Kill Me Again (15 page)

Scratch that. Hero worship for the man she
thought
he was. The man he almost certainly was
not
.

She also had a serious case of the hots for the guy she believed him to be. At least, she did while under the influence.

And that, he thought as he drove and watched her gnawing her plump lower lip and watching her cell phone as if it were a time bomb, was the problem. It wasn't that he didn't want her. He did. Big-time. Probably had his first impure thought about her the first time he'd looked up and seen her standing over his hospital bed.

But he would be damned before he'd have sex with a woman who only wanted him because she thought he was someone else.

And that felt like a familiar mantra of his. Something he'd decided long ago. Maybe in his line of work he often went around pretending to be someone else. Like, not a killer, for instance.

“I've got a signal,” she said.

He pulled the car over in a safe spot. They were in the hills that overlooked Shadow Falls, probably too close for safety. He couldn't see the village, but he had a clear
view of the giant neon triple-scoop sign at Alley's Ice Cream Parlour out on Old Route Six, which marked the “outskirts,” in his estimation. He really didn't want to get too far away from town just yet. He needed answers, and those answers seemed to be there, in Shadow Falls.

“Okay, go ahead and place the call.”

Olivia met his eyes. Hers were full of fear. He recognized it and, instantly, a barrage of visions surged through his mind, as if a metaphorical floodgate had been opened. Countless sets of eyes, staring at him, all of them filled with that same look of fear. She feared her ex the way others feared him.

Damn. He'd been right not to sleep with her. It only would have blown up in his face later.

Not to mention that it would have made it harder than hell to do the job, dumb-ass.

The voice in his head was his own, and yet not. As Olivia dialed Information to ask if there was a listing for Thomas Skinner in Chicago, Adam analyzed what that voice had just said. As if there were any chance in hell he was actually going to kill the woman. He wasn't. Hell, he
couldn't.
He didn't feel capable of putting a bullet into any innocent person, much less this one. And yet, that was what he'd done for a living up until someone had put a bullet into
him
.

Maybe not. Maybe there was some small chance he had this all wrong. Because damn, he didn't feel capable of murder. He just didn't.

And even if he had been once, he told himself, he
wasn't anymore. And there was no way on earth he was going to hurt Olivia Dupree. Even if his memory returned full-force tomorrow. Even if he found out that his worst suspicions about himself were true. Even if it turned out he was working for the worthless pile of garbage she'd run away from long ago. He wouldn't—couldn't—go back to that. He had…changed.

“I'm scared,” she said softly, lowering the phone from her ear.

She hadn't written anything down, he noted. “Did you get the number?”

She nodded. “What if this goes badly, Aaron?” she asked, speaking softly, looking at him with huge eyes full of trust. “What if there's no way to stop this chain of events until I'm dead?”

Tears welled up in her eyes as she voiced the question.

He ran a hand over her hair, then cupped her cheek. “I'm not going to let that happen, okay?”

She thinned her lips, lowered her eyes. Freddy leaned forward and licked the cheek Adam wasn't touching, and that made Olivia smile. But when she lifted her eyes again, her face looked stricken. “Who'd take care of Freddy?”

“You will,” he said.

“But what if I'm not here?”

He started to tell her she would be, but she interrupted. “No, I don't need reassurances that I'll live through this, Aaron. We both know you can't promise me that—if you
did, it would be a lie, and I don't ever want you to lie to me, okay? I just need to know Freddy will be okay if I don't make it. Would you…would you take him? He really likes you.”

He stared at her for a long moment, and for some reason he couldn't say yes. This was a promise he couldn't make lightly. Something inside wouldn't let him. Her words—about never wanting him to lie to her—burned like battery acid in his soul. He looked back at the giant of a dog, drew a deep breath.

“I don't even know where I live. What if it's an apartment in the city or something?”

“You live on a former Christmas tree farm somewhere in Washington State,” she told him. “Everyone knows that.”

“Yeah, well, what if I don't?” He swallowed hard. “What if I'm not Aaron Westhaven after all?” She looked alarmed at that, so he went on quickly. “Or what if the charming Christmas tree farm in Washington is just a cover story I tell to keep the clamoring fans at bay?”

Her expression relaxed a little. “If it turns out you live in an apartment, I trust you to find a more suitable place to raise my dog. Or at the very least—and only if you have no choice—find someone else who would love him the way I do. I can't bear the thought of Freddy ever being mistreated. Or even shouted at.”

He rolled his eyes. “Or even given a dirty look.”

“That, too,” she agreed.

He sighed, looking at the dog again. Freddy was
staring back at him with his “eyebrows” raised and his brown eyes more pleading than he'd ever seen them. As if he knew exactly what was being discussed. The dog was practically a person.

“All right,” he said. “I'll do it.”

She seemed surprised. “You will?”

“Yes. Now, will you please dial the number before you forget it?”

She pressed the numbers with her thumb and handed the phone to him before it even rang.

Adam held it to his ear, heard the voice mail's generic recorded greeting, waited for the beep and then spoke. “I'm trying to reach Thomas Skinner,” he said. “He can call me back at this number for the next four hours. No longer. It's in regard to several computer disks he lost sixteen years ago. I've found them and want to make arrangements for their return, under certain conditions. If he doesn't return my call by noon today, they'll go to the next highest bidder. Have a nice day.”

He clicked off and turned to see Olivia staring at him, wide-eyed.

“What?”

“You…you just sounded…different.”

“How?” he asked.

“I don't know. Scary. Intimidating. And really confident, as if you have reason to be.”

“That's pretty much the only way to approach a man like your ex, Olivia. He's not going to respond to good
manners and conversational chitchat. He deals with problems by sending someone to beat the hell out of people—or worse—not by talking them out.”

“It just…”

“It just what?”

She shook her head, staring at her hands in her lap. “I understand all the reasons for wanting to sound the way you did. I just didn't expect it to be so…convincing. So…real.”

He sighed. Because she was right. It had come naturally to him. As naturally as disarming the burglar in her house. As naturally as taking steps to evade detection. As naturally as “never sleep with a mark,” the refrain that kept playing through his brain over and over again.

And that was what she was. He was surer of it every minute. A mark. Even if he had no intention of playing out that scenario. He couldn't hurt her. He knew it right to his soul.

And maybe he'd decided that before he'd been shot. Hell, maybe it was the
reason
he'd been shot.

The phone rang, and Olivia almost jumped out of her seat. He would have sworn her head hit the ceiling.

“Easy,” he said. “It's okay.” He picked up the phone, saw Private Caller on the screen and figured that was about what he'd expected. Then he hit the speakerphone button and answered with, “That was prompt.”

“I'm a prompt kind of a guy,” a man's voice said, and Adam knew it had to be Skinner, just by the tone of his
voice. “So you'll understand that I don't want to waste any more time before you tell me just who the fuck you are, and how you got your hands on my property.”

“Wasting time is
all
you're doing, pal. Those questions are irrelevant and off the table. I've got the disks. You want the disks. What are they worth to you?”

“She's with you, isn't she?”

He shot a sideways look at Olivia. She was sitting motionless in her seat, tense and straight, eyes riveted to the phone. She was as frozen as a cornered rabbit.

“When you asked about your property, I thought you were referring to the disks,” Adam said. “I don't know anything about any ‘she.'”

“Liar. Is she there with you now?”

“I'm alone.”

“Put her on the fucking phone.”

“I'm alone.”

There was a long pause. Then, “You're a liar. So what do you want?”

“I want to know if you've sent someone after the disks. Or to harm the person who had them in his possession.”

“You mean
her
possession, don't you?” The man cleared his throat long and loud, as if he was getting ready to spit. “I'll tell you what. I'll give you a hundred K for the disks.”

“And your promise that the person who's had them
will never hear from or be harmed in any way by you or any of your…people…ever again.”

“I've known she was alive since two years after she supposedly died, buddy. Believe me, if I'd wanted to hurt her, I'd have done it by now.”

“I'm supposed to believe that?”

“You're willing to take my word that I'll leave her alone but not that I haven't already tried?” The man heaved a disgusted sigh. “I know who it might have been, though.”

“Then telling me that is part of the deal, too,” Adam said, hating this bastard more with every breath he drew, every word he was forced to listen to. He suspected that his hatred had a lot to do with the look on Olivia's face right then. She looked as if she was about to puke her insides out.

“I'll tell you. And I'll pay you.
And
I'll promise she won't be harassed by me or anyone in my employ. But I've got a few conditions of my own.”

“And what would those be?” Adam asked.

“You meet me to trade the disks for the money. You bring every copy you've made. And I mean
every
copy.

And you bring
her
to the meeting with you.”

“Why?”

There was another long pause. “I just wanna see her again. See what I missed out on. Or escaped from. Those are the conditions. You don't meet them, not only do you
get nothing, I'll do the opposite of what I just promised. Agreed?”

Adam sighed, then looked at Olivia, telling her with his eyes that this was entirely her call.

She leaned close to the phone in his hand and said, “When and where, Tommy?”

“S
arah. I should have killed your sorry ass sixteen years ago.”

Everything inside her turned cold as he spoke to her. Her stomach knotted up tight, just like it used to do when she would hear his car pulling into the driveway at night. Especially if it had been a few hours since his shift had ended, because that would mean he'd been at the local pub, slamming beer or, worse, whiskey.

“Sarah!”

He barked her name because she hadn't answered, and she jerked away reflexively, her back pressing into the corner between the edge of the seat and the car door.

From the back of the SUV, Freddy growled deep in his throat, his eyes on the phone.

“Shit,” Aaron muttered.

Olivia saw him looking at her, and she was mortified that she'd shown such fear of nothing more than a voice on the phone. She straightened, shifted back to the center of her seat, lifted her chin. But it was too
late. She'd revealed her terror of the man. There was no taking it back.

“Fine, don't talk, then,” Tommy said. “I will. Be in Chicago a week from tomorrow at—”

“Fuck you, Tommy.” She licked her lips, her eyes glued to the phone, her brain reminding her that he couldn't hurt her from a thousand miles away, and reminding her, too, that she wasn't a frightened, inexperienced young girl anymore. “I'm not coming to Chicago. You want the disks, you come and get them.”

“I thought you wanted to live through this, bitch?”

Aaron clicked a button to shut off the speaker feature and put the device to his ear. “You're going to have to come to Vermont, Skinner. That's the only way this is going down.” Then he paused, covered the phone with one hand and mouthed “Where?” at her.

Olivia scrambled for her handbag, dug out a crumpled drugstore receipt and a pen, and jotted an address, then handed the scrap of paper to him. It was the address of the abandoned Campbell farm, where the local teens went to party when they didn't want to be in found. Secluded and private.

“You'll need to fly into Burlington and rent a car,” Aaron said. “Tonight. Text me your cell number, and I'll text you back with the address and time, so there are no mistakes.” He paused, then, “Yes. Tonight.” Another pause. “No, that's unacceptable. I'll be there alone, and I'll have the disks.”

She leaned closer, trying to listen in, though she already knew what Tommy wanted. He wanted her.

“No,” Aaron said again. “No, that's a deal-breaker.”

“He's insisting I be at the meeting, isn't he?” she whispered, putting a hand on his.

Aaron met her eyes, nodded once.

She firmed her jaw. “I'll do it. Tell him I'll be there.”

He shook his head. She could hear Tommy loudly making his own demands in Aaron's ear.

“I have to face him, Aaron. I really think I do.”

Again he shook his head. “She's not coming. You can deal with me, or the diskettes are going to the media. You understand?”

Tommy's voice went silent.

“I'll see you tonight,” Aaron said, and then he disconnected.

It felt as if a storm cloud left the SUV the minute the connection was severed. Even Freddy heaved a giant sigh.

“Done.” Aaron seemed inordinately pleased with himself.

Olivia nodded. “Thanks for being so protective. But, um…you know this is my problem. I should solve it myself.”

“You've been solving it yourself for sixteen years. Doesn't seem to be working out so well, does it?”

That angered her. “It was working out just fine until you showed up. Seems all this trouble came right in on
your coattails, Aaron. Before that I was fine. Living a great life, having a great career, cozy in my pretty little house with my dog and my friends and my backyard. Everything was just perfect until you blew into town.”

“Yeah, gee, sorry my getting shot in the head messed up your routine. Or I would be, if I knew you weren't lying through your teeth. You weren't so enamored of the life you've been living last night. Said you hadn't been living at all, the way I remember it. Or was that just the rum talking?”

She dropped her head into her hands and blew all the air from her lungs in one frustrated, infuriated whoosh.

His hand cupped the back of her head. “I'm not the enemy, Liv. He is.”

“I know. I know. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay. I know that was hard for you, hearing his voice again. God, he beat the hell out of you, didn't he?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“But you want to face him.” She nodded.

“Why?”

She sniffled and lifted her head, glancing over her shoulder at Freddy, who was lying in the back, head on his paws, tirelessly patient. “Need a walk, Fred? Hmm? Need a walk?”

His head came up, and he woofed at her.

Olivia got out, then went around and opened the
tailgate. Freddy leaped out and stood on the shoulder beside her. She rubbed him all over, bent to kiss his nose and then started walking up the side of the winding dirt road.

She heard the car door close and knew Aaron was coming after her.

“I sent the text. The meeting's on for midnight.”

“Good.”

“What's at that address?” he asked.

“The old Campbell farm. One of three party spots the kids in town frequent. It's out past Sugar Tree, Nate Kelly's ski lodge. Should be pretty private this time of year, especially on a Monday night.”

He nodded. “Tell me why you want to see him,” he said. And then he added, “And then tell me why you're not using a leash.”

“What good is a leash going to do? He'll either stay with me because he wants to, or he won't. A leash wouldn't matter a bit to a two-hundred-pound dog. It's all about training. He won't run off.”

“Not even if a rabbit or a deer goes shooting past him?”

“Not even.”

“He's a good dog.”

“He's the
best
dog. He does whatever I tell him—mostly.”

“Hmm. Now if you could only train him not to eat meat laced with acepromazine.”

“I won't have to. Twenty bucks says he won't fall for that trick again.”

He lifted his brows. “He's that smart?”

“He's smarter than you.”

He looked offended. “Okay, I'll reserve the right to debate that later. How about answering my other question?”

She stopped walking. Freddy, a few feet away, sniffed at a roadside weed, then watered it liberally. Olivia looked into Aaron's eyes. “I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm scared. I'm not ashamed to admit that. I just—you were right before. What's to stop Tommy from taking the disks and killing me anyway?”

“That's why I want you to stay the hell clear of this meeting,” he began. “That way—”

“That way he'll have to track me down and kill me later,” she said. “No. We just don't have any way to be sure he'll keep his promise to leave me alone from now on. We have nothing to hold over his head. No power to enforce the deal.” She sighed. “At least if I see him, I'll know. I'll know, the minute I look at him, whether he intends to let me live or not. And it's something I need to know. I don't want to live like this anymore. Looking over my shoulder, never quite sure I won't come home to find…exactly what I did the other night. I'm done with it. I need to see his face. I need to know.”

Aaron sighed, lowering his head. And then he said, “There's another way, you know.”

She frowned and studied his eyes, which had gone
suddenly hard and cold. “No, I don't know. What other way?”

He averted his gaze, stared at the ground. “I go to the meeting as planned, and then I…kill him.”

At first she thought he was kidding, but the look on his face was dead serious. Slowly her heart turned to ice, and then the chill spread outward from that freezing center, filling her body. It was a sense of emotionless revulsion. She literally took a step back, away from him. Instantly Freddy was in front of her, placing himself between them and leaning heavily against Aaron's thighs, causing him to stagger a couple of steps backward.

He frowned down at the dog.

“Mastiffs don't generally attack people the way other dogs do,” she told him. “They don't need to. They use their weight to intimidate and overpower anyone they feel is a threat to their person.”

“Freddy doesn't see me as a threat to you.”

“No. But I did, just now, and he picked up on that. I don't like feeling that way, Aaron.”

“Stop calling me that.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“I'm just…I'm just not sure that's who I am.”

Tipping her head to one side, she studied him. “Who do you think you are, then?”

“I don't know. But that name—it just doesn't feel right.”

“And that has something to do with you wanting to commit murder for me?”

“No. Maybe. I don't know.” He turned and paced away from her. “Look, the guy's a criminal. He's a threat to you. He's dangerous. And there's no real way to defuse him. I just—I guess I was trying out the notion. Seeing how it felt.”

“And how did it feel, Aaron?”

He seemed to search inwardly. “Logical. Like a logical and entirely plausible plan.”

She shook her head slowly. “But how did it
feel?
”

He sighed. “Necessary, I guess.”

“Emotions, Aaron, I'm asking you to describe your emotions.”

He frowned at her, and then he nodded. “It didn't feel good. Not like something I would
want
to do.”

“But something you
could
do?” she asked.

He looked at her. “If I thought the guy was going to kill you otherwise? Yeah, I think I could.”

Olivia lowered her head. “I don't think I like this side of you.”

“I don't know if I do, either. But it doesn't seem like the kind of idea that would occur to a reclusive novelist, does it?”

“Not unless he was a thriller writer.”

He nodded and looked down at the dog, who was now sitting in front of Olivia, his rump warming her feet, he was so close. She stroked his head, loving him even more than she already had, which was saying something.

“I'd never hurt
you,
Liv,” Aaron—who didn't think
he was Aaron anymore—told her. “Please believe that. I'm just…I'm just confused, I guess.”

“Okay.”

He nodded.

“But I
am
going to be at this meeting,” she said. “And you're not going to even
think
about killing Tommy Skinner.”

He licked his lips, lowered his eyes. “You must think I'm as bad as he is, to have something like that even occur to me.”

She started walking toward the car again. Freddy stayed right beside her, walking in between the two humans. She was silent for a long moment. “I don't like violence,” she said at length. “Probably because I was the victim of it myself. I don't like violent men, probably because I've suffered at the hands of one. But I love my dog. And I don't have any doubt
he
would kill to protect me.”

He looked at her as they walked, his face puzzled. “I'm not sure what that means.”

“Neither am I. But I will tell you my darkest secret. I've thought about killing Tommy myself. I thought about doing it before I left him, because I knew he would kill me if he caught me trying to get away. I thought about doing it after I left him, because I was unhappy living in fear he would find me one day. And I thought about showing up for this meeting and just shooting him full of holes. Just for an instant. I thought it. You thought it. You said it out loud and I didn't, is all. But…but the
difference between us and men like Tommy Skinner is that we don't act on every thought that crosses our minds. We know that some of them need to be reined in, crossed off, controlled. We're human beings, not loyal dogs. We don't just go around killing what threatens us. If we did, we'd be no better than animals.”

He nodded slowly. “I get that.”

“Good.” She closed her eyes, wondering what he was thinking, feeling, what he had remembered that had put the shadows in his eyes. It had to be something that had come to him last night. He was different this morning. And he was handling that pocket watch as they walked, turning it over and over in his palm.

“What do you suggest we do between now and midnight?” she asked. “We have all day to kill.” She made a face. “Sorry. The pun was unintended.”

“Killing time isn't illegal,” he said. “Or inhuman. At least, not that I remember.”

“Now
you're
delivering sorry one-liners.” She shifted her eyes to the watch in his hand. “Why don't we find some tiny tools and take that watch apart?”

His brows creased just slightly, right in the center of his forehead.

“You said there was something more to the watch, but you just couldn't remember what. And you're constantly handling it, feeling it, looking at it, as if it's got some secret to tell you that you just haven't managed to access yet.” She tipped her head to one side. “Why don't we open it up and see what's inside, just in case?”

He looked down at the watch in his hand and then up at her again. “I think you're onto something.”

She stopped at the back of the SUV and opened it up. “We also need a home base. I'm sick of being in this SUV all the time, and it's going to drive poor Freddy insane.”

“I don't really see what we can do about that.”

“I do. I want to go home.”

He looked as if he understood and sympathized. “I know you do. But not just yet, okay? It wouldn't be safe yet.”

“Why not? Tommy says he didn't send that guy after me. Plus I'm going to him tonight, and he knows it, no matter what you told him. And Bryan will protect us from whoever came after me, as well as whoever's after you.”