Holding Out For A Holiday Hero

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

“ I’m dreaming of…a Christmas that doesn’t include a dead body. Is that really so much to ask? And why the heck was he under my Christmas tree?”

– True Blakely

The police station was festive. True was trying—extremely hard—to look on the bright side of things. Sure, it was difficult, considering that she was in a police interrogation room and the detective at the table kept casting her suspicious glances.

As if, you know, she’d committed murder.

“I didn’t,” she mumbled to no one in particular as her hands clutched the cold cup of coffee in front of her.

At least the police station is festive. Red and gold garland had been hung up everywhere. Christmas music played in the lobby. And…

She was in interrogation. Because there was a dead body under her tree. True’s shoulders slumped.

“You have no idea who the victim might be?”

She blinked at the detective. Detective Harris Avery. She’d talked to him before, when she’d been trying to convince the police that someone was trying to kill her. Harris had actually gone to school with her. She, Harris, and Jake had all been in the same graduating class.

She’d thought their shared past might make Harris more likely to hear her out when she’d tried to explain what had been happening.

It hadn’t. He’d told her that the cops were stretched too thin. That they didn’t have enough personnel to come and check out her house. That accidents happened. Harris had told her to be more careful. In other words, he’d provided zero help.

But Jake helped me. Jake, who was sitting silently beside her in interrogation. He was helping. He’d believed her when no one else had.

And, now, she had a dead body in her den. Suddenly, the cops seemed to be taking her very seriously. Murder made things serious. But as to who the dead man was… “No clue.”

“You’d never seen him before?” Harris pushed.

The dead man’s image flashed through her mind. Dirty blond hair. Slightly twisted nose, as if it had been broken before. Rounded chin. Young—maybe early twenties? He’d been wearing all black. Black sweatshirt. Black pants. Even black sneakers.

She had stared at the dead body in horror and with zero recognition. “I’d never seen him before, not until I saw his body under my tree.”

Harris narrowed his green eyes. “Where were you last night,” he asked, never taking his gaze from her, “between the hours of eleven p.m. and one a.m.?”

“I—”

“Is that what the ME is giving you as the time of death?” Jake wanted to know.

Harris shifted his attention to Jake. “Okay, I’m still confused. Why the hell are you here? Not like you’re the woman’s lawyer. And I’m pretty sure she hasn’t jumped bail so what gives?”

“Oh, God.” A gasp from True as she released the coffee cup. “Do I need a lawyer?”

“No,” Jake was adamant. “You don’t. Because you have an airtight alibi.” A pause. “Me.”

She hadn’t thought that Harris’s eyes could narrow more. They did.

“You?” Harris questioned.

“Yep. Me. I was with True last night.” Jake rolled one shoulder. Like the admission was nothing. Like he provided alibis for murder suspects all the time.

Harris’s gaze dipped back and forth between them. “You two went out? Maybe you were at a restaurant? A party? On some kind of date last night?”

True shook her head.

Jake let out a sigh as he leaned forward. “She was at my place. In my bed.”

Harris’s jaw dropped.

“She was with me,” Jake continued, “from about eight p.m. last night until this morning when I went with True to her house. She wanted to change clothes.”

Oh, jeez. That made it sound like—like they had?—

“I am the one who discovered the body,” Jake stated, voice calm and cool and so very controlled. “And, no, I didn’t touch anything near the dead guy.”

“You didn’t try to help him?” Harris asked.

Jake laughed. “Uh, no. You can’t help the dead. Clearly, he was dead. Had been that way for hours. I backed away. Got True out of there. And, like the responsible citizens we are, we called the cops.” His hands flattened on the table. “We’ve cooperated. We’ve helped with your investigation. But this grilling BS with True has to stop. She’s obviously the victim.”

“Uh, some would say the vic was the dead man in her house—” Harris began.

“How’d he get in?” Jake demanded. “The front entrance showed no signs of tampering. I’m betting the same can’t be the case for her back door. Or maybe a window. And I saw the ski mask on the floor near the dead guy.”

Wow. What ski mask? She hadn’t noticed it. But Jake had hauled her—carried her—out of the house fast after she’d seen the body.

“You know that someone has been terrorizing True.” Anger rumbled beneath Jake’s words. “Only instead of helping her, you left her on her own.” That wasn’t just anger vibrating in his voice. It was quiet rage. “If I hadn’t been with her last night, if True had been home, just what in the hell do you think that bastard would have done? You think a bastard breaks in, wearing a ski mask, because he’s there to fucking sing Christmas carols to her?”

True realized she was holding her breath.

I hadn’t intended to be home last night. I was going to stay at a motel. I was so sure I could feel someone watching me.

Jake’s head turned toward her. “You told me that you felt like someone had been in your house before.”

She nodded.

“And you told the same story to the cops before you came to me.”

“I…told Harris.”

Jake’s head swung back toward Harris. “And you didn’t investigate? What the fuck?”

“Do you know how many cases I’m working?” Harris jerked a hand through his reddish-brown hair.

“I don’t give a shit about your other cases. I’m here for her. True is what matters to me.” A tight, angry pause. “You should have helped her when she first came to the station.”

Harris grimaced.

But Jake wasn’t done. “The asshole dead beneath her tree? The one near the discarded ski mask? ” Jake gritted out.

True flinched.

“He could have been in her home over and over. He could have been sneaking in to watch her while she slept.”

Her stomach knotted. Hello, new nightmares.

“He was stalking her,” Jake continued relentlessly. “Terrorizing her. If she had been home last night, she could be the dead one beneath the?—”

“Don’t,” True whispered even as her hand flew out and curled around his arm.

Jake tensed beneath her touch.

“I’m okay,” she added.

He released a low breath. His head turned once more toward her. “It fucking pisses me off, sweets,” he rumbled. “You should never have been threatened. Cops aren’t doing shit. Interrogating you? Acting like you’re the perp when you’ve been the vic all along? Screw that. From here on out, count on me. ”

“Well, damn.” A surprised exclamation from Harris. “It really is like that with you two?”

“Screw yourself, Harris,” Jake ordered without looking away from True.

Her eyes widened. She didn’t think he was supposed to tell a detective to go screw himself.

A knock sounded at the door.

“I’ll get that. You two just keep doing whatever it is that the two of you do.” Harris shoved back his chair. He marched for the door. Hauled it open. “Don’t leave the room, though. We aren’t finished.” The door softly clicked closed behind him.

Her breath expelled in long, ragged sigh. “I’ve never been in an interrogation before.”

“That’s because you’re one of those good girls who has never done jack shit wrong before. And understand this, you haven’t done anything wrong now. You are the victim.” Jake turned his body fully toward her. Then he leaned forward and pulled her against him in a tight hug.

She had to blink quickly because, oh, she’d needed a hug. Really, really badly. That had been her first dead body. And it had…smelled. And looked stiff. And blood had been on the presents. Blood from the bullet wound on the dead man.

“Since you have never been in an interrogation room, there is something you need to know,” Jake rasped against her ear. His breath blew lightly against the shell of her ear and made her tremble. Not in a bad way. “That mirror to the left? It’s a one-way mirror. That means someone can be in there watching, so be very careful what you say.” He pulled back.

True realized that the hug had been fake. Just a cover so he could warn her about the mirror. But she didn’t need a warning. True wrapped her arms around her body. She was still wearing the same dress, dammit. Who did a woman have to kill for new clothes?

Not funny, True. Not. Funny.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said, loudly and clearly, in case someone was watching from the other side of that mirror. “I don’t have anything to hide. I don’t know who that man was. I don’t know how he got inside my house. I don’t know why—why he would want to hurt me.”

“Some people are just sick sonsofbitches.” Jake’s hand rose and pressed to her cheek. “You are safe, and you’re staying that way.”

“Who was he?” His touch warmed skin that she hadn’t even realized was cold. “And who killed him?”

Determination hardened his expression. “We’re going to find out, I swear it.” His gaze fell to her mouth. “You could have been there.” Low. “You could have been alone.” He dropped his hand. “ You could have been hurt. ”

Now she was the one to touch his cheek. “I wasn’t.”

His head turned. His lips skimmed over her palm.

True sucked in a breath.

The door swung open. “Ah, Jake?” Harris cleared his throat. “If you’re not too busy in there, how about a word? A word out here, with me?”

Jake stared at True. How could dark eyes burn so much? “You will not be hurt,” he vowed.

She nodded. Not getting hurt sounded like a great plan to her. Top-notch. Fabulous.

He rose and headed for the door.

She grabbed for her cold coffee again.

You will not be hurt.

No, she wouldn’t be. Jake was on her side. Yes, a dead man was under her tree. Don’t think about him. Stop seeing his image in your mind. But she wasn’t alone in this nightmare.

She had the best bounty hunter in town at her side.

She had the bad boy from her past…and, now, he was going to protect her.

“What in the hell is going on?” Harris questioned as soon as the interrogation room door closed. He pointed to the closed door as they stood in the hallway. “You and True? You and True? Since when?”

Jake crossed his arms over his chest and put his back to the door. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me she was in trouble?” A quick glance assured Jake that they appeared to be the only ones in the corridor.

Harris blinked. “What? Why would I tell you?”

“Because I would have liked to have fucking known.”

Harris retreated a step. “How the hell would I know that? No, no, back up. Stop. First, I don’t disclose personal information about victims who come to the station?—”

“So you thought she was a victim, and you did nothing?” The rage broke free again. He’d tried to keep the fire of his fury contained, but every single time he thought about what could have happened to True, his blood boiled in his veins.

Harris gripped a manila file with his right hand. “I thought she was having accidents! Accidents. As in, random shit that happens to people! Look, when she was supposedly pushed off the sidewalk and into the road, there were no witnesses. No witnesses at the museum, either. I ordered patrols to circle through her neighborhood as a precaution, but there was nothing to indicate she was in actual danger.”

“Nothing to indicate it, huh?” Jake raised one brow. “What about the dead body?”

Harris squeezed his eyes shut. “The dead body changes things.”

“Yeah, buddy, I thought it might.”

Harris cracked open his eyes and sighed.

They were, in fact, buddies. They hadn’t been back in their high school days. They’d been rivals then. Harris’s pompous ass had annoyed Jake most days. But when they’d met again as adults, things had been different. Harris was a rule follower—too much of one, as far as Jake was concerned. Harris needed to learn that rules should be bent some days. But he was an honest cop. Harris tried to help. Usually, he succeeded.

Not in True’s case. “You sent her away.” Something Jake would not forgive. “She could have been hurt.”

“Yeah. That shit is gonna haunt me.” Harris lifted the file. “We got an ID on the dead guy. Dylan Dunn. He was bad news.”

Jake swiped the file. He flipped it open and whistled when he saw the rap sheet. A very long rap sheet. “Shoplifting, petty theft, B&Es, assault…” He focused on the picture of the perp. “Dylan was certainly making his way up the crime ladder, wasn’t he?”

“He’d been in and out of jail since he was sixteen years old. Last known address was in Atlanta,” Harris pointed out.

Atlanta. Where True had just happened to live for several years.

“You think he got obsessed with her there? Their paths must have crossed. Something locked and loaded the guy on her,” Harris added as the faint lines near his mouth deepened. “I know True said that she didn’t know him, but he clearly knew her.”

Jake lowered the file. “You’re thinking he was the one behind the shove in the street and the attack at her museum.”

“Isn’t that what you’re thinking?”

Now that he’d seen the rap sheet, yeah. “The last assault charge was from an ex-girlfriend who said Dylan shoved her down a flight of stairs when he got mad. So, yes, I could see this prick shoving True into the path of an oncoming car.”

“One of the uniforms found a local motel room registered to him. A search is being conducted there now. I’ll let you know what we turn up.”

“Appreciate that.” Reluctantly, he handed the file back to Harris. “So who killed the bastard?”

“I was wondering the same thing.” Harris stared back at him.

It took a moment for the suspicion in Harris’s gaze to register, and when it did, laughter burst from Jake.

“And that is not the response I was expecting,” Harris groused.

Jake laughed harder. “Oh, man.” He calmed down a bit. “You think I’d kill a guy and leave him beneath True’s Christmas tree? If I’d killed him?—"

The door opened behind him.

“—there would have been no body left to find,” Jake finished.

Jake caught True’s gasp. Figured she would’ve heard the last part. Oh, well. He’d just been stating the truth. He could kill a man and leave no trace behind. Harris would be well aware of that fact, and now, True would understand, too. Jake’s stare remained on Harris. In this case, though, he was innocent. “I didn’t kill the guy.” Just so they were all clear. “Besides, like I told you, I was with True. All night.” He was her alibi, and she was his.

Harris shifted his focus over Jake’s shoulder. “That correct? You were with him all night?”

Okay, now this was the dicey part. Technically, they hadn’t been together, not all night. Because his dumb ass had been a gentleman. So he’d been in the den, she’d been in the bedroom, and if she confessed that particular bit of information, then his buddy might just think Jake had been free to slip out and off the punk at her house?—

“I was in his bed,” True’s prim voice responded. “All night long.”

Truth. A very carefully worded truth.

She pressed her hand to Jake’s shoulder. He obligingly moved to the side so she could fully exit the interrogation room. Only True didn’t go far. She just moved closer to him. The sweet smell of strawberries teased his nose.

Yeah, I could freaking gobble her right up. Something on his to-do list. After, apparently, he dated the woman.

“Well, this has to be like a Christmas dream coming true for you.” Harris pointed the file toward Jake. He also continued, with his very big mouth, “Finally getting the girl of your fantasies, huh? That’s a Christmas miracle.”

Jake stared at him. Just stared. Harris could be such a pain in his ass.

Beside him, True sucked in a sharp breath.

“Except for the body,” Harris hastened to add. “That is not a Christmas miracle. That is a Christmas homicide, and rest assured, I will get to the bottom of this mystery.”

Oh, yeah, Jake felt all kinds of reassured.

“I’m to assume that you’ll be sticking close to True from here on out?” Harris asked as he stopped pointing with the damn file and dropped his hand back to his side.

“You assume correctly.” They had a murderer on the loose. One who’d been in True’s house. Good thing Jake excelled at tracking down killers and criminals.

“The ME is working on her report. I’ll be sure to give you the highlights when Sara is done.” Harris lowered his voice as he revealed, “Based on rigor mortis, though, we’re thinking the vic was shot around midnight. And it doesn’t take a degree in medicine to realize the guy was shot in the heart.”

“No neighbors heard the shot?” Jake had to ask the question.

Harris shook his head. “Could be they were sound sleepers. And the houses aren’t that close together on the cul-de-sac.”

Or it could be that a professional had fired the shot to kill the SOB. A professional with a silencer? Shit, if that was the case, things were getting very, very complicated.

Harris’s gaze slid to True. “You sure you didn’t know the guy?”

She shook her head.

“The name Dylan Dunn means nothing to you?” Harris pushed.

“Is that—is that who he was?”

Harris nodded.

“The guy’s last known address was Atlanta,” Jake told her.

True gave a start of surprise. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know him. There are a whole lot of people in Atlanta.” She grimaced. “I have no idea why he was in my house, and I have no clue who killed him.”

“But we’ll be finding out,” Jake promised.

“I knew you were going to say that.” A sigh from Harris. “You get that I’m the one with the badge, right? Told you a million times, if you want to solve the cases, you should join the force. The job was made for you.”

“I like making my own rules.” He’d followed enough of them during his special ops time. He wasn’t ready to sit behind a desk and take orders from police brass.

“No, you just like being a badass who gets to stalk his prey. That shit is scary.” A uniform appeared at the end of the hallway. Harris immediately straightened and raised his voice as he said, “That’s all the questions for now. I’ll be sure and contact you for follow-up.”

Jake saluted him. “Yeah, you do that. We’ll be waiting.” Then he threaded his fingers with True’s and began walking down the hallway and toward the exit. They’d taken five steps when…

Harris snapped his fingers. “Sorry! Forgot to mention—True, your home is a crime scene. I’m gonna suggest you find another place to crash for the next twenty-four—maybe forty-eight—hours while the techs do their work.”

Jake turned his head to look at True. She was already looking at him. “She’ll be with me.” Hadn’t they already covered that he had no intention of letting her out of his sight?

Not with a killer on the loose.

Talk about your nightmare-before-Christmas situation.

Ho, ho…homicide.