Page 47 of Home for Christmas in July

She blanches. “Where did he go?”

“When I pulled you off the trail, he’d nearly caught up to you. He saw me and took off toward the parking lot. I’m sure he’s long gone by now.”

Maybe I should have chased him instead of grabbing her. But my priority isn’t catching this dickhead, it’s keeping her safe. When I saw him skulking behind her, I wasn’t filled with a white-hot alpha male urge to bash his face in. No, every cell of my body screamed for me to scoop her up and take her to safety. It was a clarion call to protect her. So I did.

“Thank goodness you were here.” She rests her cheek on my chest and takes a deep breath. “Whyareyou here though?”

“Let me see the clue.”

She frowns at the nonanswer but digs into the pocket on the side of her yoga pants and pulls it out. I take the clue Farah gave me and hold them side by side. They’re similar, but they aren’t the same. Noelle’s envelope is slightly wider and the ivory color is off by a shade.

“Thanks. Do you have one of the other clues?”

She reaches into her pocket again and takes out Clue No. 3—the one that led us to Xander’s jewelry store.

I pluck it from between her fingers and hold it beside the others. “Look. The envelope and paper from Clue No. 3 don’t match your Clue No. 4. They match mine.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Farah gave it to me when I came to the library looking for you. She said the Stillwater boy found it in one of the bathrooms.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

“He switched the clues, Noelle. The guy in the hat and sunglasses. The one you looked all over the library for.”

Her eyes widen with sudden understanding. “That whole scene—knocking over the ball run, pushing Sunny down—that was a distraction to get me away from the desk so he could take the real clue and replace it with this fake one.”

“And lure you up here.” I say it gently, but she has to hear it. She needs to connect the dots.

She buries her face in my shirt collar. “Why would someone want to lure me anywhere? Does he want to hurt me?”

My pulse thuds, and I suppress the urge to growl at the pain and fear in her voice. I force myself to speak in a measured tone. “I don’t know if he wants to hurt you, but he’s definitely been following you throughout the scavenger hunt.”

She pushes her hands against my chest, leans back, and meets my eyes. “How can you know that?“

I take out the grainy image Xander printed, unfold and smooth it out, then hand it to her. The paper shakes in her hands as she stares down at it.

“Where did you get this?”

“Xander.”

She lifts her head and arches an eyebrow. “Xander?”

“He grabbed me when I was on my way to the library. He wanted to show me his security camera footage.”

“Why?”

“He was worried about that handprint on his display case. And he was right to worry.” I jab the page with my finger. “This guy was messing around with the display case that holds the pocket watch chain and the hair combs.”

“He wanted to switch the clues before we got there, but the case was locked,” she says, working through the scenario aloud.

“Right. So he moved on to Plan B. He caused an uproar at the library and then switched them while you were helping Sunny.”

“We need to go inside,” she says forcefully.

I eye the strip club skeptically. “I don’t know, Noelle. I doubt anyone in there knows this dude and?—”

“No, Delphina’s in there.”

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