Page 13 of Knight Before Christmas

But like he can hear me thinking, he stays just far enough out of reach to keep me from catching him.

I grind my teeth and try to slip around behind him, hoping to get my hands on him, maybe rough him up a little bit. Not much. After all, he’s got a date with a jail cell.

But if I could just prove that I’m the perfect person to protect Raine, that wouldn’t go amiss. She’s a hard woman to understand and an even harder woman to protect.

But it’s ingrained in me that I need to take care of her.

She means so much to me. Always has. Always will. And now that I’ve been with her, I know that I can’t let her go. Even if it breaks up our friendship, I can’t let Colt tell me that I can’t be with her. It would kill me.

The wraith moves for the door quickly and I curse under my breath, angry that I zoned out so much I didn’t see that he either spotted me or he was done with whatever he was doing. And he moved fucking fast!

I cursed silently and ran at the door but he already vanished into the night.

But there had to be a reason that he’s here and I turn on every damn light in this place until I find it.

A miniature doll house. Really tiny and filled with all of these strange toys that somehow manage to look evil, not playful.

When I look closely, my blood boils and then chills to frostbite. The girl in the building has wild red hair like Raine. And she’s lying in a casket. Laying across her chest is a single blue rose.

My brow scrunches. That has to mean something right? A blue rose?

But the only way I find out is if I wake Raine up and let her take a look at this monstrosity. And I just don’t want to do that yet. She’s finally sleeping well and this will probably kill that for the rest of the night.

But that blue rose is niggling at me, pushing at something just outside of my reach.

I pick up my phone and call Colt, who’s on midnights this week. Even though he’s the boss, he doesn’t take any job that he wouldn’t give one of his men and vice versa.

“Hey, Colt.”

“Yeah, man. What’s up? Isn’t it kind of late to call me.”

“Yeah. But someone was just in my house and they left a damn calling card and it’s bugging the hell out of me.”

“Someone got past your security system? How the hell did they do that?”

“I don’t honestly know but it’s bugging the hell out of me. I know that this thing he left is a clue but I can’t figure it out, although I feel like I know.”

“What is it that he left?”

“A dollhouse?”

“A dollhouse? That’s weird.”

“Yeah, right? But there’s more.”

“Okay. Tell me. Quit eking it out.”

“Okay. The house looks a little bit like your parents’ house. And in one of the rooms that looks like Raine’s childhood bedroom, there is a coffin with her in it. Or rather a doll that looks like her.”

“Oh shit, that’s creepy.”

“Tell me about it. I don’t know what to do about this. But especially the damn rose is bugging the hell out of me.”

“Rose? You didn’t say anything about a rose.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s the part that stuck in my head and I felt like I should know why.”

“Well, for starters. The dollhouse. One year for Christmas, my mom and dad got Raine a special dollhouse. It looked just like their house.”

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