Armed With Steele by Kyra Jacobs Read Free Book Online

moment. “Damn, these are good.”
    “Thanks.” I lowered myself onto the love seat adjacent to him. “I like to bake, and these are my favorites. Grace’s too.” I could feel the smile slip from my face.
    Officer Steele took that as his cue. He popped the rest of his cookie into his mouth, then washed it down with quick drink of milk. “So, your message said you had some information you wanted to share about the accident. Did you think of something you’d forgotten to tell me on Friday, or did this come up after the fact?”
    “A little of both, I suppose.”
    He reached down, retrieved the leather-bound notepad from his belt, and flipped it open. “Okay, whattcha got?”
    I took a deep breath and hoped he was prepared to talk about more than speed this time. “Alright. So, when you were talking to me and Matt on Friday—”
    “Matt Harris? Miss Sullivan’s boyfriend?”
    “Yes. You told us that Grace’s car doors were unlocked when you got there.”
    “That’s correct.”
    “Well, that can’t be right.”
    His brows furrowed. “If I remember correctly, you brought this up on Friday, and I verified it in my notes.”
    “I know, and I’m not saying you’re wrong,” I added quickly. “I’m just saying that can’t be right. There are two things Grace always does before she puts her car into gear. The first, is put on her seatbelt. And the second, is to lock the doors.”
    “Maybe she forgot?”
    I shook my head. “No. Listen, Grace is a typical, fun-loving twenty-five-year-old. But she also has her fair share of quirks. We all do, I suppose.”
    A grin stole across Officer Steele’s face. “And locking her doors is one of these quirks?”
    “Yes. And even if for some bizarre reason she’d forgotten to do it that one time, her car automatically locks its doors once it shifts out of park.”
    “Hmm.” He slid a pen out from the notepad’s spiral binding and scribbled something down. “Anything else?”
    “Her purse.”
    His eyes narrowed in concentration. “The large, black shoulder bag I retrieved from her car?”
    “Yep, that’s the one. Okay, two things. First, it was unzipped. Did you happen to look inside it for her ID or something?”
    Officer Steele nodded. “Yes, I did. It was sitting beside her on the front passenger seat. But it was already unzipped. I remember seeing her wallet from the window—it was pink, right?”
    I nodded.
    “So I reached in, checked her ID, then set the wallet back in her purse. When they had her loaded into the ambulance, I handed the bag to Mr. Harris.”
    “Then there’re a few more clues.”
    He threw me a puzzled look.
    I counted them off on my fingers. “First, her purse was unzipped.”
    “Let me guess—another quirk?”
    “Yes—you’ve got to trust me on this. She never drove off with her purse unzipped. It’s a girl thing.”
    “Yeah, seems like I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
    I smirked. Take that, Matt…
    “Okay, purse unzipped,” he said as he jotted it down.
    “Second, there’s the whole issue of where you found her purse. Are you sure it was sitting on her front passenger seat?”
    Officer Steele put the pen between his teeth and flipped back through his notes. I found myself studying the way his lips curved around the pen and reached for another cookie to distract myself. After scanning a page or two, he reached up to retrieve his writing utensil. “Yes, that’s where I found it.”
    I set the cookie on my plate and leaned forward. “Officer, I’m no expert on car crashes, but doesn’t that seem a little odd? Her car veers off the road, rolls, slams into a pole, and somehow her purse manages to end up on the front passenger seat?”
    Officer Steele’s gaze met mine. “Maybe.”
    “And if the purse was in fact unzipped before you ever touched it, might some of its contents have spilled in the process?”
    His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Possibly.”
    “So, do you remember seeing anything lying