Temptation Trails (The Haven Brothers #3)

It had been a pack of six. And we found five in my drawer.

Garrett asked if he could look again to confirm. We searched my bedroom top to bottom. Every drawer, all through my closet, even in the bathroom. He checked the laundry room to make sure they weren’t there, even moving the washer and dryer to look behind them.

Nothing. No more granny panties.

We went back to the kitchen and he took off the gloves. “You should come to my place.”

I wasn’t about to argue—any excuse to stay at his place—but I wasn’t sure what was going on. “Why?”

“Someone might have broken into your house.” He gestured to the box. “And whoever did it, wants you to know. You can’t stay here.”

It felt as if all the color drained from my face and the awful sense of violation made my stomach churn. I put a hand over my mouth.

Garrett pulled me against him and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I swear.”

I nodded against his chest. I didn’t understand what was going on or why, but I knew Garrett would keep me safe.

CHAPTER 28

Garrett

To say I was amped would have been an understatement.

After helping Harper pack some of her things, we left for my place. No way in hell was she staying at her house. Someone had been there. Had taken a pair of her underwear and sent it to her.

Just like Jasmine.

Taking a girl’s panties had the whiff of a prank to it. It was so cliché, it was almost silly. But this wasn’t just a stolen pair of underwear. The fact that whoever had taken them had then left them outside her house seemed like a message.

I couldn’t ignore the possibility that someone was out to fuck with me, and that someone wasn’t Jasmine’s killer. It had been all over the Tilikum gossip line that I was investigating the case. A person with a sick sense of humor might have decided to mimic the events leading up to Jasmine’s murder, targeting my girlfriend.

The problem was, the packages Jasmine had received weren’t common knowledge. Because the original investigators had written them off as unrelated—without confirming, which was driving me nuts—they weren’t part of the lore of her unsolved murder.

And my gut was telling me this was no prank. It was a taunt.

My shoulders and back were tense as I drove. Harper was quiet. I knew she was worried, and the sense of violation that accompanied a breaking and entering could run deep. Our homes are meant to be our safe places. Knowing someone with ill intent had been inside her home—in her bedroom—was bound to make her unsettled at best. Terrified at worst.

The whole thing pissed me off. No one fucked with my woman.

I reached over, clasping her hand in mine, and she gave me a weak smile.

“Everything will be fine,” I said, willing it to be true. “Whatever is going on, it won’t touch you at my place. You’ll be safe.”

“Thank you. I’m just so confused. Who would break into a woman’s house just to take a pair of her underwear—and not even the cute ones—and send them back to her?”

“I don’t know.”

I hadn’t told her about the similarities in Jasmine’s case. I’d been trained not to share details of the cases I was working on with anyone. Plus, I didn’t want to scare her. Maybe I was wrong and there wasn’t a connection. She had enough on her mind already.

When we got to my house, I grabbed her things and brought them inside. Owen was on the couch playing a game on his phone, but he got up as soon as he saw Harper.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

No way was I telling Owen about the package. “I thought it would be best if Harper stayed with us for a while.”

“Cool.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to take over your room or anything,” she teased.