Page 69 of A Reclusive Heart

“It seemed that they didn’t realize that Miss Harris had been evicted and decided that she needed one more threat to do the job. We caught Mrs. Briggs stuffing an envelope in Miss Harris’ mail slot at three this morning and Mr. Ames stuffing a letter in her mail slot around four this morning and then another one beneath her door just in case she missed the first one,” Detective Michaels explained with a heavy sigh.

“And why were they doing this again?” Rick asked as he leaned back against his desk.

“According to Mrs. Briggs, Miss Harris blasted her television day and night, was loud, and had drunken, sex-crazed parties every night,” Detective Michaels drawled, his lips twitching while Nick shared a look with Rick. “Apparently, these last two months have been particularly bad. Mrs. Briggs complained tothe manager, but nothing was done, so she decided to take matters into her own hands.”

“She hasn’t been home in two months,” Rick pointed out.

“It appears that Mrs. Briggs’ hearing aid was set too high, which, unfortunately, led her to believe that the noise that was coming from her downstairs neighbor, who apparently has an unhealthy porn addiction, was coming from Miss Harris’ apartment,” Detective Michaels drawled, making Eric mutter, “Jesus Christ,” as he rubbed his hands roughly down his face.

“And Mr. Ames?” Nick found himself asking when all he wanted to do was hunt down his little recluse and pull her into his arms.

“He was convinced that she’d been stealing his mail.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask why,” Rick said, pouring himself another drink.

“According to Mr. Ames, he doesn’t trust quiet people because they’re always up to something. So, he felt that it was his obligation to find out what she was up to. After he broke into her mail slot and discovered letters addressed to J.L. Lewis, he determined that she was a criminal and that Jamie Harris was the alias. When he didn’t win thePublisher’s Clearing Houseafter sending them ten entries every day for the past year, he concluded that it was because of Miss Harris. He believed that Miss Harris didn’t have a job because she was living off his prize money.”

“Were they working together?” Rick asked, sounding amused, which only pissed him off.

There was nothing funny about this. They went out of their way to scare the hell out of his little recluse and because of them, he almost lost her. He couldn’t imagine a life without her in it. He-

Christ, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

He loved her, absolutely adored her, and he was out of his fucking mind that he was going to hurt her one day only…

He’d rather die than do anything to hurt her.

He didn’t want anyone else, couldn’t even think about touching another woman without feeling sick to his stomach. The only woman that he wanted was his little recluse. He couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life with her.

“No. As far as we can tell, neither one of them was aware of what the other was doing,” the detective explained.

“What does Miss Johnson have to do with this?” Rick asked as Nick slowly exhaled, eager to find his little recluse and show her just how much she meant to him.

“Nothing. We’re here because we discovered that Miss Johnson was behind the video and the threats,” Detective Michaels said, making everything in Nick go still.

“She was behind everything?” Nick demanded as he contemplated killing someone for the first time in his life.

“It would appear so. When the IT department in Texas went through the hotel’s surveillance videos again, they spotted her in the corner of the lobby watching you while you spoke with the manager about the pool. A little while later, she can be seen making her way into the pool area and slipping into one of the changing rooms, where she waited for several hours. She can be seen leaving the changing room several minutes after you and Miss Harris left.”

“That fucking bitch,” Nick bit out coldly.

“Do you know where Miss Harris is? I need to speak to her,” Detective Michaels said as his gaze flickered between them.

“She’s probably looking for a fix,” Nick said, reaching up to rub the back of his neck.

“She has an addiction problem?” the detective asked, looking less than pleased with the news.

“She’s a sugar addict and if we don’t find her soon, she’ll be too wired to answer your questions.”

“The key to what?”Jamie found herself asking as she tried to ignore the sharp pain tearing through the back of her head only to wince when Holly slammed her against the wall again.

This time, Jamie gave up trying to push her away and focused on trying to kick her way to freedom. She managed to kick Holly and was instantly rewarded with another shove against the wall before Holly moved her legs out of kicking distance, leaving Jamie with no way to protect herself.

“Everything. What else?” Holly asked with a mocking smile. “It shouldn’t have been too hard. The man seemed to fuck anything that moved. When I first came here, I waited for him to make his move and when he didn’t, I had to initiate it, but apparently, the male whore has a rule about not fucking co-workers. My original plan was to let him fuck me and then force him to give me everything that I wanted and so much more.”

“Well, he’s not desperate,” Jamie found herself pointing out and was, of course, rewarded with another slam against the wall, but it had been worth it.

“When you signed on, I knew that you were going to be the key to everything. I was hoping that you would be assigned to me, but I knew that odds weren’t great. I knew that there was a good chance that you would be assigned to Nick, but I was prepared for that. I made sure that Rick knew that I was available to help with anything that you needed while coming up with a plan to remove Nick from the equation,” Holly admitted with a careless shrug.

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