Harlequin Romantic Suspense December 2020 Box Set

by Addison Fox, Cindy Dees, Justine Davis

  She closed her mouth, kept her silence and let him guide her down the long hallway, down the stairs and out the front door. But when he guided her toward his pickup truck and not toward her car, she protested, “I can drive myself home!”

  “I feel you trembling. You can barely walk. No way am I letting you drive. Besides, the roads are treacherous. My truck can handle the ice and snow worlds better than that shoebox on wheels you drive.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but he pinned her with a look of concern that made the words die on her tongue, unspoken. Well okay, then. She let him open the passenger door of the truck, set the box inside, then put his hands around her waist and bodily lift her into the vehicle. The ease with which he hoisted her into the truck was a little shocking. He was so much stronger than he looked—and he looked pretty darned fit.

  He went around to the driver’s side, and the glow of the dashboard illuminated his profile. “How did you end up here at the Dexter house, tonight?” she finally got around to figuring out to ask.

  “Dispatcher called me. I live about ten minutes away and all the other units were out on calls.”

  “Lucky for me.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get there before the intruder hurt you.”

  “You got there in time to scare him off and make him drop whatever this is.” She touched the wooden box sitting on the seat of the truck between them.

  “Any idea what’s inside it?” he asked.

  “None. I’m eager to take a close look at it and its contents.”

  “First, I’m taking a close look at you.”

  Her gaze snapped up to his face, but he was staring out at the road and his expression gave away nothing. What on earth did he mean by that?

  CHAPTER 5

  Reese pulled into the attached garage beside his tidy little log cabin on the edge of town. He loved this place. Had bought the land raw and built this place with his own two hands. It took nearly three years to complete, and privately he was damned proud of it.

  He came around to let Yvette out of the truck. She looked tiny and lost in that oversized fluffy coat, tucked inside his big heavy-duty truck. He’d about had a heart attack when he’d charged up those stairs to find her lying on the floor of the Dexter attic. She was lucky the intruder hadn’t shoved her down the stairs or killed her outright.

  He reached for her waist to help her down from the high truck seat, and she was slender even through her thick coat, but she recoiled.

  “Truce, remember?” he murmured.

  She nodded and let him lift her down from the high cab to the concrete floor.

  “This way,” he murmured, leading her around his truck and into the kitchen of his rustic home.

  His sister-in-law called his taste mountain-lodge-bachelor decor. Whatever. It was comfortable and made him feel at home.

  “Wow. This is nice,” Yvette commented, looking around the open living-dining-kitchen area. “Did it come like this or did you remodel?”

  “I built the place,” he mumbled. It had been a labor of love, and he was proud of the end result.

  “From scratch? All by yourself? Impressive.”

  “I bought this piece of land when I joined the Braxville Police Department and worked on it bit by bit as I had the time and money.”

  “Wow. How did you get those giant ceiling beams up there?”

  She was staring up at the vaulted ceiling and huge log rafters that supported the roof.

  “Took a whole keg of beer to bribe enough guys from the department to come out one weekend and help me hoist all those big logs up there.”

  “I had no idea you were the DIY type.”

  He shrugged. “I like to make things, work with my hands. But I don’t get much time for it in my current job.”

  “Especially not with a murderer running around on the loose,” she murmured.

  “Exactly.” He reached for her shoulders. “Let me take your coat. Why don’t you go sit by the fireplace and I’ll make you something hot to drink. Tea, isn’t it?”

  She looked up at him in surprise. “That’s right. How did you know?”

  “You’ve been bringing a cup of hot tea to staff meetings for a year. I’d be a pretty terrible detective if I hadn’t noticed that by now.”

  “Fair.”

  He filled a kettle and put it on the stove to heat while he rummaged in his cupboards for tea bags. He had a box buried somewhere in the back of one. Bingo. He pulled out the semicrushed cardboard box and prayed that tea didn’t go stale fast. No telling how long this stuff had been in his kitchen. He thought his mom had brought it over sometime last summer.

  “Mind if I build a fire?” Yvette asked from across the large living space.

  “I’ll do it. Gimme a sec to get your drink pulled together.”

  “I can do it, for crying out loud.”

  He rolled his eyes as he put two tall mugs, sugar and creamer on a tray. He poured the hot water, plunked in a couple of tea bags and carried the whole affair over to the coffee table in front of the fireplace. This was about as fancy as he got in his house.

  Yvette sat on the raised stone hearth beside the big fireplace, leaning down and blowing on a small fire she was nursing to life.

  “Why don’t you use the bellows?” he asked, reaching for the tool and passing it to her from where it hung on a hook beside the mantel.

  She rolled her eyes and commenced squeezing the bellows, sending puffs of air into her little fire.

  He sat down on the sofa to watch her play pyromaniac. “Tell me something, Yvie. Why don’t you want anyone to help you with anything?”

  “I let people help me with stuff.”

  He snorted. “You were barely conscious and didn’t want me to help you stand up, let alone walk out of that house. And just now. You wouldn’t let me help with the fire.”

  She frowned in his general direction but didn’t make eye contact.

  “I have a theory on it,” he announced.

  “Do tell.”

  “You’re the baby of the Colton family, right?”

  “I hate that term.”

  “Exactly! I’ll bet everyone in the clan treated you as if you weren’t capable of doing anything by yourself.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide and startled. “How do know that?”

  “Hello. Detective, here. Student of human behavior.”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t it get exhausting having to know everything about everyone and everything all the time?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you ever sit and oh, read a book or watch a movie—or do anything—without analyzing it to death?”

  “When I’m off duty.”

  “Oh.” The syllable came out as a soft sigh of breath as she turned her back on him to stare into the fire, which was starting to lick up around the medium-size sticks nicely. It would be ready for a small log in another minute or two.

  He frowned at the back of her head. What had he done wrong to make her disengage all of a sudden? For as surely as he was sitting here, he’d managed to hurt her feelings. Was it because she thought he’d gone off duty to bring her to his—

  Oh.

  She’d hoped him bringing her here was a sign of personal interest and concern.

  God, he was an idiot when it came to women. He’d totally missed that one.

  “So, here’s the thing,” he said. “I need to ask you a few questions about earlier and do the whole cop thing for about five minutes. Then, I’d love to hang up my badge for the night to just chill and hang with you. Is that okay?”

  “Umm, sure.” She gifted him with one of those sexy-as-all-get-out sidelong looks of hers that made her eyes look even more exotic than they already were.

  Whew. Nice recovery, my dude. Close call, there, with being a total
ass.

  “Okay. How about you start at the beginning and tell me everything that happened tonight.”

  He listened with interest to her theory that Markus Dexter was secretive enough to have hidden things in his home. Made sense. He was less thrilled when she got to the part about deciding to go have a look for herself in Dexter’s house to see if she could find something he and his search team had missed.

  He bit back a sarcastic comment about her trying to do his job for him. Truce, man. Remember? You declared it. Even if she is a bossy little thing.

  Well, hell. Is that how he came across to her whenever he tried to give her suggestions about how to run her lab? He was just trying to help. He knew this was her first gig running her own crime lab, and he had a master’s degree in forensics, which meant he’d spent some time in crime labs while he was in school. He’d picked up a few things here and there that might be helpful—

  He broke off his train of thought, yet again.

  Was he actually the know-it-all she accused him of being? When had that happened? He’d always hated bossy bosses who got all up in his business.

  “Are you okay?” Yvette asked, startling him.

  “Yeah, sure. Why do you ask?”

  “You tuned out on me, there, for a second.”

  He sighed. “I was having an epiphany that you might have been right all along.”

  “About what?”

  “That I’ve turned into my old man.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “He’s a dyed-in-the-wool know-it-all. Always butting in with advice and suggestions.”

  “Ahh.”

  “What does that mean?” he demanded.

  “Nothing. Just ahh.”

  He had to give her credit for winning benevolently. She could’ve rubbed his nose in what a giant idiot he was, but she seemed willing to let it go without any gloating or I told you so’s. For which he was immensely grateful.

  He mentally gave himself a shake. “Okay. So you went to the Dexter home and started searching it.”

  “Right. But I didn’t find any false walls or hidden compartments anywhere on the first two floors. So, I headed up to the attic. I was poking around when I heard someone enter the house.”

  “Did you call out?”

  “No. I checked outside through the attic windows and didn’t see any police cars, so I concluded there might be an intruder.”

  “Is that when you called 9-1-1?” he asked.

  “Technically, I texted 9-1-1. And yes, I asked for backup.”

  “Then what?” he prompted when she fell silent.

  “The intruder came up into the attic,” she paused, then confessed in a rush, “and I hid.”

  “Good call.”

  “Really?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Absolutely. You had no way of knowing if the intruder was armed, violent or homicidal. I assume you weren’t carrying a weapon of your own?”

  “I may be an employee of the Braxville Police Department, but I’m a forensic scientist, not a gunslinger.”

  One corner of his mouth turned up. “Go on.”

  “While I waited for help to arrive, I watched him poke around as if he was looking for something specific. When he found that box, he immediately headed for the stairs, and I panicked. I was worried he was going to get away with whatever I’d gone there to find.”

  “So, you thought it would be a good idea to confront this stranger…and do what? Demand that he hand over his prize?”

  “I didn’t get that far. I yelled for him to freeze and identified myself as police.”

  “You’re not technically a police officer—” he started.

  “I know that,” she interrupted. “But he was about to leave. I had to stop him somehow.”

  “But instead of stopping, he rushed you, knocked you over and fled,” Reese supplied. “How did you get him to drop the box, again?”

  “I grabbed his leg as he ran past me. He stumbled and dropped it then. That was right when you yelled my name. He’d started to turn to pick up the box, but when he heard you calling out, he bolted.”

  “What are the odds the intruder was Markus Dexter?” he asked.

  “I never saw his face. The man was about six feet tall and wore a long wool coat. It was bulky, as if he had layers of clothing under it. He had on a black knit hat, and gloves. He could be anyone. It’s entirely possible Markus hired someone to come to the house and fetch that jewelry box. It would explain why the intruder took a while to find it.”

  “Dang it all,” Reese muttered under his breath.

  “I know you’re jonesing to pin something on Dex, but I can’t give you an ID I didn’t make.”

  “Of course not,” he agreed firmly. “We’ll get him fair and square, eventually. Are you feeling up to looking with me at the box he dropped? I’m curious to see what all the fuss was about.”

  “We ought to take it back to my lab.”

  He glanced up at the windows. “Weather’s getting worse. Roads are going to be nigh impassable soon. I say we have a look at it, here.”

  “Stubborn man,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Practical man,” he replied dryly.

  “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  “Sorry. Good hearing.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Duly noted. Have you got a tool set with a small screwdriver, a magnifying glass and tweezers? Maybe a bright lamp? Oh, and a fingerprint kit?”

  “Affirmative to all of the above. I’ll assemble them at the kitchen table.”

  “I’ll go get my cell phone,” she replied.

  “Why?”

  “Pictures. Have to take them to enter the box properly into evidence. Assuming you plan to actually open it tonight,” she added wryly.

  “Oh, yeah. I definitely want to see what all the fuss is about. Bastard better not have hurt you over nothing.”

  “I’m not hurt.”

  “But you could’ve been. A few steps closer to the stairs and you could have taken a bad fall.” The way his gut clenched at the idea of her lying broken and in pain—or even dead—at the bottom of that narrow staircase was shocking. He’d learned a long time ago how to distance his emotions from his work, but that skill seemed to have abruptly deserted him.

  She seemed startled at the vehemence in his voice. Did she really have no idea that he thought of her as—his train of thought crashed off the end of the rails and plunged into a mental abyss.

  How did he think of her? She was certainly more than a colleague. A friend? A challenge? A potential love interest? Darned if he knew.

  They reconvened at Reese’s wood-plank kitchen table. It was a single slab out of what must have been a massive tree when it was alive. She ran her palm over the satin-smooth surface. “Seems a shame to kill a tree this magnificent just so you can have a kitchen table.”

  Reese smiled a little. “This table’s been in my family over a hundred years. And my great-granddaddy planted some of the first trees in the Kansas prairie. Trust me. The Carpenter family has helped many more trees grow than we ever cut down. You can put away your environmental outrage.”

  She rolled her eyes at him while he clamped a bright work lamp with a telescoping arm to the edge of the table.

  He turned on the light and Yvette’s whole demeanor changed. He was fascinated to watch her focus her entire attention on the damaged wooden box. Did she do that with her lovers, too? Concentrate all of her attention like that? It was sexy as hell.

  One corner of the inlaid mahogany box was crushed, no doubt where it had hit the floor, and she took several pictures of that.

  She photographed it from every conceivable angle, including having him turn it upside down. When she was satisfied with the lighting and the shots she’d taken, she finally nodded to him. “You can open it, now.�
�

  Except the lid was locked tight. He tugged on it to no avail.

  “Can you pick the lock?” she asked, “Or do you need me to?”

  “I can, but I don’t think this is a regular locking box. It looks like a puzzle box to me,” he answered.

  “How’s that?” she asked quickly.

  “See this piece in the lid? It slides slightly to one side in these tracks.” She leaned in closer to stare at where he was pointing, and he smelled the sophisticated warmth of her perfume. Or maybe that was her hair. Either way, she smelled like old money. Class. Way out of his league, for darned sure.

  “So, slide it,” she said impatiently.

  “The thing with puzzle boxes is you have to move the parts in the right order to get them to open.”

  “Will we hurt it if we move various parts and pieces while we try to figure it out?”

  “Not unless there’s some sort of booby trap built into it. In which case, a wrong move will usually break a small vial of acid or solvent that destroys or dissolves the treasure in the middle of the thing.”

  “What are the odds we can get this thing to open on the first try?” she asked in quick alarm.

  “Zero.” He studied the box for a moment more and added, “This looks like a tricky one. The first order of business is to get an idea of how many moving parts it has and where they are.”

  She nodded, leaning close to his shoulder to study the box as he tugged and poked at each side. They found various panels, springs, hinges and connection points, and over time got a feel for the thing.

  “Check out that piece right there,” she murmured. “Does it look like the flower would move independent of the surrounding inlay?”

  “Looks like it. You have a discerning eye.”

  “Forensic scientist, here. You may be a detective and answer why everything happens, but I make my living spotting subtle details that will tell me how it happened.”

  “Logical,” he murmured. “Ready to give opening the box a try?”

  “One sec.” She photographed the box with various panels moved enough to one side to create a tiny crack in the exterior wood panels. “Okay. Go for it.”

  His gaze snapped to hers. Now there were words he’d been waiting to hear come out of her mouth for a very long time.