The Perfect Victim

by Linda Castillo

  He turned, saw the wariness flood her gaze. "I mean, I'm going back to D.C."

  She blinked at him. He didn't miss the quick flash of hurt, had to steel himself against it. "When?"

  "In a couple of weeks. I should have told you."

  "Yes, you should have. I wouldn't have ..." Her voice trailed.

  "Slept with me?"

  Tugging the afghan up to her chin, she tried to rise.

  He stopped her. "Addison, don't—"

  She shook off his hand. "Don't what? Feel ... used?"

  The anger came with surprising force. "That's not the way it was."

  "It just feels that way."

  "I didn't mean to complicate things."

  "Well, you did a really good job of it."

  Dammit, he hadn't wanted to hurt her. She didn't deserve to be hurt. She certainly didn't deserve to get emotionally entangled with a man who had every intention of walking out on her.

  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

  He was going back to D.C.

  Addison told herself it didn't hurt. She'd known from the beginning what kind of man Randall Talbot was. Rough around the edges. Burned out. Cynical. Always looking out for number one. His actions on the day she'd met him should have told her all she needed to know to realize he was the kind of man to stay away from.

  Of course, her heart hadn't been listening.

  The storm had left a foot of pristine snow on the ground. At first light the snowplows were out in full force. By nine o'clock, she and Randall had climbed into the Jeep and were heading east toward Denver.

  Addison called Gretchen from a service station in Evergreen, only to discover her daughter had gone into labor the night before. In light of such a wondrous event, she didn't have the heart to mention the terrible news about her parents. But she'd longed to talk to Gretchen. About everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. But mostly about what had happened between her and Randall last night.

  She sent him a sidelong glance, taking in the brooding profile and strong cut of jaw. There was no trace of the tenderness he'd shown her the night before. No trace of the man who'd bared his soul, then apologized for it. This morning, he was all hard edges and hair-trigger temper. Conversation between them had been stilted at best. At the moment, she was feeling downright hostile.

  Damn him.

  What in God's name had she been thinking sleeping with him? How could she be stupid enough to lose her heart to a man who would do nothing but break it into little pieces? It frightened her to think she'd tumbled into this abyss of emotion with a man who was so wrong for her.

  "After we stop by the office, I'm going to take you back to your apartment and you're going to pack a bag and stay with me for a few days." Randall's voice cut through her tumultuous thoughts with all the finesse of a chain saw.

  The words set Addison's teeth on edge. She'd expected him to fall into the overprotective-male category. She could deal with that. What she hadn'
t expected was to feel so damn betrayed by his announcement that he would be returning to his job in D.C. How could she have been so naive? Just because she'd slept with him didn't mean he was going to change his mind and stay. He hadn't made her any promises. Dammit, she didn't want promises.

  "You can drop me at my apartment," she said levelly. "I'll meet you at your office later."

  His jaw tightened. but he didn't look at her. "Don't even think about arguing with me about this."

  "Don't you have some sleazy divorce case to work on or something? I have some things to take care of," she said, pleased with the dark look her words elicited.

  "Don't let what happened last night cloud your judgment," he said.

  The logical side of her brain knew he was right. It would be dangerous for her to be alone, silly of her to think she could protect herself after everything that had happened.

  Damn, she hated it that he was the one making sense. She hated the situation almost as much as the fact that she seemed to be so damn fallible as of late.

  "I thought we had an understanding," he said reasonably.

  "What we had was sex."

  He glanced at her with narrowed, black eyes.

  As much as she didn't want to admit it, she was angry. She told herself it wasn't because she wanted him to stay; she wasn't looking for a long-term relationship any more than he was. So why had she felt his words like a knife slipping between her ribs?

  Raising her chin, she forced her gaze to his. "Just because we slept together last night doesn't mean you can step in and take control of my life."

  "Is that what you think I'm trying to do? Take control of your life?"

  She was really screwing this up. He was right, but she wasn't feeling particularly logical at the moment. He'd hurt her. Of course she couldn't tell him that. She didn't want to lay that much of herself on the line. She didn't want him to know he had that kind of power. "I don't need a fly-by-night protector."

  The look he shot her had her questioning the wisdom of provoking him. "If you want to be stupid and' get yourself killed you're going to do it on your time, not mine."

  "Don't worry, I didn't expect you to stick around—”

  Without warning, he mashed his foot down on the brake. The truck screeched to a halt, jerking her against her shoulder harness hard enough to jar her teeth.

  Fury simmered behind his eyes when he turned to her. "You either do what the fuck I say or you fire me right now!"

  Addison stared at him wide-eyed, her heart pulsing against her ribs as she took in the display of anger. His jaw was clamped tight, his eyes flashing like heat lightning. "I'm not going to fire you," she said.

  "That's not good enough."

  "What do you want from me?"

  "I want you to be smart about this." His eyes cut into her brutally as he rammed the shifter into park. ''We do this my way or we don't do it at all. It's your call. What's it going to be?"

  She stared at him, hating it that he'd rendered her speechless. All she could think of was that she wanted her old life back. She wanted to by safe. She wanted her days to be predictable. Her nights ...

  Dammit, she didn't want him to go back to Washington.

  "Addison, I'm trying to keep you alive, I know this isn't easy for you but you're going to have to cooperate."

  "Then we're going to have to keep our relationship on a professional level," she managed after a moment. "I can't deal with you when ..." Her voice trailed when she realized what she was about to say. "You're complicating things for me. This is hard enough without that."

  He looked out the windshield at the snowy landscape beyond. "All right. We'll keep it professional from here on out."

  "Promise me."

  "You've got my word."

  Not trusting her voice enough to speak, she looked out the window. The last thing she wanted to do was break down in front of him. The last thing she wanted him to know was that he'd hurt her.

  Perceiving her silence as acquiescence, he glanced once in the rearview mirror and pulled back onto the highway.

  * * *

  They arrived at the office of Talbot Investigations at noon. Jack sat behind the computer, looking bone-weary, but wired on technology, nicotine, and caffeine. Two days of stubble darkened his jaw. His ponytail hung loosely down the center of his back, flyaway strands of hair falling into eyes that were little more than red-rimmed slits.

  "Morning, big brother," Randall said as he closed the alley door.

  Addison walked into the office, taking in the odors of cigarette smoke and burned coffee. An opened quart of chocolate milk lay on its side next to the keyboard, a puddle of muddy ooze beneath its spout. The garbage can overflowed with paper, a half-eaten burger, and pages of handwritten notes. The surrounding floor was littered with paper, much of it creased by the thin tires of his wheelchair.

  It was obvious Jack had been at it all night without respite. He looked dead tired. An uncomfortable pang of concern slid through her as she took in the dark circles beneath his eyes. At-the same time, his tenacity touched her.

  "Looks like you had a hell of a night," Randall said.

  Grinning, Jack tamped out his cigarette. "You don't know the half of it."

  "Any luck?" Addison asked.

  "Some. Adoption files are tough."

  Randall walked over to the desk and picked up the quart of chocolate milk. Absently, he smelled it, then tossed it into the trash. "Anything we can use?"

  "Maybe." Jack dragged a stack of computer printouts across the desk.

  Randall straddled a chair. Jack leaned close to him and said something just out of earshot. Curious, and more than a little annoyed that they were discussing something about her case without including her, Addison came up behind them and peered cautiously over their shoulders.

  Jack pointed to the first printout, where he had concocted a haphazard flowchart. "I had five sources of information to work with that included the adoption agency, the hospital where Addison was born, the attorney who handled the adoption, the vital statistics office in Montgomery County, and the delivering physician. I knew from the start this wasn't going to be easy."

  "I ran into problems with sealed records and confidentiality laws, as well," she interjected.

  He nodded. "Exactly. So, I started with the easy stuff first. Namely the hospital where you were born."

  Excitement zigzagged through her. .Months ago, she had, written to the very same hospital for copies of her records, only to have her request denied.

  "I was able to hack into their historical accounts receivable records. I wrote some code and searched for the name Beckett. It came up with this." He handed a sheet of paper to Randall. "I thought it might be important."

  Addison read over Randall's shoulder. Her heart kicked in her chest when she saw Agnes Beckett's name listed at the top of an emergency room invoice dated November of 1974.

  Admittance time: 12:32 A.M.

  Agnes Beckett

  Age: 16 Female

  Rt. 3 Box 72A Siloam Springs, Ohio

  Sutures: $19.98

  Emergency Room charge: $27.50

  Attending physician: $60.00

  X rays (technician) $46.50

  Rape kit: $22.19

  Total Due: $176.17

  Trepidation built in her chest as she skimmed the invoice. She was wondering how the information was pertinent when two horrible words registered in her brain.

  Rape kit

  Shaken, she stepped back. Blood pounded in her ears. Terrible knowledge ripped through her. Suddenly she couldn't breathe, couldn't speak.

  She reached for the paper and ripped it from Randall's grasp, her eyes searching out the date. November 17, 1974. She'd been born in August the following year. Mentally, she tallied the months, her heart filling with dread.

  She looked up to find both men staring-at her, knowledge spread across their faces like dirt. They know, she thought. Jack dropped his gaze to the computer screen in front of him. Randall held he
r gaze and gently worked the paper from her clenched fist.

  "This doesn't mean anything, Addison," he said gently.

  'The hell it doesn't." She wanted to scream in outrage. She wanted to shout that this was not how her life had begun. That she had not been conceived in an act of violence. “The timing is right.”

  "Don't jump to conclusions."

  "Don't tell me how to feel."