Edge of the Heat 3

by Lisa Ladew

  She walked into the computer room and sat down behind Hawk on the short, black, leather couch.

  He ignored her and kept typing.

  “Hawk, I need to talk to you.”

  “What?” Clickety clack, clickety clack.

  Vivian waited. She didn’t want to compete with whatever was on the screen.

  He kept typing and the room filled up with the noise.

  “Hawk. Can you listen to me please?”

  He stopped typing. Vivian waited, but he didn’t turn around. She felt her blood getting hot. Did this man have no common manners? Had no one ever told him that it was rude to expect someone to talk to your back? She tried to push through.

  “Uh, I’ve been thinking about Norman, and remember that RV that he had us in? Where did it come from? I mean, I’ve seen pictures of his house, and he didn’t have RV storage, so he had to store it somewhere, right? What if he’s got a drive-in storage locker in Westwood Harbor? They can’t auction those things off for a few months after no one pays for them. And I’ve heard that people live in them sometimes. If he had a combination lock on one he wouldn’t even have needed a key - all he would have needed to do was get there.”

  Hawk didn’t say a word. Didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t say “that’s a stupid idea,” or “leave the detecting to the detectives.” Nothing. He just ignored her, like he’d been doing for days. No, for weeks now. No, actually for months. Since the first day she’d met him, he’d never properly looked her in the face once, or shook her hand, or given her a hug. Nothing. Vivian felt her blood go right past the boiling point. It went nuclear.

  She stood up. Fury making her breathe heavily, she shouted at his back, “You know what? I’ve had enough of your shit! I am not some goddamn, insignificant bug you found on your shoe! I am a living, breathing human being and I deserve the respect you’d show anyone else, even a goddamn criminal! I have never been anything but nice, and decent, and caring towards you, and yet you act like I don’t even exist. Well that’s it, I’m done trying to be nice to you Hawk Kinkaid. You sit in here and you do your work, and you keep acting like I don’t exist. I’ll make it real easy for you. I’m leaving in the morning! I’ll give Craig the address and he can drive up and get you when you are ready to go home. But when you do, you just stay away from me, understand?”

  Hawk’s chair swung around slowly and he stared at her, open-mouthed. But he still didn’t say anything.

  Vivian fled to her room and started looking for things to pack.

  Chapter 15

  Hawk sat in his chair, stunned. She was right. Every word she’d said was right and true. He was an ass. A jerk. The lowest form of life. He’d been treating her like crap, for no reason other than he liked her, and that she reminded him slightly of someone who’d once hurt him very badly. But that didn’t excuse it. Didn’t excuse it for a second. You don’t treat other people like crap because of your own fucked-up feelings that you’ve never dealt with.

  Hawk sat in the chair and stared at the doorway, wishing she’d come back in. Wondering how he could fix it. Hoping she wouldn’t leave. God he was bad at this! He hadn’t been in a relationship with a woman in over 10 years, and he didn’t remember how things were done. Should he apologize? Would she even listen? She was pretty pissed.

  And her idea! Hawk kicked himself in the head internally for not thinking of it himself. A storage unit? Or an RV and boat parking business? That was gold! He grabbed his phone and texted Craig. Vivian had great idea. Check storage units that take RVs. Or any and all storage units. If Foster was a customer he could be living inside one now, no money needed. I will gather list of storage units in Westwood Harbor. You may need to get warrant in morning to pull records.

  That done, his mind turned back to Vivian. He could apologize. You didn’t have to be good at apologizing to do it. He got up and took a step towards the door, but stopped, suddenly scared. More scared than he’d ever been with a gun pointed at him. How was it that Vivian did this to him? He wondered if she had any idea the kind of effect she had on him.

  He heard her moving around in the kitchen. He took a deep breath, internally screwed up his courage, and went out.

  “Vivian.”

  She stopped walking, small suitcase in hand, and looked at him.

  “I’m sorry. You are right. I was a jerk. I’ve been treating you poorly and there’s no cause for it. I just. I just. I. I guess I don’t have any excuses. Please forgive me. Please don’t leave. I promise I will be on my best behavior from now on.”

  He strode to her side and took the suitcase from her hand. He smiled what he hoped was a repentant smile, and held up the suitcase.

  “Let me carry this. Where do you want it?”

  Vivian stared at him, her eyes wide, face lined with shock.

  Suddenly she sprinted out of the room to her bedroom and slammed the door.

  Damn, he thought to himself. I guess I’m even worse at apologizing than I thought.

  He retreated back to the computer room, thinking furiously about how to get her to stay.

  Chapter 16

  Vivian leaned against the closed door, her eyes squeezed together, heart slamming against her chest. She had just run out of the room without saying anything to Hawk. She had just done exactly what she’d lit into him for doing. But she’d had to. Regular, grumpy Hawk was hot. But sweet Hawk? He was unbearably sexy. And Hawk with a smile on his face? She thought back - yes that was the first time she’d seen him smile. Smiling Hawk made her want to run to him, jump in his arms, wrap her legs around his waist, and maul him with her mouth.

  The smile made his dark eyes turn from brooding to inviting, and the dangerous angles in his face turn innocent and kissable. He was pure man-candy and she couldn’t take it.

  Vivian slid her back down the door and sat down, face in her hands. She felt like a teenager. Like a sex-crazy, hormones-running-wild teenager. What was wrong with her? How could this one man have such an effect on her? And he hadn’t even done anything but smiled.

  Suddenly, she was glad he’d never talked to her before. Because surely she would have done something embarrassing by now if he had. She could barely contain herself when he was a big fat jerk. How would she behave if he was nice?

  And now she had to decide whether to stay or go. She didn’t want to go, she was enjoying this ‘vacation’. She hadn’t taken time for herself to just relax since before college, and that was almost 10 years now. And since Hawk had apologized, she didn’t have to make good on her threat to him to leave. But she did have to face him after running out of the room like that. And apologize herself? Oooooh, what a mess, girly.

  Vivian took some deep breaths to try to still her mind and calm her heart. She didn’t want to leave, even though she knew she should. The last thing she wanted was to embarrass herself by doing something stupid. If he paid attention to her now, he might notice exactly how close she was to being halfway in love with him, even though he’d never given her the time of day. Maybe she could just stay away from him. He was busy. He never came out of the room anyway. If she just did stayed out of his way, things would be fine. Wouldn’t they?

  She made up her mind. She was staying.

  She heard movement outside her door. “Vivian, um, sorry about earlier again. Craig just called. Can I talk to you?”

  Vivian scrambled to her feet. “Sure, I’ll be out in a second.”

  She ran to the bathroom and checked her face. She looked ok, she hadn’t been crying or anything. A few more deep breaths and she was ready.

  The hallway was empty so she walked carefully and quietly to the computer room. Hawk was sitting in the computer chair and he smiled at her again when she walked in. She wished he would stop doing that. She sat on the couch.

  “I’m going to put Craig on speaker,” Hawk said. He pressed a button and put the phone down on the table between them.

  “Vivian can hear you now.”

  “Vivian, I got your CODIS results back. Do you wan
t me to open them now? Or do you want to wait till you get home?” Craig’s voice was loud and clear out of the cheap cell phone.

  “Open them, open them!” Excitement grabbed Vivian. “Wait, where’s Emma?”

  “I’m here, we’re opening it.” Emma’s voice was also filled with excitement.

  Vivian heard papers rustling. She sat on her hands and leaned forward, staring at the phone.

  Craig spoke. “There’s a result. It says it matched you with an uncle, and his name …” Craig’s voice trailed off. Then he spoke again. “What the hell?”

  “What, what?” Vivian couldn’t contain herself. An uncle!

  Craig’s voice came through again, sounding almost indecisive. “It says your uncle is Tim Oberlin.”

  Hawk shot his head forward, eyebrows touching in confusion. He echoed Craig. “What the hell?”

  Vivian thought for a second. Oberlin. She knew that name but didn’t place it right away. She heard Emma say something in the background. “Oberlin, as in Senator Oberlin? Is his first name Tim?”

  Vivian grasped it suddenly. Oberlin was the name of the Senator who Craig and Hawk were investigating. The Senator who they believed had ordered the hit on Hawk’s sister. The Senator who had used Norman to do all his dirty work.”

  Craig’s voice came through the line again. He sounded weird, defeated. “No, his first name is Frank. Tim Oberlin is his brother.”

  Denial speared through Vivian. No. No way. She shook her head. It couldn’t be. In front of her, Hawk flipped around in his chair and his fingers flew over the keyboard. Emma said one more thing. “Does Tim have any other brothers or sisters?”

  Hawk spun back in his chair, facing towards Vivian and the phone once again. This time he spoke. “No, I just checked. Tim Oberlin’s only sibling is Frank Oberlin.”

  Vivian felt like that sentence spelled doom for her. Frank Oberlin was her father? The monster the guys were investigating was her father? She was related to Senator Frank Oberlin? Not just related to but descended from? Her stomach felt woozy, like maybe she was going to throw up or pass out. She sat up straight and tried to steel herself against the feeling. It didn’t work.

  Emma’s voice cut through her reverie. “Wait, wait, wait. This is all too much of a coincidence! How in the hell are me and Vivian related to Senator Oberlin. It just can’t be! There must have been some mistake.”

  Vivian heard rustling near the phone, like maybe Craig was taking her hand. “It does seem like a pretty big coincidence,” he told her. “And we can redo the test, but it seems unlikely that the CODIS results are wrong.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Vivian said to know one in particular. “Hawk, I want to see a picture of Senator Oberlin.”

  Hawk spun around again and pressed a few buttons. A picture of a middle-aged man stared out of the monitor at Vivian. He looked perfectly nondescript, just like any other older, white man. Except for one thing. His sapphire blue eyes. They bore out of the monitor directly at Vivian and told her to smarten up. She knew how rare eyes that color were. Besides Emma, she’d never met anyone with blue eyes as light as hers. She’d seen some pictures, yes. But never anyone in real life. She was starting to believe it could be true. And believing didn’t feel good.

  She put her hands in her face. She seemed to be doing this a lot lately. And to think, just a few hours ago she had felt good, happy.

  Hawk leaned toward the phone, his face painted in intense lines. “Emma, how did you meet Norman?”

  “What? What does that have to do with anything?” Emma squeaked.

  “Just humor me, would you? Tell us exactly how you met Norman.”

  “I met him on a call, and then he just started showing up all the time.”

  “Was it the type of call a cop normally would have gone on?”

  Emma was silent for a beat.

  “No wait. I’m wrong. I didn’t meet him on a call. He came to the ambulance bay once at the beginning of my shift. I thought it was weird because we almost never get cops in there. He came over and said hi and told me he liked my uniform. I thought it was silly, but sweet, and after that he kept showing up on my calls. And he asked me out after a call a week later.”

  Vivian stared at the phone, and then at Hawk. What was he getting at?

  Hawk leaned forward even farther. “Ok, hear me out here. Who is to say that the Senator doesn’t know you two are his children? And what if he gave some sort of a job to Norman that had something to do with you? And Norman found you, or looked you up out of curiosity, and decided he liked you. So it was no accident that you met.”

  Vivian heard someone pound the table through the phone. Craig spoke, excitement in his voice “I bet you’re right! Shit Emma, I bet Senator Oberlin is your father.”

  Bile rose in Vivian’s throat. She didn’t know what Emma was feeling at this news, but she imagined it wasn’t good. How does anyone deal with the knowledge that their father is a monster?

  Emma’s voice rang through the phone, sounding small, defeated. “You OK Viv?”

  “No.” And she wasn’t. She was horrible. She was disgusted. She wished it was all still a mystery. “What about you Emma, are you OK?”

  “No.”

  Vivian looked up at Hawk. He was looking at her with some new emotion in his eyes. It didn’t seem to be contempt. What was it?

  “Maybe we should arrange a meeting,” Hawk said.

  “A meeting?” Emma and Vivian said together.

  Craig came through the phone again. “Yes! You two could go meet him. See what he says. This could be our big break - the big event that starts to tie the rest of the story together.”

  Vivian couldn’t believe her ears. Sure, she knew their investigation was a big deal. But they’d only known that this guy, this murderer was their father for 2 minutes and now the guys wanted them to meet him? She glanced at Hawk again. He was still gazing at her with that look in his eyes. Suddenly she figured it out. He was looking at her with interest, with curiosity. Like she was a new kind of bug under a piece of glass. Step right up! Stare at the monster’s daughter! she thought, feeling like her mind was about to crack in two. Vivian stood up and ran to the hallway and locked herself in her room for the second time that day.

  This time she did cry.

  Chapter 17

  Hawk watched Vivian go. He scrubbed his face with his hand. “God I’m an idiot.”

  “What, what happened?” Emma asked, her voice strained.

  “Vivian just ran out of here, upset.”

  “Yeah, you didn’t really give us much time to deal with the fact that that jerkwater was our dad before you started in,” Emma accused.

  “I know. I’m sorry Emma. That was stupid of me.” Guilt ate at Hawk’s gut.

  “Yeah, maybe you should apologize to my sister too.”

  Hawk glanced out the doorway, but the hall was still empty. Vivian must have retreated to her room. He hoped he could make it up to her.

  “You’re right, I should. I will. I’ll call you guys later.”

  Hawk hung up the phone and stood up, trying to get his mind to work. He already knew he sucked at apologizing, and now he had to do it again.

  At Vivian’s door, he knocked gently. “Vivian? I’m really sorry. Are you OK?”

  He heard movement inside. “Yeah. Ok.” Her voice sounded muffled. And then he heard the bathroom door close inside her room.

  Hawk sighed. He didn’t understand women, but this didn’t need a whole lot of understanding. Imagine if he’d found out his father was someone like Senator Oberlin. That would have upset him pretty badly too.

  He walked back out to the living room and sat on the couch. He wanted to make it up to her. What could he do? He looked around the small cabin. It was spotless. His eyes landed on the kitchen. Maybe he could cook her something. Most people didn’t know he was an excellent cook. Well, it was time for Vivian to find out.

  He started opening cabinets to see what there was. He found spices, flour, sugar,
and condiments. In the fridge he found chicken breasts, eggs, milk, butter, and a few different types of sausage and vegetables. Perfect. He knew exactly what he was going to make.

  One hour later, he hadn’t heard a peep from Vivian, but he was confident she’d be coming out soon. The smell from the rosemary garlic chicken was making his mouth water, and his crumb cake was just about to go in the oven.

  Living on his own for so long had given him plenty of time and desire to learn how to cook stuff that tasted good enough to actually be eaten. He’d cooked for his buddies a few times at get-togethers, but he hadn’t cooked for a woman ever. Well no matter, just because he was cooking for her didn’t mean they were getting married or anything. They were just two friends, and they had to eat.

  He searched the house for candles and finally found a few. He wanted to make the house warm and inviting to maybe take some of the edge off of how much of a jerk he’d been. He looked for wine or beer but found none. Oh well, juice would have to do. Tomorrow maybe he would go out and get some beer and wine if Vivian liked wine. Did he really not know if she liked wine or not? He thought back. Nope. He’d been avoiding looking at her for so long that he didn’t have a clue. Stupid, he thought. He didn’t have to avoid her. He could just be himself and she’d run from him.

  He lit the last candle on the table and dimmed the lights a bit. He got the chicken out of the oven and stared down the hallway, wondering if he should take it down and try to blow the smell under her door. No, then he would just look like a fool if she caught him.

  He set two plates and took the meat and home-fried potatoes to the table. He tried to send Vivian mental telepathy images that she should come out and eat. It didn’t seem to be working. He debated knocking on the door, but he didn’t want to scare her off. Damn! Why didn’t somebody write a book or something to tell you what to do in these situations!

  As he stared at his food thinking, the door finally opened. He swiveled his head in her direction. “Hi!”

  “Hi,” she said cautiously.