Free KCPD Protector by Julie Miller

attention. “It’s there now. You opened the box in the flowerpot and showed it to me. Remember?”
    Why not just pat her on the head and say, “There, there”? Elise jerked her arm away and took a step toward her closest ally. “Spike and I both heard him.”
    Hale shrugged, sounding exasperated with her seeming lack of reason. “Unfortunately, I can’t take the word of a fuzz mop.”
    Apparently, he wouldn’t take her word, either. “I’m not lying. He could have taken the key and made a copy,” she argued, still looking for a reason to explain what she knew to be true.
    “I didn’t say—”
    “Elise!” After a quick rap on her front door, a deep, clipped voice bellowed from the foyer below.
    With a woof, Spike sprang to his feet.
    “George?” She swung her head toward the sound of the deputy commissioner calling her name through the rooms on the main floor.
    “Ma’am, wait.” Officer Hale put his arm out to block her rush toward the bedroom door, but Elise skirted around him. “We don’t know who—”
    “I do. G... Commissioner? What are you doing here?”
    Spike hurried down the steps after her. The broad back of George Madigan’s navy suit jacket turned to reveal an open collar and that inviting chest. At the last second, common sense reined in Elise’s relief, and she stopped herself from running straight into his arms, denying herself the haven of security he offered.
    But he clasped her shoulders anyway, his slightly rough hands making contact that shot through her skin like a bolt of lightning, exciting frayed nerves and weakening a resolve that couldn’t handle many more demands on it. “I heard your address on the scanner driving home. I called Dispatch to verify that you’d reported an intruder. Officer Boyd just let me in.” Although he lowered the volume of his voice, there was no less authority behind it. “Are you okay?”
    Denton Hale loomed up like a shadow behind her on the stairs. “I didn’t know you two were...” The tone of the officer’s voice snapped to attention. “The scene is secure, sir.”
    Without asking permission or apologizing for startling her, George tucked Elise to his side, draping an arm around her shoulders to keep her snugged against his solid flank. “She works for me, Denton. That’s all you need to know. But it doesn’t matter who she is. Get outside with your partner, Boyd, and double-check that everything’s secure, from the basement to the attic. Don’t forget her car and the garage, too.”
    “Her car wasn’t here when the alleged intruder—”
    Elise snapped her gaze up. “Alleged?”
    She felt a squeeze on her shoulder as George moved them out of the uniformed officer’s path to the front door. “Do it. Canvas the neighborhood, too. Get statements from anyone who saw anything around Miss Brown’s house today. Ask if there have been any other break-ins or suspicious activity in the area.”
    “Boyd is already doing that.”
    “Good. Then you’d better get out there and help him. There are a lot of homes on this street.”
    “Yes, sir.” Denton pulled his cap from his rear pocket, squeezing it in his fist before turning to Elise. “Ma’am, if anything I said or did—”
    “Now.” George dismissed Hale before he finished his apology. As soon as the door closed behind the officer, George tugged Elise into step beside him and crossed through the arch into her shrouded living room. “So what did he say or do to upset you?”
    “He took my statement.”
    “And?”
    Elise’s feet didn’t seem to be moving under their own power. “I don’t think he believed me.”
    George may have muttered a curse. But whether it was aimed at Officer Hale or the cluttered state of her house, she couldn’t tell. Other than a pause to orient himself to the drop cloths and sawhorses in front of the fireplace, George led her to the furniture that had all been stacked against the opposite wall. Even a small black dog sniffing around his feet