Lone Star Justice (21 page)

Rand finished the telephone call he'd made to the FBI behaviorist, asking how best to respond to Aaron's text message. He sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms. She didn't protest. She was so tired. Tired of being scared, tired of feeling vulnerable, tired of acting like a weak, purposeless female. Where was her strength? Her backbone? What happened to Mad Maddie? Castrating Cooper? She felt like poor little Maddie Cooper again, afraid of her own shadow.

Being in Rand's arms gave her strength, just as it had back then. He'd built her self-esteem and strengthened her resolve until she could finally stand up to her father, and to Aaron.

She sat up. Was that what this was all about? That she'd stood up to Aaron, refusing to back down in the face of his threats? Was he unable to tolerate a female giving as good as she got?

She looked up at Rand. "Tell me what you remember about Aaron."

"Why? What are you thinking?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Just tell me everything you remember."

Rand rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment. "I remember him as a scrawny kid, always in trouble for one reason or another. He never seemed to go home. He hung around the drug store, the dry goods store, the café. Whenever a pet went missing, someone blamed him. And you know, I never asked why they did that. I never saw him with anyone's pet."

Maddie nodded. "That's what I remember, too. I also remember him stealing lunches, pencils, erasers. Just about anything he could. Now why would a doctor's kid do that? Doc had more money than most of the men in town. And they had that big, beautiful house, so why didn't Aaron spend any time there?"

"I have no idea."

"Okay, then tell me this." Maddie's theory was coming together. She just needed a little more information to figure it all out. "Did Doc's wife ever come to your house, for dinner or a social call?"

Rand turned toward her. "No. Never. Doc came over many times, and brought Aaron once or twice, but his wife never came. And now that you mention it, I don't remember seeing her at all after Aaron started school."

"So what happened to her? Why did she suddenly stop leaving the house?"

"Agoraphobia? Depression?" Rand shrugged. "Who knows?"

"That's a very good question. Who
would
know?" Maddie felt a tingle of excitement. They were going to figure out why Aaron was killing women, and use that to stop him.

"Gertie, maybe. If I remember right, she used to clean for them."

"Can you call her and find out what she knows?"

Rand pulled the phone out of his pocket and dialed. "Be prepared for a long conversation. Gertie
does
like to talk."

He put it on speaker once Gertie was on the line. Maddie took notes while Rand asked her questions. When he was satisfied he'd learned all he could, he politely ended the conversation and hung up. "Well, what do you think?"

Maddie fiddled with the pen, doodling in the top corner of the notepad. "I think you might have another murder charge for Doc. Proving it might be difficult, though. It happened so long ago."

"I'd thought maybe the psychopathic genes might have come from his mother's side of the family, but it looks like Doc has been hiding those same tendencies for a long time. He got his thrills from doing autopsies, I guess."

"We're pretty sure he killed at least two people, so who knows how many more there might have been? But it still doesn't explain why Aaron focused on me. What is it about me, specifically, that made him kill nearly a dozen women to get back at me?"

Rand shook his head. "I don't know, but I'll run this by the FBI experts and see if they have a theory." He stood up, pulling Maddie up off the couch with him. "Let's go talk to Brandy. She's been talking to him for six months. Maybe he said something to her that will shed some light on all this." He stopped at Brandy's door and opened it quietly. "She's asleep. I hate to wake her up." He closed the door and they started back down the stairs.

"We could wake her up. I know she'd want to help if she could," Maddie said.

"No. I just remembered that Cody printed out transcripts of all the chats he found between Brandy and Aaron. We can go over those and not bother Brandy with it right now." He grabbed his cell phone and called the station. "Linda, fax me a copy of those chat transcripts please."

A few minutes later, transcripts in hand, they sat at the dining room table and started reading.

"Dragon? I've been called a lot of things, but never a dragon." Maddie sighed and flipped to the next page.

"You find anything yet?" Rand scanned through the pages a lot faster than Maddie did.

She couldn't resist reading what Brandy wrote about her. At least there wasn't anything too bad in there. Her daughter voiced the usual complaints about her limited computer time, not being allowed to date or wear makeup, her mom working too much.

Then she saw Brandy's posts about Matt. He reminded her too much of that creepy math teacher who hurt her friend. She told Sam that Matt looked just like Mr. Matthews.

Matthews. Matt. Coincidence?

"What is it? Rand asked when she frowned.

"I’m not sure, but I may have figured out who came in my house, left the dummy and the knives, and ransacked my house." How could he! She'd trusted him. He even had a key to her house.

And how could she have been so stupid? All of Matt's "bumbling" attempts to help her that destroyed evidence made a lot more sense now. She should have known, dammit! But how? She'd never seen Matthews. She'd just told the police what she knew and they'd taken it from there.

But she was supposed to testify about what Brandy and Caroline had told her about the assaults.

She looked at Rand. "And now I not only know who, but why. He didn't want me around to testify against his brother."

***

Though they'd solved one mystery, they still had no answer as to why Aaron had focused on Maddie. Rand didn't know that it really made any difference at this point. Time was running out, and Aaron was still on the loose.

Brandy finally woke up and wandered downstairs to find something to eat. Maddie fixed tacos with guacamole and chips while Brandy flopped onto the couch and turned on the television.

"Mom, when can I have my computer and phone back? I'm bored!"

"Not until Aaron is caught."

"But…"

"I'm sorry. The computer is what got us into this mess in the first place. You're going to have to earn the privilege of getting it back." She filled plates for the deputies outside and gave them to Rand, then fixed a plate for Brandy. "As for the phone, I'm going to have your number changed as soon as this is all over. Until then, your father has it in custody."

That made Brandy smile. "You arrested my
phone
?

Rand caught the slight nod Maddie gave him and played along. "I sure did. And if doesn't confess, and soon, it will be doing twenty-five to life."

Brandy laughed. "What do you want it to confess to?"

"Well, I heard you two were very close. I suppose you tell it all your secrets?"

She put a finger on her chin and thought for a moment. "I might."

"And it refuses to give them up. I may have to torture it to learn those secrets."

"What kind of secrets do you want to know?"

Rand pretended to think a moment. "The password?"

"Is that all? I can probably help you with that." She gave him the password, then tackled the tacos like she hadn't eaten in days.

After dinner, Rand went into his office and Maddie and Brandy settled in to watch a movie. He took advantage of the privacy to put the plan in action that he'd been thinking about ever since Brandy got the text message from Sam. Now that he had her password, he could make this work.

He called the FBI and told them everything they'd learned about Aaron, his mother, his father, and his online relationship with Brandy. They promised to call back the next morning with their analysis of how he should respond back to the text message. Next he called Detective Thacker and brought him up to date, including Maddie's suspicions about Matt.

"Well I'll be damned," the detective said. "I thought the guy was weird, but Judge Cooper seemed to trust him so I didn't check him out. Guess I should have. I'll let you know what I find out."

Once that was done, he called Cody and told him about his conversation with Gertie. "You need to get an official statement from her," Rand told him. "And re-interview Doc, get his side of the story. Get a warrant and search his house, office, and car from top to bottom."

"You got it, Sheriff. What am I looking for?"

"See if his wife left a diary or letters, if Doc kept any kind of records or notes about her death, and find out who signed the death certificate. See what kinds of medications he keeps around the house, too. Look for a safe. Hell, just bag anything you find interesting."

***

Maddie lay in the unfamiliar bed, unable to turn her thoughts off long enough to sleep. She didn't know why it seemed so important for her to know why Aaron had fixated on her. The knowledge wasn't likely to change the outcome, but it bothered her to know something she might have innocently said or done had resulted in the deaths of her friends and all those other women.

Would Aaron have killed at all if not for her actions? Or was she somehow responsible for creating a murderer?

She tossed the covers back and padded across the hall to check on Brandy. Sound asleep. The poor kid had been under a lot of stress lately. They all had. Maybe her daughter handled it by sleeping more than usual. It had the opposite effect on Maddie. She was keyed up and restless. And if she'd admit it to herself, still a little turned on by Rand's actions earlier in the day.

Was Rand serious about finishing what he'd started?

She stopped by his door and listened. No sound came from inside the room. She quietly opened the door and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. This might be a mistake, but ever since the rodeo she'd thought about being with him. It might be her last chance. Who knew what tomorrow would bring? She might not even survive the day.

Before she'd taken more than two steps, Rand came off the bed, gun in hand.

"Maddie? What the hell? I nearly shot you!"

Maddie pressed her hand over her racing heart. "I--I…"

Rand put the gun on the nightstand and reached her in two strides, pulling her into his arms. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay." Maddie gulped. "My fault."

He leaned over and flipped on the light. "What is it? Is something wrong? Is Brandy okay?"

Maddie shook her head. "No, nothing's wrong. Brandy's fine. She's sleeping."

Rand breathed a sigh of relief and tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him. "Then why are you here?"

Maddie felt the blush rising up her throat to spread across her cheeks. "I, um. Ah. Oh, never mind. This was a bad idea." She tried to pull away, but Rand kept his arms locked around her waist.

He searched her face and she could tell when he noted the blush, her rapid breathing.

One eyebrow went up. "I think it's a damned fine idea, Maddie. "

He kissed her, gently at first, then with almost a touch of desperation as she responded. This was what she wanted, to be loved again, to be the most important person in his life--if only for the moment. For the past to fall away until it was just the two of them, together again.

His hands moved from her waist to cup her bottom and pull her flush against his erection. She moved closer, wanting him to skip the romance and get straight to the action. Who knew how much time they had. Brandy could wake up. One of the deputies could call.

"Easy. Don't want this over before we start," he whispered against her cheek. His breath was warm and moist and sent a shiver through her.

His hands roamed over her back as he kissed her, hard and deep. He nudged her toward the bed, pulling her pajama top over her head as they moved. The back of her knees hit the mattress and she fell backward, Rand following her down.

"You wear too many clothes to bed," he said, tugging the pajama bottoms down her legs.

"I live with a teenager. I have to."

Her panties followed the pajamas, landing on the floor. "If you lived with me, I'd make you sleep naked."

"Oh, you think so? No one makes me do anything."

"Okay, I'll rephrase that. I'd make you
want
to sleep naked."

Maddie'd had enough of small talk. She pulled his head to her breast. "Just make me want."

He needed no more urging. Using his hands and mouth, he took her to the brink before backing away to pay attention to her feet, the backs of her knees, the pulse point at her neck. Maddie thought she would explode from sheer frustration before he finally slid inside with one smooth stroke.

He started slowly, building speed and strength gradually as she adjusted to having him inside her once again. She hadn't been with anyone since Rand. She'd been too busy raising Brandy, going to school, and establishing her career to spend the time on relationships. But her body hadn't forgotten what to do and she met him thrust for thrust until she shattered around him, triggering his own release.