Free The Stranger Next Door by Chastity Bush Page A

happened?”
    “The maid found her. Apparently, she’d had the weekend off, and when she came in this morning, she found her. It looks like she was murdered.”
    Tess couldn’t wrap her head around it. She and Melanie were far from friends, but why would someone kill her? As far as she knew, she was nothing more than a money-grubbing whore.
    “Was it a robbery?”
    “Doesn’t look like it,” Officer Holdings said.
    “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked irritably, narrowing her eyes once again on the captain.
    “There wasn’t anything missing from the house. She was tied to a chair, and it appears as though she was tortured.”
    Tess swallowed thickly. “Tortured? Are you sure?”
    Nodding, Captain Lewis took a deep drink of his coffee.
    “What does all of this have to do with Tess?” Jack asked from behind her.
    Officer Flynn spoke up. “That’s just it. We’re not sure it has anything to do with her at all. But with her being the victim’s deceased husband’s partner, there's a possibility that whoever tortured and killed Mrs. Camillo is after something. This person may come after Tess, thinking she can help them get whatever it is they’re after. That’s why the captain asked us to call him at home, should you call the station for anything out of the ordinary.”
    “That makes sense,” Jack said thoughtfully. “What now?”
    Again, Officer Flynn spoke, pushing the black hair from his eyes. “We don’t have much to go on. We could take you to a safe house until—”
    “No,” she interrupted him, holding up her hands. “I won’t run. You said yourself you don’t know for certain the same guys that killed Melanie are after me.”
    “And we don’t know that they’re not. Tess, you don’t know what these people are capable of. You didn’t see Melanie.” Officer Holdings spoke gently, once again placing his hand over hers and rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. “Nothing was taken from her house, but you never know what these people might be after. Do you have a safe or anything of monetary value in the house that anyone might know about?”
    “Why do you ask?” she asked with a hint of suspicion.
    “I’m only asking because, if you do, that might be what they’re after. Whoever knows about it might be the ones after you.”
    Tess still didn’t know what her safe had to do with anything. If the men who attacked her tonight had wanted her money, wouldn’t they have asked for it instead of trying to kidnap her?
    “No,” she lied. The truth was she had all of the money Dean had left her in a hidden safe in the attic, but the only people who’d ever known about it were Roman and Dean.
    But everyone knows your aversion to banks… “Besides, didn’t you say nothing was taken from Melanie’s house? I know for a fact she has a safe; everyone knows that.”
    Holdings replied quickly as all eyes turned to him, each holding a question. “I'm just covering all the bases. Like I said, they might not have taken anything from her, but she might not have had what they were looking for, whatever that might have been.”
    His thumb ran in a slow circle over the back of her hand as he looked into her eyes. “We want to make sure you’re safe. That’s why I’m asking anything and everything I can think of.”
    A deep growl sounded softly behind her. Glancing up, she struggled to suppress the shiver that threatened to wrack her body as she took in Jack’s expression.
    Looking up, Officer Holdings must have seen something in Jack’s expression as he quickly removed his hand before clearing his throat and continuing. “It would be better if you weren’t alone until we find who’s responsible.”
    Despite the situation, Tess had the overwhelming urge to giggle. Not only was the handsome officer subtly flirting with her, not that he hadn’t always flirted with her, but Jack sounded as if he were a lion about to pounce. If she could, she would tell Jack he had nothing to worry