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Thanks to Sheriff Sherman Crockett and his wife, Iris.
When no one had come forward to claim her after she’d been found, Sherman and Iris had adopted her, raised her along with their four sons on their Appaloosa Pass Ranch. They’d given her a name. A family. A wonderful life.
Until three months ago. Then, there’d been the DNA match that no one wanted. That’s when her world was turned upside down.
“Why did your adoptive father put your DNA in the database when he found you?” Wes asked.
Again, it was another question she hadn’t seen coming. Her adoptive father had been killed in the line of duty when she was just twelve, so she couldn’t ask him directly, but Addie could guess why.
“Because he could have simply been looking to see if I matched anyone in the system. But I believe he wanted to find the birth parents who’d abandoned me and make them pay.” That required a deep breath. “I’m positive he had no idea it’d lead to a killer.”
And not just any old killer, either, but the Moonlight Strangler. He’d killed at least sixteen women, and fifteen of those crime scenes hadn’t had a trace of his DNA. But three months ago number sixteen had. And while the DNA wasn’t a match to any criminal already in the system, it had been a match to the killer’s blood kin.
Addie.
Wes took her by the shoulders, forcing eye contact. “The Moonlight Strangler’s really your father?”
It took Addie a moment to realize that it was actually a question. “Yes, according to the DNA match, he is. But Sherman Crockett was my father in the only way that will ever matter.”
If only that were true.
Addie wanted it to be true. Desperately wanted it. But it was hard to push aside that she shared the blood and DNA of a serial killer.
“I need to hear it from you,” Wes said. Not an order exactly. But it was close. “Is everything you said true? Do you have any memory whatsoever of why you were in those woods or who put you there?”
Addie threw up her hands. “Of course not. The FBI has questioned me over and over again. They even had me hypnotized, and I remembered exactly what I’d already told everyone. Nothing.”
She had no idea why Wes was asking these things, but it was time for Addie to turn the tables on him.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “And why are you here?”
His grip melted off her shoulders, and now it was Wes who moved away from her. “My real name is Weston Cade, and I’m a Texas Ranger.”
Addie had to replay that several times before it sank in. After learning she was the daughter of a serial killer and having Wes leave without so much as a goodbye, she hadn’t exactly had a rosy outlook on life. She’d braced herself in case Wes was about to confess that he, too, was some kind of criminal. But this revelation wasn’t nearly as bad as the ones she had imagined.
“A Texas Ranger,” she repeated. Addie shook her head. “You told me your name was Wes Martin and that you were a rodeo rider.”
“Martin is my middle name, and I was a rodeo rider. Before I became a Ranger.”
Her mouth tightened. “And I was a child before I became an adult. That doesn’t make me a child now. You lied to me.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I didn’t want you to know who I was and that I was investigating the Moonlight Strangler.”
She stared at him, waiting for more. More that he didn’t volunteer. “You were investigating him when you met me three months ago?”
No gaze-dodging this time. Wes, or rather Weston, looked her straight in the eyes. “I met you because I was looking for him. I followed you while you were in San Antonio, and after your interview with the FBI I followed you to the hotel where you were staying. I knew exactly who you were when I introduced myself at the bar.”
That hit her like a heavyweight’s punch, and Addie staggered back.
The memories of that first meeting were still so fresh in her mind. She’d been shaken to the core after the interview with the FBI, and even though her mother and one of her brothers had made the trip to San Antonio with her, she had asked for some alone time. And had ended up at the hotel bar.
Where she’d met Wes, a rodeo rider.
Or so she’d thought.
The attraction had been instant. Intense. Something Addie had never quite felt before. Of course, that intensity had dulled her instincts because she had believed with all her heart that this was a man who understood her. A man she could trust.
That was laughable now.
“Were you trying to get information from me?” she asked, recalling all the words—the lies, no doubt—he’d told her that night.
A muscle flickered in his jaw.
Then Weston nodded.
She groaned, and now Addie was the one who cursed. “And you came back to the bar again the next night, after I’d been through the hypnosis. You knew I was an emotional wreck. You knew I was hanging by a thread, and yet you took me to your room and had sex with me. Not just that night, either, but the following night, too.”
“That was never part of the plan,” he said.
“The plan?” she snapped. “Well, your plan had consequences.” Addie had another battle with tears, but thankfully she still managed to speak. “Leave now!”
Of course he didn’t budge. Weston stayed put and took hold of her arm when she tried to bolt from the office.
The phone on her desk rang, the sound shooting through the room. Addie gasped before she realized that it wasn’t the threat that her body was preparing itself for. The threat was in her office and had hold of her.
“Ignore that call. There are things you need to know,” he insisted. “Things that might save your life.”
That stopped Addie in her tracks, and she did indeed ignore the call. “What are you talking about?”
He didn’t get a chance to answer because she heard another sound. Her mother’s voice.
“Addie?” her mother called out. It sounded as if she was in the kitchen at the back of the house. “I picked up the phone when you didn’t answer. It’s about those mares you wanted to buy.”
It was a call that Addie had been waiting on. An important one. Since she helped manage the ranch and the livestock, it was her job. But she was afraid her job would have to wait.
“Tell her to take a message,” Weston instructed.
Addie wanted to tell him a flat-out no. She didn’t want to obey orders from this lying Texas Ranger who’d taken her to his bed with the notion of getting information she didn’t even have.
“Why should I?” she snarled.
“Because you’re in danger. Your mother could be, too.”
Addie had been certain that there was nothing Weston could say that would make her agree to his order.
Nothing except that.
“Mom,” Addie said after a serious debate with herself. “Take a message. I’ll return the call soon.”
She hoped.
“Start talking,” Addie told Weston. “Tell me exactly what’s going on.”
But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he started to unbutton his shirt.
Either he’d lost his mind, or...
It was or.
Addie saw the scar on his chest. The long jagged cut that wasn’t nearly as faded and healed as the one on her face. It was one that she’d already noticed the night they’d landed in bed together. Weston had told her he’d been hooked by a bull’s horn at a rodeo.
“The Moonlight Strangler did this to me,” Weston said. “Your father nearly killed me.”
Oh, God.
“You know who my birth father is?” She couldn’t ask that fast enough.
“No. I didn’t see his face. And I didn’t have any leads to his identity until I found out the results of your DNA test.”
Addie’s heart was pounding now. Her breath thin. “You thought he’d come to me?”
Weston nodded. “I counted on it. I know your DNA match was supposed to be kept quiet, but I figured if I could find out about it, then so could the killer.”
It took her a moment to gather her voice. “You leaked my DNA results?” She shoved Weston away from her and would have bolted, but, like before, he held on.
“No,” he insisted. “But someone might have. Maybe a dirty cop or someone in the crime lab who was paid off.”
“Or it could have been you. And to think, I slept with you, not just that one night, either, but the following night, too. I...” Addie stopped because there was no way she would give him another emotional piece of herself. “You used me as bait.”
Her voice hardly had sound now, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling every inch of the proverbial knife he’d stuck in her back.
“No,” Weston repeated. “But someone did. And it worked.”
There went the rest of her breath. “Who? How?”
Weston shook his head. “I don’t know the who or the how, but I know the results.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “Addie, you’re the Moonlight Strangler’s next target.”
Chapter Two (#ulink_7dbe982e-cb27-5adf-bc2f-9eb8c1f27566)
Weston waited for Addie’s reaction, and he didn’t have to wait long.
She shook her head, her bottom lip trembling just a little before she clamped her teeth over it. It only took a few seconds for Addie to process what Weston had just told her.
And to dismiss it.
“Why should I believe anything you say?” she asked.
Weston had no trouble hearing the hurt in her voice. No trouble hearing the anger, too. Yes, he was responsible for both, and while he’d never intended to hurt Addie, he also hadn’t wanted a serial killer to have free rein to keep on killing. Too bad he’d failed.
Addie was indeed hurt.
And the killer was still out there.
Of course, Addie knew that better than anyone else: her own sister-in-law had been one of the Moonlight Strangler’s victims.
“I’m sorry,” Weston said, knowing his words wouldn’t be worth much. “But it’s true. I have proof the Midnight Strangler’s coming after you, and we need to talk about that.”
Judging from the way her eyes narrowed, he’d been right about that apology not meaning much.
Addie didn’t jump to ask about his proof.
Her blond hair was gathered into a ponytail, but she swiped away the strands that’d fallen onto her face during their scuffle, and she whirled around so that she was no longer facing him. At least she didn’t try to make a run out of her office again, but she might do just that before this conversation was over.
Even though it had only been three months since Weston had seen her, she’d changed plenty. He had watched her for about a half hour before he’d gotten the chance to pull her into the office for a private chat. When she was in the barn earlier, Addie had been working with one of the horses, and she had actually smiled a time or two. She looked content. Happy, even.
Definitely something he hadn’t seen when she was in San Antonio.
There, she’d been wearing dresses more suited for office work than the jeans and denim shirt she was wearing now. And she definitely hadn’t been happy or smiling during their chats at the bar and in his hotel room.
No.
Most of the time, she’d been on the verge of losing it, and had been trying to come to terms with learning exactly who she was. Weston certainly hadn’t helped with the situation by sleeping with her.
After several long moments, she turned back around to face him. In the same motion, she took out her phone from her jeans pocket. “I’m calling Jericho.”
Jericho, her oldest adopted brother. He was also the sheriff in the nearby town of Appaloosa Pass, the job once held by her late father. Weston definitely didn’t want to tangle with any of the Crockett lawmen, not just yet anyway, so that’s why he reached for her phone.
“I want to find out who you really are,” Addie snapped. “And you’re not going to stop me from doing that.”
It was a risk in case she tried to get her brother to arrest him or something, but Weston decided to see how this played out. Eventually, he’d have to deal with Jericho anyway. It was a meeting he wasn’t exactly looking forward to since Jericho had a reputation for being a badass, no-shades-of-gray kind of lawman.
“Jericho,” Addie said when her brother answered. She put the call on speaker. “I need a favor. Can you check and see if there’s a Texas Ranger by the name of Weston Cade?”
Weston heard Jericho’s brief silence. Was he suspicious? Definitely. But the question was—what would Jericho do about it? If he came storming back to the house, it might trigger something Weston didn’t want triggered.
“Why?” her brother asked her.
“Just do it,” Addie insisted, “please.” She sounded more like an annoyed sister than a woman whose lip had been trembling just moments earlier.
More silence from Jericho, followed by some mumblings, but Weston did hear the clicks of a computer keyboard.
“Yeah, he’s a Ranger in the San Antonio unit,” her brother verified. “Why?” Jericho repeated, but he didn’t wait for an answer. “And does he have anything to do with that SOB scumbag you met in San Antonio, the one who slept with you and—”
“I’ll call you back,” Addie interrupted, and she hung up. She dodged his gaze when she slid her phone back into her pocket.
Weston doubted she’d put a quick end to that call for his sake, but it did give him a glimpse of what she’d been going through for three months. She had obviously told Jericho about her brief affair with a man who’d seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth, and her brother clearly didn’t have a high opinion of him.
SOB scumbag.
