“Thank you,” Grace said when Addie did an e-signature on the laptop screen. The sheriff stood. “Is there anything I can get you? Other than Judson, that is?”
Despite everything, Addie managed a weak, short-lived smile. She did indeed need Judson, but because of those legal necessities, they had been placed in separate rooms of the house to be interviewed. Bennie had been tapped to take Judson’s statement, and Addie knew that Grace would now be shifting rooms to take Livvy’s.
“I want to see Judson and the twins,” Addie muttered. In fact, at the moment that was all she wanted.
Grace nodded as if that was the exact answer she’d expected. “He should be in the kitchen.” But then she tipped her headto the front of Addie’s shirt. “I’ll need that first so the lab can analyze it. Let me grab an evidence bag from my cruiser.”
Addie glanced down and saw the blood. Not hers. But rather Yvette’s. It hadn’t come directly from Yvette, either, but from Judson, who’d transferred it to her when he’d pulled her into his arms shortly before the ambulance and backup from the county had arrived.
“I’ll be right back,” Grace said, heading to get that bag.
Addie went in search of Judson and found him where Grace had said he’d be, in the kitchen. And he was in the process of stripping off his clothes. She nearly whirled around to give him some privacy, but after everything that’d happened, privacy seemed like too low-level of a concern. So, she waited.
And watched.
It was hard to tear her gaze away from him as he took off everything but his boxers. More memories came.
Not of death and blood this time.
But of Judson and her together. Even now, it was impossible for her not to notice that he still had an amazing body. One that caused the heat and the old need to start simmering between them.
“I need his jeans and shirt,” Bennie said, his voice and expression filled with apologies. He held up an evidence bag and put the items in it when Judson handed them to him.
Judson kept his gaze pinned on her, searching her face to see how she was doing, while he fumbled around in his go-bag for the change of clothes.
“Grace needs my shirt, too,” she said, managing to get her throat unclamped. She didn’t know if that was because the emotion was catching up with her or because she was in the kitchen with a nearly naked Judson.
She decided it could be both, and once Judson was dressed and had pocketed his keys and phone and reholstered hisweapons, Addie walked into the adjacent laundry room to grab a clean top. Since Etta Jean had been doing laundry when this whole abduction nightmare had started, several of Addie’s shirts were already out of the dryer and folded.
“I’ll step out for a minute,” Bennie said, obviously getting out of the way so she could change.
Thankfully, Judson went into the laundry room with her. Thankfully, too, he didn’t give her any privacy, because she didn’t want him to. She wanted him right by her, and if seeing her without a shirt caused that heat and need to ripple again, then so be it. Addie didn’t want him out of her sight.
She pulled off the top, taking a clean one off the top of the folded stack, and the moment she pulled it on, Addie stepped into his arms. Mercy, she needed this. She needed him, and Judson gave her that steadying comfort that no one else could. In the back of her mind, she knew she was falling hard for him all over again, but she couldn’t stop it.
Correction: She didn’twantto stop it.
He continued to hold her and brushed a kiss on the top of her head. Addie probably would have lifted her mouth to his to make it a real kiss, but the sound of footsteps stopped her. A moment later, Grace appeared in the doorway of the laundry room.
“Sorry,” she muttered, holding up the evidence bag.
Addie stepped away from Judson so she could get the top and hand it to Grace. “What happens now?” Addie wanted to know.
“The clothes will go to the lab to see if there’s any trace or fibers to tell us where Yvette has been the past twenty-four hours,” Grace explained. “That, in turn, could tell us if she had an accomplice.”
“An accomplice,” Addie repeated in a mutter. “You mean Trevor, Jennifer, Shane or Elijah.” She stopped. “Well, maybe not Jennifer. When Yvette was running, she shouted out, ‘You have to stop him. He’ll kill her.’” Those words were stillrepeating like gunfire in Addie’s mind. “If she was referring to Jennifer, then thehimcould have been one of the three men.”
Grace nodded. Then shrugged. “Or Yvette could have been talking out of her head. Perhaps in shock.”
Maybe, but that didn’t feel right to Addie.
“It’s also possible that Yvette was talking about someone she hired. The accomplice angle again,” Grace tacked on to that. “Yvette could have hired someone to attack Judson and you here at the ranch. Then, the hired gun could have turned on her for some reason and killed her. Yvette could have been worried that this person might go after her daughter.”
Addie tried to envision any of their suspects doing just that. And she decided any one of them could have. Of course, it was equally possible that Yvette had acted alone in the abduction and attack at the ranch. Still, someone had murdered her, and that someone had tried to do the same to Judson, Livvy and her.
“While you were giving your statements, Eden managed to get her hands on Yvette’s will,” Grace continued a moment later. “Apparently, she made a new one less than a week ago, and she left everything to her kids. She specifically stated that no one else was to inherit anything. Thatno one elseincluded a husband.”
Well, that was interesting, and it made Addie wonder if Yvette had had her suspicions about her husband. Or had Yvette done this simply to try to repair her relationship with her daughter? Either way, Trevor wasn’t going to care much for that.
