Page 16 of Mine to Protect

“Her uncle had a connection to the Mortelli family twenty-seven years ago and is now rumored to have more, but that doesn’t feel right to me either. It also doesn’t mean that Jackie is involved at all.” Emmerson lowered his chin. “Don’t go looking for trouble where it doesn’t exist.”

“This, coming from my cop brother.”

Emmerson chuckled. “We have no reason to believe anything. All we know is that Chris and Jackie are missing. Now, as far as the counterfeit money goes… We’re all willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. For now. At least until we find them. Or find more answers. So, let’s go find them.”

Rhett was down with that. “Is there anything in that hotel room you want to keep?”

Emmerson glanced at the sky.

“What is it?” Rhett knew that look, and he didn’t like it.

“While you were outside talking with Shelby, we got an anonymous tip that there might be a key on a necklace in a jewelry bag that has some significance.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Were you not going to tell me?” Rhett asked. “Jesus. We’ve been standing out here discussing all this, and you’re just telling menow? What the fuck, man?”

“Don’t go getting your panties in a wad,” Emmerson said with an arched brow. “And you better not tell Mom I’m filling you in. This is one of those things where what we do and what you do are in constant conflict. If she finds out, she’ll pretend to take my badge for five minutes. I fucking hate it when she does that. I’m not a child.”

Rhett couldn’t relate to the badge thing, but he totally got the rest. “That’s fair. What do you think the key is for or to?”

“It looks like it could be to a safety deposit box. We’re going to check it out,” Emmerson said. “But if anything else resonates with Shelby, I want to know about it.”

“Copy that. Just don’t keep shit from me anymore. I’m knee-deep in this, and I’m not going anywhere.” Rhett turned on his heels and headed back toward the room. He and his brother made a list of everything, copied it, and texted it to their mom. Now, all he had to do was collect it and put it in his Jeep. It wasn’t much, but he knew it would mean something to Shelby. Maybe she could make sense of something.

CHAPTERFOUR

As quietly as he could, Rhett tiptoed into his family room. He’d decided he would bring all of Chris’s and Jackie’s things in tomorrow morning. It was too risky to do it now. Shelby could be awake, or he could make too much noise, knowing she tended to be a light sleeper.

And then he’d have to explain why he had her brother’s and Jackie’s things, and Shelby would want to go through them immediately. He knew that about her, and all Rhett wanted to do was get a few hours of shut-eye.

Or at least try.

He’d put her in the guest room closest to the master. The pool guest room, which was on the other side of the house, was the nicest, but he thought being near her would help him sleep better. However, as he eased past her bedroom door, he realized that he’d likely be up all night thinking about what might have been.

“Rhett? Is that you?” Her voice filled the space between his ears like ice cream melting over the side of a cone on a hot summer’s day.

“Yeah.” He paused, noticing that the door to her room wasn’t closed all the way, and an inch of light illuminated the crack. “Can I come in?”

Shit. What was he thinking asking to enter her bedroom at one in the morning? She was probably sitting on her bed in some skimpy little nightgown, reading a book.

Sexiest vision he could have imagined.

“Sure,” she said.

He stepped over the threshold, and his knees buckled. There she was, sprawled across the comforter in one of his shirts.

Only one of his shirts.

With her ankles crossed and a magazine tossed to the side.

He made his way to the edge of the bed and sat. He should bolt to a cold shower, but instead, he rested his hand on her bare thigh, igniting a flame deep in the pit of his gut. “How are you holding up?”

“Obviously, I can’t sleep.”

He ran his hand up and down her sweet, silky skin. He wanted to comfort her and take all her worry away, storing it in his muscles so she didn’t have to carry the burden.

As he’d done in Key West.

Only he hadn’t known he’d been doing that. Well, he had. He just hadn’t known what he’d been washing away from her soul.

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