Needing her to understand why he had to go back, that his personal integrity and self-respect were on the line, that his entire life revolved around whether or not he had the courage to face his demons, Randall turned to her. "I have to know if I can do it. If I've got what it takes. If I've got the guts."
"What happened to you doesn't have anything to do with courage." She looked at him, an emotion he couldn't name flashing like quicksilver in her eyes. "What about the case?"
"What happened between us tonight or the fact that I'm leaving for D.C. in a couple of weeks doesn't change anything. I'm going to see this case through to the end."
"This can't happen again," she said.
"Not if you don't want it to."
"I don't." She sat up, pressing the afghan to her breasts.
Reaching out, he turned her to him. "I wanted you. I still want you. "But I have to go back, Addison. I have to face what's waiting for me in D.C." I didn't mean to hurt you, a little voice added. But he knew the deed was done. He couldn't help but wonder how well his-own heart would fare when the time came for him to walk away.
*
He entered her apartment through the bedroom window. It was an act he'd committed countless times in a career that spanned two decades and three continents. An illustrious career that had engendered a mere two arrests, one trial—and never a conviction.
He was the best of the best in a high-stakes game where absolute discretion and definitive solutions were his trademarks. He flaunted those trademarks as proudly as a wartime medal. It was a reputation he'd earned through extraordinary talent, the complete lack of a conscience, and a ruthlessness that ran all the way to his soul.
Invariably, when the heavy-hitters needed a job done quickly and efficiently, they called on him. He was known by repute. There was never a personal visit made. The overpaid middlemen were the ones who inevitably did the contacting.
After all, anonymity was everything when it came to murder.
He'd killed for the first time when he was fourteen years old. He still remembered the kick of the cheap revolver in his hand. The shocking spurt of blood. The heady jolt of exhilaration that followed. He'd taken out dozens of faceless, nameless people since, but he'd never forgotten his first. He'd gotten his first taste of blood that day, arid knew then that killing was what he was destined to do.
Now, at the age of forty-six, he could afford to be choosy about who he worked for, and he chose his contracts with the utmost of care. Two hundred thousand dollars per contract swept discreetly and expediently into the Swiss bank of his choice. He took three or four jobs a year and owned a house on the beach just north of Los Angeles and a penthouse on Fifth Avenue in New York City. He vacationed in the south of France and owned a villa in Monaco next to a small vineyard. Life didn't get much better, especially for a man who'd grown up in a one-bedroom tenement and gotten his education on the mean streets of Chicago.
Setting his feet soundlessly on the carpet, he scanned the room, letting his eyes adjust to the semidarkness. The ceiling fan hummed overhead. A clock ticked nearby. Satisfied that he was alone, he pulled a penlight from his jacket and shone it onto a frilly, unmade bed. The subtle scent of the Fox woman's perfume lingered from earlier in the day. Something sweet and earthy. Breathing in deeply, he savored her scent.
The perfume told him things about the woman who wore it.
Removing one of his gloves, he ran his bare palm over the inside sheet, wondering if she'd allowed the private detective into her bed. He smiled when he imagined how safe she must feel sleeping next to a man like Randall Talbot.
But he knew Talbot Investigations was nothing more than a low-budget sham. He'd done his homework and knew the two men passing themselves off as private detectives were nothing more than a crippled ex-biker and an alcoholic on the run from a failed career. As a professional, he knew incompetence didn't necessarily mean the two men were harmless. But their weaknesses would definitely make his job easier.
He walked to the night table and pulled open the top drawer: With a gloved hand, he quickly searched through the contents: a box of keys, a colorful array of nail polish bottles, a scented candle. He opened the lower drawer only to find it filled with paperback books. Methodically, he searched the entire room before moving on to the next.
Using the penlight, he quickly scanned the living room, taking note of the positions of the furniture, the telephone, and light switches before he spotted the manila folder on the dining room table. It was lying out in the open, as though it had been recently looked at. He approached the table and opened the folder.
Inside, he found a copy of her birth certificate. Beneath it, a sheet of paper with the Beckett woman's vital statistics typed neatly in the center of the page. There were handwritten notes. A letter from the lawyer. Smiling, he paged through each document, knowing Talbot had seen the file, perhaps even made copies of it.
He slipped the file into the waistband of his slacks. The way he saw it, both Fox and Talbot would be dead before they even missed it.
Chapter 14