It amazed Addison to watch a man who couldn’t walk slide his body from wheelchair to driver's seat, then quickly fold the chair and toss it onto the backseat of his antiquated Corvette like a lightweight piece of luggage. He'd even paused to open the passenger door for her first. A gentleman to boot, she thought. Too bad good manners didn't run in the family.
He was an older version of his brother, shorter of frame and heavier in the upper body. Both men shared the same penetrating eyes, but Jack's face was deeply lined with the years of what had probably been a hard life.
Neither of them spoke as he drove her to her apartment. Though Addison felt the need to help as he lifted the wheelchair from the backseat, she quickly realized he was much more adept than she. In less than two minutes, he was back in the chair and they were riding the elevator up to her second-level apartment.
Once inside, she made a beeline for the bathroom, where she scrubbed the blood from her hands, holding them under the not water until her skin turned pink. Then, needing to move, to embroil herself in normalcy, she went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.
She was still shaking, but the worst of the tremors had ceased during the drive to her apartment. Physically, she was functioning. But that didn't say much for her frame of mind. She'd known Jim Bernstein since she was a child. She couldn't believe he was dead, much less by an act of violence. Shock waves rippled through her every time she closed her eyes and saw him lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
Van-Dyne's attitude toward her hadn't helped matters. She hadn't made a very good impression on the detective. But she couldn't bring herself to believe he considered her a suspect. Maybe he was just angry because she'd turned down his invitation to lunch. She wasn't sure how she would have managed if Jack hadn't shown up when he did.
After pouring two cups of coffee, she met Jack at the dining room table and slid one of the cups in front of him. "You and your brother really have this timing thing down to a fine art," she said. "Thanks for rescuing me."
"Randall told me what happened last night at your shop. You were lucky."
"He saved my life."
Jack cut her a sharp look. "He didn't mention that."
She didn't miss the flash of surprise on his face. "He's got this annoying habit of being modest."
"He's got quite a few annoying habits."
Addison didn't comment on that one. Lowering her head, she rubbed her aching temples with her fingertips. "Jesus. I still can't believe any of this is real."
"What happened back there at the lawyer's office? The message you left was hard to follow. You were hysterical."
She swallowed, an involuntary action that made her realize she'd wanted to put off that part of the conversation a while longer. Raising her head, she took a fortifying breath. "I went to Jim's office to pick up some records. When I got there, the place was deserted. I walked into his office, and ... found him on the floor behind his desk. There was blood ...." Bile rose in her throat when the scene flickered in her mind's eye. "I panicked, called 911, then your office."
"You see anyone else there?"
"No."
Pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, he stuck one between his lips and flamed the tip. Addison usually didn't allow smoking in her apartment, but she didn't have the energy to stop him. In light of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, a little cigarette smoke didn't seem very important.
"I guess the question now is whether all this is somehow related," he said, exhaling a silver ribbon of smoke.
The implications of the statement punched her with brutal force. Numbly, she leaned back in the chair, an icy realization settling over her like a cold, penetrating rain. She'd considered the possibility that the events of the last week were somehow connected, but there had always been a small part of her that didn't believe it, didn't want to believe that something sinister was in the works.
''That's the same thing Randall said," she replied.
He shrugged. "It's the logical assumption."
''The idea of some kind of conspiracy seems ... far-fetched."
"Not a conspiracy. Just somehow linked."
"It just doesn't jibe with my lifestyle."
"How so?"
"Well, I work a lot. I don't go out much. I don't have any enemies. I don't even have that many friends. Just Gretchen and her daughters and grandchildren."
"Any odd customers in the shop? Ex-boyfriends?"
"No. Randall already asked that, and there's no one."
"Okay. Is there any reason someone might not want you to know who your biological parents are?"
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd considered the possibility, but never imagined it would come to this. Not in a thousand years. "I don't know. I can't imagine why."