Perfect Victim, The (28 page)

He watched her from across the room, reading
'
her as best he could, not knowing what to say or how to comfort. "Pain is a part of life, Addison
.
But so is healing. It takes time."

"I can't believe how quickly the months have passed. It seems like just yesterday when ..."

Slowly, cautiously, Randall came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He felt the tremors rising up inside her
.
He wasn't sure if it was from the cold or the grief or, perhaps, a combination of both. "We didn't have to come here."

"Yes, we did." Shaking off his hands, she turned to face him. "I did."

"It's okay for you to grieve."

"I can deal with the grieving."

"Can you?"

"Yes." For the first time he noticed the anger smoldering in the depths of her eyes, crowding out the grief. "What I can't deal with is that they were taken from me. That somebody murdered them. My parents. They were good people. How could someone just wipe out their lives?"

For her sake, he wished he could dispute the truth
.
He wished he could tell her that Patty and Larry Fox hadn't been murdered. But he couldn't
.
He might be able to lie to himself, but he couldn't lie to Addison. He'd never been able to lie to someone he cared about, and he'd always been able to live with himself because of it
.

Her tears came in a flood and with the same violence as the storm raging outside. Turning away from him, she slammed her open palm against the door. "Damn!" Her shoulders began to shake.

Something akin to panic swirled in his chest
.
He didn't know how to deal with tears. His instincts told him to walk away. But with Addison, he knew he couldn't
.
He wanted to comfort, to protect, though he wasn't quite sure how to approach this angry, hurting woman. The only thing he was
certain of was that he wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her and make her pain go away.

Cautiously, he reached for her, feeling her stiffen an instant before he turned her to him and pulled her close. His arms went around her. Her head fell against his shoulder. The clean, sweet scent of her filled his nostrils and titillated his senses.

When her arms went around his waist, he closed his eyes, rested his head against hers, and forgot about everything except the moment between them. She felt like heaven against him. Soft and small and ... precious. He was acutely aware of her warmth, her scent, the way her body conformed to his with such utter perfection.

"Go ahead and cry if you need to," he said.

"I didn't want to lose it like this." She sniffed. "I hate crying."

"You're entitled."

"I didn't realize how hard this would be."

"You don't have to hold it in. Not for me. Not for yourself."

A sigh shuddered out of her. "Thank you."

"As long as you realize I'm a little out of my element here."

She choked out a laugh: "You're doing a good job. The hug is a nice touch."

Uncomfortable, he shrugged, wishing she'd stop looking so damn sad. "We need to talk about what we found today."

"And what we're going to do about it." She gazed up at him, tears glittering in her eyes.

He stared at her, willing himself not to want her when she was at her most vulnerable. Lust, he thought, shifting from one foot to the other to accommodate the ache in his groin.

It's just lust.

Damn, lust had never done this to him before.

Giving himself a mental shake, Randall reminded himself
that she wasn't the only one who was vulnerable at the moment
.
His life wasn't exactly in order. He couldn't let himself get tangled up with a woman and spend the next year pining for her from D.C.

Chapter 12

"I found soup!” Bent over a large corrugated moving box, Addison snatched up the can and waved it.

"What kind?"

She looked up and spotted Randall stacking the last of the firewood next to the hearth. "No label." Twisting the manual can opener, she walked into the living room and sniffed the open can. "Chicken noodle, I think."

He grinned. "I was hoping for alphabet soup."

"Sorry." It wasn't easy rummaging through the boxes she'd packed at the height of her grief. Her heart clenched each time she ran across an item that stirred even the smallest of memories. The wicker napkin holder she and her mother had bought at a nearby antique shop. The electronic chess set that had kept her father entranced for hours while she and her mother had cried buckets over Titanic.

Shaking off the memories, she looked up to see Randall pull an old cast-iron skillet out of a box. He hit her with a devastating grin. "Will this do?"

Unable to keep herself from it, she grinned back. "Perfect
.
"

Despite the mussed black hair and five o'clock shadow, he looked almost domesticated standing there in his jeans, T-shirt, and gray flannel shirt. He was too damn handsome for his own good, she decided. Granted, a little rough around the edges. Edges could be smoothed with just the right touch.

Knowing they were dangerous thoughts leaping through .her mind, she carried the soup to the hearth, with its furiously burning fire, where Randall was digging through another box.

"Some spoons would be nice," he said, setting a toaster aside.

"Or we could just slurp."

They spotted the unopened bottle of cognac simultaneously
.
Randall froze, staring
at it
.
His hands gripped the sides of the box so tightly his knuckles turned white. Several seconds passed before he moved. He reached for the toaster, set it back inside the box, and closed the flaps.

Addison's heart skipped a beat as the significance of his reaction dawned on her. He'd wanted a drink, she realized, wanted it badly. And a pang of concern for him tightened her chest
.

"I think I saw a package of plastic spoons in the kitchen drawer," she said quickly.

His gaze swept to hers, and a silent understanding passed between them.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah." He looked away. ''I'm fine
.
"

''I'm glad." She smiled, then went to get the spoons.

She returned to find the skillet full of steaming soup. He'd arranged napkins and two mismatched glasses on the coffee table
.
The setup couldn't
have looked
more appealing. They'd gone most of the day without food. After the grueling trek into the ravine, she was famished.

They sat on the floor with
the coffee table between them.
Addison hadn't let herself think too much about what had happened to her parents. But now, having set her emotions aside, a hundred questions rushed at her like daggers. Questions about her parents' deaths and how that was going to change the case. Questions about the dark mystery she faced back in Denver. And questions about the troubled man sitting across from her.

"You're quiet."

She looked up to find him studying her intently. "I'm still grappling with what happened to Mom and Dad. I never would have imagined ... murder." She didn't like the way the word felt on her tongue. The ugliness of it aggravated the slowly healing wound in her heart.

He stopped eating and watched her carefully from across the small table. "I'm sorry it worked out this way. And I'm sorry you have to go through this."

"It's okay I needed to know the truth." She ate some of the soup, but her mind wasn't on eating. "What exactly did you see down in that ravine that makes you think someone forced their car off the road?"

"There was white paint on the bumper and on the left rear quarter panel," he said. "Had I not been looking specifically for that, I would have missed it, just as Sheriff White had."

"The paint was from another vehicle?"

He nodded. "I took some photos and scraped off a paint sample to take back to Van-Dyne for the lab. I'm going to try to get the Denver PD interested in this case."

"Isn't this out of Denver's jurisdiction?"

"Yeah, but you're not. Neither is Bernstein's case."

She bit her lip, struggling to put aside the uneasiness slicing through her. It still hadn't quite sunk in that someone had murdered her parents. That the same murderer had shot Jim Bernstein. Or that the same someone might be trying to kill her. The notion was so outrageous her mind just couldn't absorb it.

"I need to know why," she said. "I can't accept any of this until I know who's responsible and why."

"My
g
uess is that someone doesn't want you to know your birth parents."

His words ricocheted around inside her head like a stray bullet, shattering the illusions of safety and security she'd held her entire life
.
Simultaneously, a new and infinitely terrible thought engulfed her
.
"Do you think they've also murdered my birth father?"

"It's possib
l
e
—
"

"He could be in danger."

"My priority right now is to keep you safe
.
"

"My god, we have to find him. We have to warn him
—
"

"If anyone can find him, Jack can," Randall cut in. "Trust me. He's good at what he does."

Half
-
heartedly, Addison picked at the soup. "So, we're relatively certain whoever killed my parents is the same person who murdered Agnes Beckett and Jim Bernstein," she said, thinking out loud.

"And tried to kill you at your coffee sh
o
p
,
" Randall reminded her
.

"The common link is my adoption."

''That's the only connection I can see."

''Why now?" The next thought struck her like a blow. "Oh, my god."

Randall's eyes narrowed. ''What is
it?"

"I keep trying to think of an impetus
.
Why this happened now
.
" She looked at him, felt the pain and guilt slinking through her like a fast
-
growing cancer. "My search. I'd just begun when my parents were killed. Oh, God. Oh
,
Randall, you don't think—"

''This isn't your fault
.
"

"If I hadn't started searching for my birth parents
,
maybe none of this
would have happened
.
" The words were too ugly
,
too horrible to comprehend. It was bad enough losing her parents. But to know they had been murdered in cold blood because of something she may have done was infinitely worse.