Chapter Twelve
Addie sat at the dining room table at the ranch and read through the statement she’d just given Grace. A necessary statement in what was now another murder investigation, but Addie had hated going through it all over again.
Still, she would have gladly given the statement if she’d thought this would put an end to the danger. An end to the nightmares the attacks and abduction had caused. But it wouldn’t.
No.
She knew the memories of seeing Yvette die would stay with her for the rest of her life.
“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 head to 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 his weapons, 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’t want to 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 still repeating like gunfire in Addie’s mind.
“If she was referring to Jennifer, then the him could 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. That no one else included 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.
“Who knew about the new will?” Judson asked.
“Not her family,” Grace provided. “Well, not unless Yvette told them herself. The lawyer said the will had just been signed and processed and that he hadn’t even given Yvette a copy of it yet.”
Neither Shane, Jennifer, Trevor nor Elijah had mentioned the will, so it was possible Yvette had kept it to herself. But if she hadn’t, if Shane and Jennifer knew about their inheritance, then it strengthened their motive for murdering her.
Grace had just finished bagging the shirt when both her phone and Judson’s sounded with texts. They both looked to see what the message said.
“Group message from the CSIs,” Grace relayed. “They’re going over Yvette’s car now, and they found something.” She stopped, looked at Judson. “Apparently, a suicide note.”
Of all the things Addie had thought the sheriff might say, that wasn’t one of them. “Yvette was running for her life when we got to her,” Addie pointed out. “Is the note real or something her killer planted?”
“We might soon find out,” Grace murmured just as another text arrived.
Because Addie was still right next to Judson, she saw this message was a photo attachment. “The note,” he said, holding his phone so they could both see it.
This wasn’t some pristine, typed letter but something that appeared to have been hastily scrawled on a napkin from a fast-food place.
“‘I’m so sorry,’” Addie read aloud. “‘I can’t live with what I’ve done.’”
That was it. Not even a signature. Definitely no last words for her kids. And that made Addie instantly suspicious.
“Yvette would have told Shane and Jennifer she loved them,” Addie remarked, and she got immediate sounds of agreement from both Grace and Judson.
“So, either she was coerced into writing this, or she didn’t get a chance to finish it,” Judson concluded. He glanced up from the photo to meet Grace’s gaze. “I got a look at Yvette’s car, and it’d been run off the road. There were skids on the pavement from where it looked like she tried to stop.”
“That was Livvy’s impression, too,” Grace said.
“The person who shot Yvette could have maybe hoped to make her death look like a suicide. When that failed and when she started running and you guys showed up, the killer had to resort to shooting her. And trying to eliminate any witnesses by shooting Livvy and the two of you.”
Yes, all of that was possible.
Grace opened her mouth to say something else, but the sound of raised voices stopped her. Judson automatically stepped in front of Addie, and he drew his gun. Grace did the same. Addie might have pushed them both aside to try to get to the babies, though, if Bennie hadn’t stepped into view.
“Elijah, Shane, Trevor and Jennifer just arrived,” Bennie let them know. “They’re demanding to speak to you,” he added before he hurried off. No doubt to make sure the visitors didn’t barge in.
Grace sighed and looked back at Addie. “When I called to do the death notification, I told them to meet me at the station. I didn’t want them here around you or the twins.”
Addie got that. She didn’t especially want the trio around the babies, either. But she did want to see something.
“Will you tell them about the will?” Addie asked Grace. “Because I’d like to see how they react to that.”