Page 30 of Holding Out For A Holiday Hero

“Uh, Jake?” Harris tapped him on the shoulder. “Can we have a word, outside?”

“No.” Just that. No.

“What?” Harris seemed to have trouble understanding Jake’s response.

“I’m not leaving True. You want a word, then we have it right here.” His hand rose, and his knuckles skimmed down her cheek again. He just had to keep touching her.

Her head turned into his touch. “I want to go home.”

Her home was a crime scene. They’d go to his place. Home. Jake rose. He reached for her hand.

“Who had keys to the display room?” Harris asked. “The lock is shattered to hell and back now—because of Jake’s kick to the door—but the guard, Braden, he said the lock appeared undisturbed when he and Jake first arrived. That tells me that maybe the perp who got inside had a key.”

“Robert has a key,” Jake told him. “He’s the head security guard. Braden told me that Robert had one.”

“And I have one.” True had risen to her feet. Her right hand remained twined with Jake’s. Her left hand opened the top desk drawer. A key ring—one much smaller than the massive ring that hung from Robert’s belt—waited inside. “My keys are always in the top drawer.” She reached for her keys.

But Jake’s fingers closed around her hand. “How about we let Harris and his crew dust for prints on those? Just in case the creep took your keys so he could access the display room and then he put them back in the drawer. If he did that, maybe the asshole left prints behind.”

A jerky nod from True. She let Jake ease her around the desk and toward the door. But she paused near a watchful Harris. “He had on gloves. When he put his hand over my mouth, I-I felt them.” Her gaze darted back to her desk. “If he was wearing gloves, then there will be no prints.”

“We’ll check. Thoroughly,” Harris added. No signs of his earlier humor showed on his face. In fact, the faint lines near his mouth appeared extra grim. “You remember anything else? Anything the perp said?”

“He didn’t speak.”

“What about a smell? You notice any smells?”

A negative shake of her head.

“You said he was strong.” Harris was clearly not giving up on getting some kind of description for the perp. “You get an idea of how tall he was?”

Another shake of her head. “I’m sorry. I was so scared, and…I wish I could help more. He was strong enough to pick me up. To shove me inside the sarcophagus.”

“Good thing a mummy wasn’t in there.” This time, Harris was the one to shudder. “Talk about hell.”

True stiffened. “Yes, that would have been hell.” Her head turned toward Jake. “May we go home now? Please?”

Damn straight they could. He took a step forward even as he tightened his grip on True’s hand.

But Harris stepped into his path. “The museum was wide open to the town tonight. That’s a whole lot of suspects—and I’m not just talking about the registered attendees at the event. Anyone could have come inside.”

Jake knew they had a list of suspects that would stretch for a mile.

“She was gagged. Bound.” Worry darkened Harris’s voice as he finished, “Whoever did this isn’t playing.”

Like Jake needed to be told that. Dead bodies weren’t dumped for shits and giggles.

“You don’t want to talk privately, so I’ll just have to put this out there for her to hear.” Harris’s lips tightened. “True, I think the plan was to hide you until Jake—and anyone else still here after your holiday event—left the facility. Then I think the perp was going to finish you off.”

All the color—and there hadn’t been much there—drained from True’s face. She swayed.

Dammit.

“I can offer you police protection,” Harris continued determinedly. “I can move you into a safe house. I can?—”

“No.” This time, True’s fingers tightened around Jake’s. “I have protection—I have Jake. I’m safe as long as I’m with him.”

Harris shared a long look with Jake. “You got this?”

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