Kill Me Again, page 6
She averted her eyes.
“Maybe if you just gave them to him—”
“I don’t have them here.”
“Just as well, because you can’t stay here after this.”
She looked up slowly.
“He’ll be back until he gets what he wants, or until I render him incapable of unassisted breathing.”
She smiled a little at what she hoped was sarcasm. Having seen him fight, though, she rather doubted it. Smiling hurt, and she winced.
“If I were you, I’d get whatever disks he’s after, so that we at least have something to negotiate with when he returns.”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” she asked, lowering the ice even while raising her head to look into his eyes.
He shrugged. “Look, I’m not comfortable just sitting around doing nothing. I need to get busy figuring out who I am and what I’m doing here, and who the hell tried to kill me. But since I don’t have a clue to go on, I might as well help you with your problem first.”
She frowned as she searched his face. “Th-thank you. I think.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not convinced these incidents aren’t related.”
“You’re not?”
“It would be an awfully big coincidence, don’t you think? I come to town to see you, someone tries to kill me, and only hours later, someone attacks you in your own home. You, the only person in this town with any kind of connection to me whatsoever.”
“That we know of,” she said.
He shook his head. “A sixteen-year-old back-story is a far less likely explanation than a connection to me, given what happened to land me in the hospital. There has to be a link.”
She sighed, lowered her head, but couldn’t for the life of her see how there could be. Freddy moaned then, and she shot out of her chair, every thought that wasn’t about him grinding to a halt. Aaron joined her at the dog’s side, got down on one knee and stroked his big head.
Freddy lay there with his eyes open only slightly, looking miserable.
“Feelin’ a little hungover, are you?” Aaron asked. “Yeah, I know. It’ll pass, buddy.”
Freddy lifted his head weakly, sniffed Aaron’s neck, then lowered it again with an audible sigh. Olivia knelt beside him, too, petting him, nearly weak with the force of her relief.
“He’s a helluva dog,” Aaron said. “He doesn’t look real, he’s so big.”
“He’s the best dog in the whole entire world,” she whispered back.
“I’ll bet he is,” Aaron said with a nervous smile. “I’ll bet you are, Fred.” But then he turned his focus to her again. “That guy’s gonna be back, Olivia. I think we should get out of here, at least for the rest of the night.”
“I should call Bryan.”
“Bryan?”
“Officer Kendall.”
He tipped his head slightly to one side as he studied her face, making her wonder just how badly bruised it was. She must look awful. Silly pajamas, bed-hair, tearstains and bruises to boot.
“Are you and he…?”
“Oh, no. Just friends. Less than friends, really. We were held at gunpoint together a few weeks ago, along with his fiancée, Dawn.”
His brows went up.
“Totally unrelated incident,” she said.
“Busy little town, this Shadow Falls, isn’t it?”
“Lately it has been. What scares me is the way they say these things happen in threes, right? So this makes two. What the hell could be next?”
“Maybe it’s already three—if my killer and your intruder are two different people.” He looked around the room. “I think we should keep this to ourselves for now.”
“Why?”
“My instincts are telling me that I know what to do, and that keeping quiet is it. And I trust my instincts.”
“What if I don’t trust your instincts?” she asked. “What if I have some instincts of my own to follow?” And even as she said it, she knew what those instincts were telling her. Pack up the dog, grab her escape kit from the safe-deposit box in Burlington and run as fast and as far as she could. She had always known this day might come.
Aaron sank back, looking a little daunted. “All right, I’ll try logic, then. We don’t know how that guy found you. We don’t know if he’s related to what happened to me, or if he is, where he’s getting his information. How did he know I was alive, or that I’d left the hospital, or that you were the only contact I had in town? How did he know to come looking for me here? If there’s a leak, it’s got to be either at the police department or at the hospital.”
“I see the logic there, but I already told you, this has nothing to do with you.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“I’m as sure as I need to be. The life I’ve built here is over, Aaron. I hoped I could help you, but I don’t see how I can. I’ve got to disappear.”
He lifted his brows, looking at her as if he’d never seen her before. “You’ve got a whole lot going on under the surface for an English teacher, lady.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Still, you agree that staying here tonight is a bad idea, right?”
“Staying here at all is a bad idea,” she told him. “And you’re right that I need to leave here tonight. But not with you. Just like Harvey Trudeau, I have to do it on my own.”
He frowned as if he couldn’t understand her. “The way I see it, we’re in the same boat here. Someone’s after you, and someone’s after me. Maybe the same someone, maybe not. But dammit, we can help each other.”
She looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “Why would you want to help me?”
He held her gaze for a long moment, letting her look her fill, as if he truly had nothing to hide. “I don’t know. I have a feeling I’m…supposed to.”
She tipped her head sideways, the way Freddy did when he heard a sound and didn’t know what it was.
“Look, you seem to like this life of yours pretty well,” he said. “Why give it up for good if you don’t have to? Isn’t it worth at least trying to stay?”
She thought on that and finally nodded. “What do you suggest…we…do?” The word we felt foreign on her lips.
“Let’s go somewhere else for what’s left of the night. Tomorrow we’ll pick up those disks you’ve got stashed off-site—a smart move on your part, by the way—and then…well, then we’ll figure out our next move.”
She searched her soul but couldn’t trust what she found there. If this man were anyone else—anyone else besides Aaron Westhaven—she would tell him to take a hike, and then she would deal with her own problems on her own terms. But this was Aaron Westhaven. And she wanted to trust him. “I don’t know,” she said softly.
“I just saved your life,” he reminded her. “Remember?”
She pressed her lips tight and sighed.
“Go pack a bag, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, conceding. She started to get up, then hesitated. “Aaron?”
“Yeah?” He was petting the dog again, watching his face, maybe counting his breaths. As if he really cared. And that, all by itself, was telling her just about all she needed to know about the man. When Freddy lifted a paw weakly and then placed it on top of Aaron’s knee, it told her even more.
But Aaron was looking at her, awaiting her question. So she asked it. “How do you suppose you learned how to fight like that? Or…how to handle that gun the way you did? I mean, you took it apart as if you really knew what you were doing.”
He nodded. “I know. I’ve been wondering about that myself. It sure doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a reclusive writer would be all that good at, does it?”
“No,” she said softly. “No, it really doesn’t.”
Aaron knew a handful of things as he watched her head into the bedroom to pack her bag. He knew that he had come to this town to see her. He had no doubt about that. That knowledge had become more and more fixed in his mind, and he considered the fact that he’d had her business card proof positive of it.
He knew another thing, too—though this one with far less certainty. He damn well didn’t think he was this reclusive writer she seemed so convinced he was. He wasn’t gentle or sensitive or lonely or any of those things she thought about him. And if he had created a character who was all those things, he sure as hell wouldn’t have named him Harvey Trudeau.
He was pretty sure he had killed. He knew someone had tried to kill him. Maybe deservedly so. Maybe not. But he felt with everything in him that this woman—this mild-mannered, dog-loving, unknowingly gorgeous, buttoned-up, wary-as-hell English professor—was the key to his past.
He had to stay close to her until he figured the rest out. So he would help her with her little problem on the way to helping himself with his own.
And if it took letting her believe he was an eccentric bestselling author, then he would let her believe it. He wasn’t even altogether sure she was wrong, but it sure felt like a lie.
Another thing was bugging him while she packed a little overnight bag, too. He was attracted to her. In a big way. It had surprised him to acknowledge that, because he hadn’t thought that a man in his condition would have much hope of focusing on anything else besides his own dire straits. And yet he’d felt the attraction growing in him since she’d walked into his hospital room.
But his instinct—that tiny voice he somehow knew he had to trust—told him that beginning even a mild flirtation with her would be a huge mistake. He would need to keep that in mind and himself in check.
He sat back, and finally relaxed his mind. A part of him wondered how he could trust any of the conclusions he’d been reaching. None of them were based on knowledge, because everything he knew was hidden from him. He was basing everything on gut feelings. On instinct. On intuition.
It was a scary way to deal with a life-and-death situation.
And yet it was all he had.
5
Olivia packed her only two pairs of jeans into an overnight bag, along with a few other essentials, all the while telling herself it was insane to take off in the dead of night with a stranger.
But it wasn’t insane. It might have been for anyone else. But not for her. For sixteen years she’d been living with the knowledge that this day might come. And now it had. No one here knew about the diskettes. She’d taken them from Tommy as some kind of lame, poorly thought out insurance policy when she’d run away all those years ago. And no one knew her name was Sarah, either. No one from this incarnation, anyway. All that was coming from her past life—the one she’d left behind.
She had to run. And as for going with Aaron, well, he wasn’t really a stranger to her. Besides, he needed her help.
Decision made, she zipped her bag and returned to the living room to find Aaron and Freddy both missing.
Frowning, she looked around at the demolished room. Only it wasn’t. Aaron had picked everything up, restored order while she’d been getting dressed and packing her things. She heard his voice outside and realized they hadn’t gone far. She picked up Freddy’s dog bed and opened the front door.
Aaron was standing at the back end of the dusty-but-impressive Expedition. The tailgate was open, and Freddy was standing with his front feet up on the carpeted floor of the cargo hold, and he wasn’t budging. He was just looking at Aaron expectantly, as if he ought to know what came next.
“Um, Aaron, that’s not my car.”
He looked up as if startled. “I know. And you’re a fast packer.”
“It’s going to be a short trip. I hope.”
He nodded and returned his puzzled look to the dog. “Is there some kind of command you use to get him to jump the rest of the way in?”
“No. It’s just that he’s so big.”
“And that matters why?”
“He’d have to get a running start to jump all the way in, and in my car he bangs his head on the roof. So he refuses.” She eyed the Expedition. “He would probably never hit his head in this one.”
“Would you believe that’s why we’re taking it?” he asked.
She sent him a look that told him she would not.
He shrugged. “I didn’t think so. But I did overhear you talking to the redhead about this baby. No one knows you have it, right?”
“Only the redhead—er, Dr. Overton.”
“Good. She’ll never know we’ve taken it, and it’ll take your cop friend longer to sound the alarm if your car is still here,” he said.
“I should probably call her, though. She won’t say anything if I ask her not to, but I don’t want her to think I’ve been abducted by an amnesiac shooting victim—”
“You don’t think that’s what this is, do you? A kidnapping?”
She met his eyes. “If I did, I wouldn’t be going. Besides, if you try anything with me, Freddy will eat you.”
He shot the dog a quick look and nodded. “I bet he would. All right, good, then. You can call the doc later, though. We should get a move on before they figure out I’m not in the hospital. This is the first place they’re going to come looking.”
She nodded and set her overnight bag on the floor of the backseat. Then she found the release and folded those seats forward, making even more room for Freddy.
Moving to the rear, she arranged Freddy’s bed while he stood patiently, front feet still inside the SUV, watching her every move.
“I know, boy. I know.” She got behind the dog and, bending, cupped her hands to give him a boost up. He lifted one hind foot into her cupped hands and pushed off as she lifted.
“Hey, no, let me—” Aaron began.
“I’ve got this.” She put a little more effort into it, and Freddy got himself in, turned around three times and sank gratefully onto his bed with a sigh.
“Good Lord, woman, how much does he weigh?”
“Two hundred, give or take. Most of the time he gets in and out with a lot less help from me. Unless he’s really tired or doesn’t feel like going.”
“Or he’s under the influence of a tranquilizer,” Aaron said. Then he held up a piece of plastic, with part of a label clinging to it. “I found this near the outside of the fence—right there.” He pointed, and handed her the plastic.
She eyed it. “Ace-prome—huh?”
“Acepromazine. It’s a tranquilizer, commonly used in veterinary offices. It would take a big dose for a dog this size, hit him within an hour, and probably last for three or four. That timing fit with what happened here tonight?”
“Like a glove,” she said. “How do you know about veterinary tranquilizers?”
He shrugged. “Damned if I know. House all locked up?”
“I need to run back in for a couple more things.”
“I should pull your car into the garage. It’ll make everything look more normal.”
“You still have my car keys?” she asked.
“Left them in it—got distracted when I heard you cry out.”
“Okay. Grab some dog food from the bag out there while you’re at it, will you?”
“I’ll just bring the bag. In case we need to be gone longer than anticipated.”
A little shiver worked up her spine as the voice of doubt—the one she’d been actively suppressing—whispered a bit more insistently. What if, just what if, this man wasn’t what he seemed? “Maybe I should let Carrie know now that—”
“Let’s just get going, okay?”
She tipped her head to one side, suddenly less sure about him than she’d been before. “Maybe I should give this a little more thought, Aaron.”
He glanced at her, frowning, but then his frown eased and his face softened. “Hey, I don’t blame you. You don’t even know me.”
But she felt as if she did. And yet…something wasn’t quite right about all this.
“Then again, neither do I, at the moment,” he went on. “But, Olivia, someone tried to hurt you tonight. And it wasn’t me. Someone tried to hurt me, too. If the two incidents are related, then we have a common enemy. Even if they’re not, we both have someone after us, and we both want to find out who it is and make it stop so we can get back to our respective lives.”
She thought about that for a moment. It did make sense.
“Aside from the fact that someone else came after you, if I wanted to hurt you, I could have done it by now, couldn’t I? With Freddy tripping out on acepromazine and the phones dead? I could have taken either vehicle and been long gone before anyone even found your body.”
Her eyes flew wider as she shot him a look. “You don’t need to be so graphic.”
“I’m not your enemy. I may not know who I am, but…I know that.” He shook his head. “Look, I need to get out of here. I feel that right to my gut. I need to get somewhere safe, so I can stay alive long enough to figure this mess out. And I really don’t want to leave you here alone with some crazed lunatic still out to get you. But I will, if that’s what you want.”
Her throat was dry. She lowered her eyes, her mind whirling, as she realized she didn’t know what the hell to do. Trust him? Or stay home?
But the thing was, she couldn’t stay home as if nothing had happened. The new life she’d created, the new identity she’d claimed, the way she’d been living for the past sixteen-plus years—it was gone now. All of it. Someone knew her secret. So it wasn’t a secret anymore. Even if she let Aaron go without her, after the attack she’d already reached the conclusion that she would have to take off.
And she was rapidly reaching another one. She needed to face Tommy and get things over with once and for all. But she wasn’t so sure she could take him on all by herself and live to tell the tale. At least with Aaron at her side she would have one ally. For a little while, anyway. And while she hated to drag him into her mess, she supposed she could repay him for his help by helping him solve his own mysteries.
Aaron sighed, glancing nervously at the road, as if expecting someone to show up at any moment. The police? The killer? The intruder? She didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t, either.
“All right, stay here then, Olivia,” he said at length. “I’ll leave you the gun. You can tell your friend the cop I stole the car.” He leaned in. “Come on, Freddy, ride’s off.”
