow. But maybe it was better that way. Maybe that would allow him to regain full objectivity about her and complete a mission that was turning out to be more than he had expected. With a nod that brought fresh waves of pain and nausea, he sat down by Lucia’s laptop and the speakerphone.
Lucia dialed Xander and he answered