Excerpt from "Christmas Confessions" by Kathleen Long

Jack slept soundly on the sofa, his hand draped across a sheaf of papers. Even in his sleep, his features reflected the tension of the day, the magnitude of the unknown they were facing.

Abby reached for a fleece throw and pulled it up over his legs, not wanting to disturb him and yet longing to touch his cheek. She shoved the crazy thought from her brain. Obviously, she’d better get some sleep herself. She’d begun to lose control of what little rationality she had left.

Jack’s words rang through her mind as she watched him sleep.

Inside your office.

A shudder raced across her shoulders and down her spine.

The third postcard hadn’t just been mailed to the site’s post office box, it had been placed inside her office. What next?

“You all right?” The rumble of Jack’s tired voice jolted Abby from her thoughts. She hadn’t realized he’d awakened; yet there he lay, watching her.

She nodded. “Just thirsty.”

Jack narrowed his gaze and gave a quick shake of his head. “Thirsty doesn’t put a look that worried on a face as beautiful as yours.”

Now she was imagining things. There was no way Jack Grant had called her beautiful. Abby’s traitorous stomach caught and twisted just the same.

“Abby?” Jack pulled himself to a sitting position and patted the sofa beside him.

“You were right,” she said.

“I usually am.”

“And humble.” Abby warmed inside, enjoying their banter yet understanding the only reasons the mood had turned intimate were the late hour and their combined fatigue.

“I have a gift for reading people.”

Abby wasn’t about to argue--she’d seen him in action.

“So Don’t Say A Word is more about your guilt than about helping others?”

She flinched, then moved to sit beside him on the sofa, keeping a respectable distance between them. “I wouldn’t say that, though I do think it’s helped the postcard confessors more than it’s helped me.”

He studied her, and she read his thoughts as if they were stamped on his forehead. Jack Grant saw right though her. His next statement confirmed the point.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of suicides during my time on the force. I know how difficult the situation can be for those left behind--”

“The situation?” His words left Abby cold.

“You probably think you neglected your friend in some way. You think you could have done more, listened more.” He gave a slight lift and drop of his shoulders. “You think you should have seen her pain in time to stop her.”

Abby had seen Vicki’s pain, but she’d never guessed her oldest friend would take her life. How wrong she’d been.

And she wasn’t about to tell Jack that not only had she stopped listening, she’d started avoiding, no doubt adding to Vicki’s sense of despair.

“What about you? Do you think placing someone behind bars will help you put Emma’s death behind you?”

He sank back against the sofa cushions, saying nothing for a moment. “It sounds straightforward when you say it like that, but I’ll never put Emma’s death behind me. I don’t see how it’s possible.”

Abby glanced again at Vicki’s framed image, the smooth glass obscuring details in the dim lighting. “I pick up the phone to call her at least once a day. I can’t seem to make my subconscious realize she’s gone.”

She realized then that someone had replaced the broken glass. Gina, perhaps? She must have come back while Jack and Abby were with Devine.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Abby.” Jack touched her knee lightly, sending a jolt of awareness through Abby’s system.

He broke contact, but they remained where they were, both motionless.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Jack’s abrupt change of topic took Abby by surprise, but she realized in that moment that she trusted him, believed him, as if she’d known him for years.

The thought scared her to death. She hadn’t trusted anyone in a very long time, and surely not with her life. Just the same, she realized she didn’t want Jack to go back to his hotel in the morning. She wanted him by her side.

“I’d better get that water and let you get some sleep.” She pushed to her feet and forced herself to look anywhere but into the detective’s sleep-softened eyes.

Abby hugged herself, rubbing her upper arms as she turned once again for the kitchen.

The silhouette of something the size of a postcard, taped to the kitchen window, snapped her out of her protective cocoon in one fell swoop.

She leaned close to read the message on the card, flipping on the overhead kitchen light to better illuminate the simple black type.

It’s time to stop living in the past.

Abby’s blood ran cold.

“Jack.”

He was at her side in a single beat of her heart, following the line of her gaze.

“Sonofa--” He spun away from her, racing for the front door. “Don’t move.”

Don’t move. As if she could pull so much as a toe from the virtual concrete the postcard had set around her feet.

Jack reappeared outside, careful not to move too close to the window, yet scowling as he studied the image on the other side.

Another victim? Local? Or from New Mexico?

Based on the look on Jack’s face, the photograph was of one of his victims. The anger flashing across his features went deep, too deep to have been a victim he didn’t know.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed, speaking quickly. Abby did her best to read his lips through the insulated glass, but failed miserably.

By the time he stepped back inside, the far off wail of sirens could be heard, drawing steadily closer.

“Who did you call?” Abby asked the question without turning around, unable to rip her gaze from the postcard.

Jack’s hands closed over her shoulders and squeezed, pulling her to him, her back to his chest. She longed to relax into the reassuring strength of his chest, longed to feel his arms reach around to hold her tight.

She longed to wake up tomorrow to find out tonight had been nothing more than a bad dream.

“Detective Hayes. Police are on their way.”

The sirens outside intensified, closer now.

Abby asked the inevitable. “Who is it?”

“On the picture?”

She nodded.

Jack turned her to face him, shifting his hands to maintain contact, holding her as if he expected her to topple over at any moment. His expression had gone unreadable, a mixture of anger and determination and...attraction?

“Jack?”

His mouth opened and shut once before he answered.

“It’s you, Abby. The picture on the card is you.”