Her Holiday Protector. Lenora Worth

you get back to your place?”

      “I know my way home,” he said, thinking he’d come right back here and do some more checking on his own.

      Blain followed her to the front door where an officer was waiting to place crime-scene tape across the entryway and all around the small porch. Some of the neighbors were standing out on the boardwalk, their expressions full of shock and questions.

      An officer walked them to a waiting patrol car.

      Blain shot a glance toward the woman and remembered the sporty little convertible parked in her garage. Neither the car nor the woman would ever be his in this lifetime. Out of his league. So he needed to focus on work and not the subject at hand, his gut burning for answers.

      She got in and glanced back after Blain put her stuff in the trunk and slid in beside her in the backseat. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why someone would rob me and...kill Tessa.”

      “Are you sure you don’t want to call your mother?” Maybe if he kept pushing, she’d keep talking.

      “No. It’s late and she’s not well.”

      “I’m sorry to hear that. Who is your mother? I might know her.”

      “I doubt it.”

      Again, that nonresponse. “Okay.”

      Then she sat up on the seat. “What about Pebble?”

      “Excuse me?”

      “My cat, Pebble. He’s missing.”

      “We’ll put out some food for him and alert the neighbors.”

      The neighbors who were checking out their windows right about now and texting their friends and standing along the boardwalk in clusters of fear. Yeah, they’d definitely check with those neighbors.

      He wouldn’t push on that matter or the matter of her refusal to give him a straight answer, but he’d certainly do his own research later. So much for a slow holiday season.

      He pulled out a business card when they approached the hotel she’d mentioned, one of the few low-budget hotels in town. At least this one was new and located near a busy intersection. No fancy condo-type accommodations around Millbrook. “Listen, if you need me for anything or if you remember anything, call me. No matter the time.”

      “I will.”

      Yeah, right.

      He came around to help her out of the car but she already had her door open and herself out, tall boots and jean-clad legs first. He got the bag she’d packed out of the trunk. “I’ll walk you to the front desk and make sure you’re in a secure room.”

      “Okay.”

      Twenty minutes later, Blain was on his way to the station to file his report, his mind humming with the sure knowledge that Rikki Allen knew things she didn’t want him to know. He’d head back to her town house once he was done with his work and look for her cat.

      But he intended to find out the truth.

      And while he did that, he’d try to get the image of those chocolate eyes and that matching hair out of his head. Blain’s gut told him there was a lot more to Rikki Allen than she wanted anyone to know.

      But he knew enough.

      A beautiful, mysterious woman who’d broken up with her boyfriend and who’d obviously lived a life of privilege had interrupted an intruder in her home and had found her best friend dead. A best friend who resembled her. This case shouted hit man.

      His job was to find out if someone wanted Rikki Allen dead. But he also wanted to figure out what she was trying so desperately to hide from the world.

       THREE

      Rikki tried to sleep but being alone in a strange room didn’t help her to block out the image of Tessa, beautiful, sweet Tessa, lying there with blood all around her.

      Tessa, who knew all of Rikki’s secrets. A good friend—her college roommate—who’d taken Rikki under her wing after Drake had died and made her feel as if she wasn’t going to lose her mind, after all.

       Dear Lord, what happened to her? Help me understand. Help me to accept that she’s in heaven with You now.

      Blain had told her they’d notify Tessa’s next of kin, but Tessa didn’t have anyone close here in America since her parents had both passed away over recent years. Her one brother lived somewhere in Europe and Rikki didn’t have any way to contact him. Tessa hadn’t talked about her older brother a lot.

      No one to mourn her. Except me.

      Rikki had two big brothers, one married and one divorced, depending on which brother and which day, and several nieces and nephews, and a whole slew of aunts and uncles. A network of people who loved her in spite of how she’d abandoned all of them.

      Santo and his family lived here and he ran the business now. He’d be all over her about this. Victor was somewhere in Europe. He’d turned his back completely on the family but he didn’t mind using the family funds to party all over the world.

      Rikki didn’t want any of the mighty Alvanetti money.

      She’d stayed long enough to appease her father and to reassure her mother, and then she’d left a few weeks after Drake’s death. Forever, she’d thought. But she loved her mother and they’d kept in touch over the years. Sonia had always maintained that Drake’s wreck was a tragedy. That no one has caused it.

      Even so, when she got reports of her mother being taken ill while on a cruise overseas this summer, Rikki had kept in constant touch. But Sonia had not improved, and had had a heart attack as well, so she knew she had to come back. The doctors had verified that the vibrant Sonia Alvanetti had several other health complications and an onset of dementia, but with bed rest and a better diet and several prescriptions, she could improve. Maybe.

      In other words, her mother could snap out of this or she could die in a few years. She could be giving up because she missed her one son who had left for good and she missed her daughter who kept promising to come and see her. Rikki’s brother Victor didn’t care that their mother had taken ill in Europe and he didn’t care now. Rikki had come home to help her mother recover.

      Rikki had been thinking of coming home since she’d noticed her mother didn’t remember things and constantly repeated herself. Sometimes, she’d talk about her husband, the powerful Franco Alvanetti, as if she hated him. Which surprised Rikki. Her parents had always been so in love with each other that they oftentimes managed to shut out the rest of the world. Or ignore it, at least.

      The kind of in-love that Rikki had given up on.

      Rikki wished now that she’d come back sooner. But then, tonight she wished a lot of things could have been different.

      She missed Tessa already. If she’d come home a few minutes earlier, she might have been able to save her friend.

      This, with her mother so sick and her ex-boyfriend harassing her. It was just too much. Chad Presley didn’t like being dumped. He’d threatened Rikki one time too many and he had powerful friends all over the state. But then, so did her father.

      And using that angle had been her saving grace.

      “If you don’t leave me alone, Chad, I’ll have to tell my father and my brothers. You won’t like it when they come after you.”

      The bluff had worked long enough for her to regroup and come home. But maybe Chad wasn’t afraid of her family. She should have told the detective the whole story but fear had gripped her, choking her with an intense power. Fear that Chad would make good on his promises and fear that her family would get involved if he did.

      A chill moved through her at the thought of Chad finding her here. Would he think