Kill Me Again

“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.