Cold feet(33)
Author: Brenda Novak

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.

WHAT 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."