The Perfect Victim

"If there is, we'll find it."

 

Addison stared at him, fear and outrage taking turns punching her. "I hate this. I hate not knowing who or why. I need to know who's behind this. And I need to know why. I want them to pay."

 

"Don't get impatient on me, Ace."

 

A sudden gust of wind hammered against the windows, driving the snow against the glass so hard it sounded like tiny stones. She started, looked uneasily over her shoulder.

 

"We're safe here,” Randall said.

 

Embarrassed by her reaction, she turned back to him.

 

He held her gaze, his eyes dark with concern. “I won't let anything happen to you.”

 

"I know," she said, trying to ignore the fear and frustration pumping through her. "What do we do next?"

 

"Our first priority is to keep you safe." He slid the first aid kit onto the table between them and opened it. ''That means you're going to have to listen to me." When she started to protest, he raised a silencing hand. "You're going to have to trust me. If I tell you to pack your bags and check into a hotel for a few days, you're going to do it without question. If I tell you to stay with Jack or me for a few days, you're going to do it. No arguments. No questions."

 

''That's not going to help us find the person responsible."

 

"It'll keep you alive."

 

"You're hedging. You haven't told me our game plan. What we do next. How I can help."

 

His eyes hardened to cold steel, telling her in no uncertain terms that he was the one in charge. ''Trust runs both ways, Addison. I have to be able to trust you. I have to know you're not going to do something stupid in an attempt to nail this guy."

 

"Oh, for Pete's sake, I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize—”

 

"You're letting your emotions do your thinking."

 

Frustrated and angry, she started to rise, but he reached out and stopped her. "Getting to the bottom of this is going to take some time. Don't get impatient on me."

 

She glared at him. "Don't hold out on me."

 

"That works both ways."

 

She sank back to the floor.

 

Randall withdrew a tube of antibiotic ointment from the kit and came around the coffee table to kneel in front of her. "Jack's working on gaining access to your adoption records."

 

He squeezed a small amount onto his finger. "If we can get the file Bernstein was holding on you released without going through the courts, that might help. In the meantime, you're going to have to lie low."

 

"What about my shop?" she asked, a sudden, wrenching jolt of despair spearing through her.

 

"Hold still." Leaning close to her, he spread the ointment gently over the cut on her cheek. ''That branch cut you pretty good. Does it hurt?"

 

She made a sound of frustration. "I need to be at the shop. It's my livelihood. It's not like I'm independently wealthy."

 

"Someone has declared open season on you," he snapped. "You're a sitting duck at the shop and you know it."

 

Dread lay heavy in the pit of her stomach at the thought of how drastically her life was going to change. The worst of it was that it wall out of her control, and she was powerless to stop it.

 

Needing to move, to expel some of the negative energy winding up inside her, Addison rose and began to pace. Her shoulder was beginning to ache dully, its intensity matched only by the ointment stinging the side of her face. "Damn," she said as much from the pain as from the frustration billowing through her. "I can't stand not being in control of my own life. I can't stand it that somebody else is calling all the shots."

 

Randall rose and crossed to her. "The coming days aren't going to be easy. But if we play our cards smart, we'll win this. We'll finish it."

 

"How can you have so much faith?" she said angrily. "Someone could simply run us off the road tomorrow and no one would ever know it wasn't an accident. Just like my parents."

 

"That's not going to happen," he said fiercely.

 

"If someone wants me dead, how can you—"

 

"They're going to have to go through me to get to you."

 

In that instant, something shifted between them. No longer was he the indifferent private detective. No longer was she merely a paying client. In the span of a second, he'd transformed into a man and she into a woman with emotions and needs they had recognized and unwittingly acknowledged in each other's presence.

 

"I believe you," she whispered.

 

The flickering yellow light from the fire softened the hard angles of his face, easing the rigid set of the mouth that had kissed her so thoroughly just a few hours earlier. The harshness in his eyes had been replaced with something more elusive and much more unnerving. It was desire she saw flaring, as bright and hot as the fire, and she silently cursed herself for acknowledging it.

 

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