Page 18 of Holding Out For A Holiday Hero

“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.”

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