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Kaden’s brows snapped together. “It was the poison that made him sick. It had nothing to do with you or your cookies.”
“Still.” She shrugged. The guilt she felt didn’t have to make sense. It was going to haunt her for a long time. She nodded toward the plastic bag. “Have you decided what you’re going to do with them?”
“I’m turning them over to the FBI, along with all the files we’ve collected,” he announced without hesitation.
She sent him an approving glance. “We need professionals handling this.” They’d been bumbling along for days. But it was one thing to investigate a death that had happened fifteen years ago. It was something else to try to outwit a maniac who was stalking through the streets of Pike at that very moment.
They were way out of their league.
“Agreed.” His jaw tightened. “Although it’s going to be hard to wait around for answers. I don’t know much about the FBI, but I’m assuming it might take days or even weeks before they decide whether to open an investigation.”
Lia started to agree with his frustration, only to have the words die on her lips. During her long hours trapped in a hospital bed, she’d had plenty of time to think about what they’d discovered. And the questions that were still waiting to be answered. Most of them would take investigators who actually knew what they were doing to solve. But there was part of Vanna’s life they hadn’t bothered to look into yet.
“We don’t have to just wait around,” she assured Kaden.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been assuming it was her habit of blackmailing people that led to Vanna’s death. After all, that’s the most obvious reason for someone to kill her. But from talking with her foster mom, we also know she spent time in Pike before she ever became an EPA agent.”
“True.”
“Vanna could have made an enemy during that time.”
He paused, as if trying to imagine what she might have been doing as a young, eager college student living in a remote town.
“I’m not sure how we can find out what she was doing during that time,” he finally admitted. “Or who she might have pissed off.”
“We intended to speak with Professor Sanderson before Anthony called to say that Ryan Burke was dead,” she reminded him. “I think we should go see her. Maybe Vanna told her she had an enemy. Or was afraid of someone.”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
“I found her on the university website,” she said. She’d spent last evening on her phone, searching for information on the woman. It wasn’t like she’d had anything else to do. “She retired a few years ago, but it has an active email address where she could be contacted.”
“Let’s set up a meeting.”
Chapter 23
Kaden held the files in one arm as he helped Lia out of the Jeep and led her toward the door. Logically, he understood she was capable of walking without his assistance. She might even prefer to have some space to move. But he’d spent a frustrating night walking the floor after his nightmare trip to Madison, aching to have her at his side.
Now he felt a surge of satisfaction as she entered the condo and sucked in a deep, appreciative breath. He’d known it would take time for her to be checked out this morning, so he’d kept himself busy making the condo as comfortable as possible for her arrival.
“What smells so good?” she asked as she pulled off her parka and draped it on a nearby chair. Next, she toed off her shoes and walked forward in her socks.
She looked like a woman who had arrived home. Kaden smiled with pleasure. The sight touched a place in his heart he hadn’t known existed.
“I stopped by the local deli and picked up some chicken noodle soup and a loaf of bread this morning,” he told her.
She released a low groan. “Can we have some? Now?”
Kaden ground his teeth as he gazed down at her eyes, which were dark with anticipation. He wanted those glorious green eyes smoldering with a hunger that had nothing to do with soup and everything to do with their naked bodies moving together.
That, however, would have to wait until he was sure she was 100 percent recovered.
“Absolutely,” he assured her, heading into the kitchen, where he’d left the soup in a Crock-Pot to stay warm.
Taking a seat at the table, Lia planted her chin in her palm as she watched him efficiently fill two bowls with the soup before cutting slices of the crusty bread and adding a dish of butter to his tray. Was she judging his skills or just enjoying the view? Both were fine with him. He liked having her attention focused on him.
Placing lunch on the table, Kaden returned to the fridge to grab two bottles of water before settling in a seat next to Lia.
