Cold feet (14 page)

"By the time we realized things weren't going to die down, Danny had landed a fantastic job at Waskell, Bolchevik and Piedmont. You've probably heard of them."

"The big engineering firm downtown?"

She nodded. "He wasn't willing to walk away from that. His job came before everything."

"Does he have other family in town?"

"His parents and one brother live in Spokane, so they're not far."

Caleb held his glass up to the light, studying the pale gold of the chardonnay. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Didn't
you
want to leave Seattle?"

"No, leaving was never an option. I'm my mother's only child. I had to stay here and support her and my father."

He crossed his feet at the ankles, finally beginning to relax and distance himself from the reality of what had happened to Susan, and her funeral, and the whole past week. "What about your parents? Didn't they ever consider moving?" he asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Toward the end, they were convinced the police would plant some sort of evidence if one of the detectives ever gained access to the house."

Caleb pictured Madison with a young baby, a bad marriage, a needy mother, a murder suspect for a father, and Gibbons and Thomas always at her heels, invading her privacy.

"I admire you for standing by your parents," he said, and was surprised by the fact that he actually meant it. At one time he'd thought her callous and irresponsible for refusing to cooperate with the police. But now that he understood her situation better, he could see exactly why she'd done what she had. Few women were as loyal as Madison Lieberman. She'd even hung on to Danny for seven years.

"I did what I thought was best," she said. "But now..."

Caleb finished the last of his wine and slid down so he could rest his head on the back of the couch. "But now?"

"Now I think I might have made a huge mistake."

"How so?" He glanced over at her, noting her grave expression.

"Can I trust you, Caleb?"

"Trust me?" he repeated, feeling numb.
Sure, you can trust me
was a little too blatant a lie, even if he told it for the right reasons. "That depends on what you're going to trust me with," he said, hedging.

She placed her hand on his forearm and let it slip down. Unable to resist, he turned his hand palm up when she reached it, lacing his fingers securely through hers.

She looked down at their entwined hands, and he could tell that, like his, her breathing had gone a little shallow.

"Sometimes I wish I'd never been born to Ellis Purcell," she said.

Mesmerized by the contact, by the delicacy of her slim fingers, Caleb was feeling a very powerful physical response. It didn't help that it was late, they were alone...and the last thing he wanted was to return to an empty house to brood about Susan.

On impulse, he lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. "I thought you said he didn't do it."

She shivered as though a tingle had traveled through her body--through places he wished he could touch.

"I said I didn't
think
he did it." She swallowed visibly, her eyes on his mouth as he rubbed his lips lightly across the back of her hand. "But I didn't know then what I know now."

What was she saying?
He'd been so preoccupied with touching her that he hadn't been paying as much attention to her words as he should. Letting go, he sat up. "You want to run that by me one more time?"

She seemed a little startled by his abrupt change. "Nothing. It's the wine, that's all," she said, grabbing her wineglass. "I don't know what I'm saying."

"Madison?"

"What?"

"You said you didn't know then what you know now. What did you mean by that?"

She put the photo album on the coffee table. "Never mind. My heart still tells me there's no way my father could have hurt those women."

"But can you always trust your heart?" he murmured, cupping her chin so she had to look up at him.

She lowered her lashes, and he sensed that she was feeling the same attraction he was.

"I don't know," she said, "but I think everyone comes face-to-face with that question at least once in a lifetime. Don't you?"

Caleb was pretty sure he was coming face to face with it now. His heart was telling him to protect Madison, to let himself care about her. But his head was telling him he'd been right all along. She knew something she wasn't saying.

And for Susan, and Holly, and all the women in Seattle who deserved to be safe, he had to find out what it was.

W
HAT HAD SHE BEEN
thinking, nearly telling Caleb about what she'd found in the crawl space? Obviously she was lonelier than she'd realized. He just seemed so caring, so safe, she was tempted to open up to him about her father. And Danny. Throughout her marriage and subsequent divorce, she hadn't had anyone to talk to--not about personal matters. She couldn't burden her mother with the sad little details of her failing marriage. Not when Annette was already overwhelmed by having her husband accused of sexual assault and murder. And because of the investigation and her focus on Brianna, Madison didn't have any close friends.

After a good night's sleep, she'd do better at keeping their conversations centered on inconsequential facts, she told herself. But she wasn't sure she'd be able to fall asleep right away. Her body was still humming with the aftereffects of Caleb's lips grazing her knuckles. Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined his mouth and hands on other parts of her body....

The telephone rang, startling her as she headed down the hall to her bedroom. She halfway hoped it was Caleb, despite wanting to keep some emotional distance between them.

When she answered, her mother's voice came on the line. "We're vindicated," she said. "At last."

Madison pulled the phone away to look down at it before bringing it back to her ear. "Did I miss something?" she asked.

"It's true. Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"It's been all over the news."

"I don't watch the news or read the papers," Madison said. "I've had enough of the press for the next ten years. So you might want to tell me what you're so excited about."

"The police have found another victim," her mother said. "Another woman's been strangled."

Madison's breath seemed to lodge in her throat. "You sound as though you think this is
good
news," she said when she could speak again.

"It
is
good news, for us. Don't you understand what it means?"

"It means another person has suffered untold depravity and violence. It means some other family has been deprived of a loved one."

"I'm sorry for all of that," her mother said tersely. "But I didn't do anything to cause it. And this proves that your father wasn't the Sandpoint Strangler, just as we've been saying all along."

"How?" Madison asked.

"This victim fit the same profile the earlier ones did. She was strangled and positioned just like the others. It's obviously the same killer."

Her knees suddenly weak, Madison felt behind her for the couch and sank down onto it. She didn't know what to think or how to feel. Relieved? Fearful? Doubtful? Hopeful? Somehow she seemed to be experiencing them all at once. "How do you know it's not a copycat?" she breathed.

"Because Ellis didn't kill those women, so there's nothing to copy. And now that it's happened again and he's gone, the police will have to turn their attention to finding the real killer, and the truth will finally come out."

"This doesn't make sense," Madison muttered to herself.

"What did you say?"

She swallowed hard. "Nothing. I--Where did they find her?"

"A few miles from the house."

"Who was she?"

"A twenty-six-year-old single woman who lived near the university and worked at Nordstrom. I think her name was Susan."

Susan. Madison closed her eyes. What if there was something in that box she'd found under the house that could've saved that woman? What if there was something that might help the police now? She had to take it to them, let them sort it out....

"Mom?"

"What, dear?"

"If...if I happened to stumble on something that would...that could possibly figure in the case, you'd want me to come forward with it, wouldn't you? Even if it made Dad look as though he might really have--"

"Madison!" her mother interrupted, her voice instantly sharp.

"What?"

"I don't think you understand what that investigation did to me, what it did to your father."

"I do, Mom. That's why I haven't said anything so far."

"Ellis was innocent! I'll go to my grave believing that."

"I loved him, too. I still love him. But--"

"Do you know why your father killed himself?" her mother asked, now openly weeping.

Madison thought she could come up with a few plausible reasons. She certainly knew what his critics would say. But she didn't bother answering. Her mother's question was rhetorical. "Why?"

"To put an end to what you and I were suffering. He hated that he couldn't save us from the harassment we were receiving from the police, the community, even our neighbors. So he ended it." She sniffed and gulped for the breath to continue. "He gave up his life so we could live normally again."

"He's gone now, Mom," Madison said softly. "We don't have to protect him anymore."

"I don't care. I won't betray him. And no daughter of mine would betray him, either."

Tension clawed at Madison's stomach. Her father was gone, couldn't have killed this latest victim. But because of that box there
had
to be a connection, didn't there? "You're not listening. I've found some articles that--"

"You could have a videotape and I wouldn't believe it," Annette cut in, her voice vehement.

Madison covered her eyes. "Faith is one thing, Mom. Sticking your head in the sand is another."

"All I know is what my heart tells me is true," her mother said.

Those words sounded like an echo of Madison's conversation earlier with Caleb. But it wasn't surprising, considering she and her mother had relied on that argument for years. "Can you always trust your heart?" she asked, repeating his question.

"If you can't trust your heart, what can you trust?" her mother said, and hung up.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
ADISON SHIVERED
as she stood outside a few minutes later, waiting for Caleb to rouse himself from sleep and answer her knock. She tried to tell herself to go back home and go to bed. But she was too upset. Her mother would never forgive her if she turned that box over to the police.

But Madison wasn't sure she'd be able to forgive herself if she didn't.

It all came down to what
she
really believed, and she no longer knew what that was. Her father wasn't the type to hurt anyone. But if he hadn't murdered Lisa McDonna, why was her locket in the crawl space of his house?

Caleb opened the door wearing a pair of hastily donned jeans, judging by the top button, which was undone, and nothing else. His hair mussed from sleep, he flipped on the porch light and squinted against the sudden brightness. "Madison? Is something wrong?"

Suddenly, she felt awkward. When she was at home, it had seemed natural to come to him. She was so tired of being alone.

"I..." She fell silent because what she was feeling couldn't be distilled into a few simple words.

"Did something happen?" he asked.

She held out her hand to reveal the coin he'd given her. That was really all she'd come for, wasn't it? To collect on his promise that she could call him if she ever needed reassurance?

Taking her by the elbow, he guided her inside, closing the door behind them. They stood in the dim light of the living room, the shutters casting shadowed lines across Caleb's face. "Tell me what's wrong," he said.

"They found another p-poor woman." She shivered again, even though it was warm in the cottage.

Pulling her close, he put his arms around her. "You just heard?"

He seemed so solid and real, so in control at a time when she felt as if she was spinning out into space.

She closed her eyes and nodded, concentrating only on the heat flowing through her cheek, which she'd pressed to his bare chest. This was what she needed. This was all she needed. A few minutes of contact with another human being...

"Just tell me everything's going to be okay," she whispered.

He brushed back her hair and placed a featherlight kiss on her temple. "It might get worse before it gets better, Madison, but..." He hesitated, and she leaned back far enough to look up at him. "I'll be here if you need me," he finished, and she smiled because it sounded so much like a promise.

T
HE SLIGHTLY FLORAL SCENT
of Madison's perfume and the softness of her body beneath the baggy sweats she was wearing kick-started Caleb's libido. He knew he'd be much better off sending her back to her own house--right away--but he couldn't seem to let go of her. She'd come to him for comfort, and he wanted to give her that much. Obviously she wasn't as insensitive about the suffering of others as he'd once believed.

Or maybe he couldn't let go of her because he needed a little comfort himself. The past four days hadn't been easy. He'd had a difficult time grasping the fact that such evil had touched his own life in a very personal way. Holly had been almost childlike in the way she'd clung to him, irritating yet sympathetic in her neediness. Her parents treated him as though he and Holly had never divorced, and had been leaning on him to deal with the police and also with the funeral home regarding Susan's burial. Beyond that, every extra minute had been spent helping Detective Gibbons. Caleb had been tracking down Johnny's friends, from previous schoolmates to cellmates, and some friends and neighbors of Tye's, too. He'd told them he was a private investigator working on a murder case and showed them pictures of Susan. And he'd haunted the pizza parlor and surrounding neighborhood, looking for the driver of that blue Ford in the picture--all to no avail.