Page 61 of Presley's Christmas Catch
“I wanted to return it.”
There’s a tap at the door, and Security Guy steps away from me to open it. Standing outside is a policeman.
My entire body goes cold.
CHAPTER 26
PRESLEY
This wasn’t how I pictured the night going, to be honest.
Maybe because I deluded myself into thinking that it was going to be that easy to put the ring under the tree and walk away and everyone would be happy. And I didn’t think past returning the box. There was the theoretical possibility I’d get in trouble, but I didn’t imagine things like a police station and sitting in an interrogation room in my Christmas party dress.
Most of my imaginations for this night included Brock’s jaw dropping to the ground when he saw me in my dress. (I think I did accomplish that at least.) Some dances where I didn’t hold back on the romantic touching to prove to Brock he has feelings for me. The culmination of the night being a kiss under the mistletoe and Brock admitting he was wrong.
The policeman who brought me to the station half an hour ago didn’t even ask me anything when he stuck me in this room. Are they sweating me out? Like a detective’s going to show up here soon, and I’ll be so overwrought that I’ll end up confessing right out of the gate?
I would be happy to confess! Only I don’t have anything to confess to except possession of stolen property. Is that a felony?I’m so getting fired over this. I drop my head onto the table. What a waste of a dress.
Brock wanted to come to the police station with me, but Officer Morgan said he couldn’t ride in the police car even though Brock kept saying he was in on the whole thing.
I kept countering it by telling Officer Morgan that Brock was only saying that to protect me, and Brock glared at me every time I said it.
There’s a tap on the door, and I raise my head as it opens, expecting Officer Morgan or a detective in a suit like in all the crime shows on TV to walk in. But it’s neither. I squint, as though I must be seeing things because of the stress of all this.
“Thomas?” I blink a few more times, trying to convince my brain that my aunt’s boyfriend is striding into the room and taking a seat across from me. “Oh, my gosh,” I say in a rush, my eyes widening. “I’m in really big trouble. They’ve brought in the FBI?”
Thomas puts a hand on my arm as I start to hyperventilate. “No one brought in the FBI, Presley,” he says in a calm voice. “I’m here to help you.”
I let out a whoosh of breath and take his hand in mine, squeezing. “Oh, thank you so much. I guess Brock could probably throw some money around, or my parents, but I didn’t want to get them involved.”
“You’re not being arrested. Not once I explained what had really happened to the ring.” He chuckles.
I pause at the calm way he’s handling this, and a million things run through my head, loudest of all that Thomas has the answers I thought I’d never get. But also how much I’ve missed him. We text from time to time, but he has a very busy job, and I know by the stories he’s told that he sometimes works undercover. In the three years that he and Aunt Shannon dated, there were at least four times she had to go multiple days, and a couple weeks in one instance, without talking to him at all. He’s younger than Aunt Shannon by a few years, and his professionhas kept him in good shape. There are lines around his bright blue eyes, but they feel like they come more from how much he enjoys life than anything else. He has a sprinkling of grays over his head, a sprinkling I saw disappear a couple times over the years I knew him, thanks to operations he was working on. He’s a good-looking guy, but Aunt Shannon used to talk all the time about his kind eyes. He was her hero, and he was smitten with her. Watching them fall in love was what I imagined it would have been like to see my parents fall for each other. Seeing the times Thomas would look at her like he could memorize her or like he would never get enough broke my heart almost as much as losing her did. And I feel it all over again right now as he stares down at me, all the same memories probably sliding through his mind too.
“Hey, Thomas,” I say, since I didn’t really greet him before. My throat tightens.
“Hey, Pres.” He squeezes my hand this time, and we sit there, just feeling for a moment.
Finally, I have to ask. “So about that ring?” I arch an eyebrow at him.
He lets go of my hand and sits back in his chair. “The ring isn’t just some priceless family heirloom. It’s a major art piece, since it was created by some hot shot, European jewelry designer in the 1800s especially for the Westcott family. It’s also worth three million dollars.”
My jaw drops, and then my body goes cold again like it did when the security guys at the Westcott’s house showed me the video of me caught red-handed. “I had a three-million-dollar ring sitting in a storage box in my closet for a year?” The questions start spinning again. What if someone had known that Aunt Shannon had it? How long would it have been before they tracked it down to me? I put a hand to my forehead.
Thomas snorts. “Sounds like it was pretty safe.”
“How did it get there?” I blurt.
“I stole the ring.” He sighs. “I was undercover with the smallheist crew, just a couple guys who were going to sell the ring to some bigger dealers we were after.”
“Youstole it!” Lightness bubbles up, maybe a release of all the stress over the last hour. I’d even considered that he might’ve been the one who stole it, but it hadn’t occurred to me it would have been as part of something official. “Oh my gosh, Thomas,” I exclaim. “You teased Aunt Shannon about being suspected, and you literally had it. How did you get through the search?”
“Put the ring in a secret pocket in my suitcoat. I had a ring box on hand to put it in once we were out.” His tone is alljust a regular day on the job. “Anyway, I made sure the crew knew I was connected with someone who could get me into the party and talked my way into being the safecracker and bagman, since the crew was small.”
I hold up a hand. “Wait. If the ring was worth so much, why didn’t the Westcotts have the same security like they had this year? They just searched us all when it came up missing.”
Thomas frowns. “They had cameras and everything. They do every year. But we were professionals, and I had the FBI on my side.”
