Kill Me Again (27 page)

Then she found the edge and started peeling it away. Several strands of his hair came with it, roots and all, and he thought maybe his jawline lost some of its day's growth of whiskers. But that was nothing compared to the layers of skin he lost from his lips as she yanked the tape away.

But then she was kissing them again, so he decided he really didn't mind.

 

He was confused as hell about why she'd done an about-face toward him, and hoped to God the two of them were going to live long enough for him to figure her out. And…then he stopped thinking and just felt the tide of relief mingled with desire that rushed through him at the pressure of her mouth against his. God, it was good, and he had been craving this and not even realizing it—not until right now. Now every muscle relaxed
as she whispered soft things against his lips, things he couldn't hear and didn't need to.

Finally she backed away just a little, her eyes closed, as if she were feeling too much emotion to look at him just then. He felt her trembling as she moved around behind him and began tugging at the handcuffs.

“What the hell are you doing here, Olivia?” he asked, craning his neck to try to see her as he spoke, so he could read her face. Or maybe just so he could keep drinking it in. God, he was glad to see her. And yet he wasn't, because it meant she was going to die with him. And of all the many things he'd fantasized about her doing with him, dying was not one of them.

“That bastard said he was going to kill you.”

“Yeah, and for all you know, I was sent to kill you. So why did you come?”

She stopped working on the cuffs and leaned closer, her breath near his ear. “I had to make a decision, Adam. I had to decide whether to believe what the evidence in your apartment was telling me, what Bryan was telling me, what even
you
seemed to believe—or to believe what my own heart and soul were telling me about you.”

“Bryan knows who I am, then?”

“He thinks he does. But he's wrong.
I
know you, though.” She gave up on the cuffs and came back around to the front, where she knelt on the floor, her palms pressed to his thighs, then looked up at him and leaned forward. “The man I've been getting to know these past few days is a good man. He's not a murderer. There is
something down deep inside every person, something very basic, at their core. It's what determines how someone acts when the chips are down and choices have to be made. It's the heart of every human being, and it's either good or bad. I've seen your heart, Adam. I've felt it, and I know it, and you are good. You
are.
That's what I choose to believe.”

“That's a pretty big leap of faith. A pretty big risk.”

“If I'm wrong, it'll be a devastating one. But if I'm right, then this decision to believe in you despite all the evidence is the most important leap of faith I will ever take. I've weighed my options, and I've decided that I'd rather risk heartache for a shot at the best thing I'll ever find than protect my heart and never know love.”

His throat went dry.

“And that's what this is, you know,” she said, holding his eyes. “You do know that, right? I'm choosing to believe in you because I love you. And I'd rather be in love with a good guy than a killer. So I'm choosing to believe that's what you are, and I'm hoping to God I'm not making a huge mistake.”

He stared at her, stunned right to his soul. He knew she was waiting for an answer, a sign, something. And yet he was speechless.

Her eyes started to moisten, and she looked away fast, scurrying behind the chair to begin yanking on the wood, trying to free him, talking way too quickly. “I know it's a lot to take in all at once,” she said. “But
it would do me a world of good if you'd give me some kind of answer.”

“I'm just…I'm stunned, and I'm—”

He gave up on speech and stood up, chair and all. Then he moved away from her and swung the chair into the nearest wall. It crashed to bits on the floor around him.

Quickly Olivia wrested the broken piece of it from the cuffs. Free of the chair, he sat on the floor and slid his cuffed hands over the backs of his legs, then his feet, until his hands were in front of him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I'll be okay.”

“So?” She sat on the floor and looked at him. “Don't you have anything at all to say to me?”

“Thank you seems like way too little.”

The frown that marred her face let him know that she thought so, too, but he was damned if he could form words. The enormity of what she had done for him was so overwhelming that he was all but speechless. He didn't know where to begin.

She lowered her eyes then. “You're right. It is.” And then she appeared to be trying to dislodge a large lump from her throat. “Well, let's see about getting out of this mess, then.”

She got to her feet and, turning away from him, moved to the door, testing the knob, running her hands up and down its surface, feeling the hinges.

Adam's legs had fallen asleep from being still for
so long, and they prickled now with a thousand unseen needles. He stomped, shook one leg, then the other, even while noticing how she was keeping her face averted, avoiding his eyes as she pretended to be busy.

He moved closer, but she still kept feeling up the door, like some secret escape hatch was going to open if she just looked hard enough.

“I'm not a hit man,” he told her. “I want you to know that right now, before anything else happens. I was only posing as one.”

That got her to turn and face him again. She searched his eyes.

“I know this is going to sound farfetched, but since you believe in me without any reason to, maybe you'll be willing to take my word for this part of it, too, until I can show you the proof—and I will be able to show you proof, Olivia. Assuming we make it out of here alive, anyway.”

“I want to believe you,” she whispered.

“I'm an undercover FBI agent,” he said. “A very specialized one.”

Her brow creased. “Posing as a hit man?” she asked.

“I know how it sounds. Believe me. I know. But it's the truth. I pose as a hit man known as Mr. Adams. And Adams has a great reputation in the underworld by now. So I get hired on to take people out, but instead I stage the hit, fake the mark's death, then hustle them into a government relocation program.”

“So someone
did
hire you to…to murder me?”

“That's what I was told.”

“Who?”

He nodded at the doorway. “Didn't you recognize her? That's the wife of the good senator. She wants to be first lady one day, and nobody is going to tolerate a president and first lady who are on film buying marijuana, much less toking their brains out—in her case from a five-foot bong.”

“I
thought
the woman in that photo looked familiar. But who's the man with her?”

“My boss.”

Her eyes widened as they met his.

“Bruce Modine. He and Corinne met when he was with the Secret Service.”

“And they're lovers?” she asked.

He nodded. “I don't know the rest. But I can put at least some of it together.”

“So can I,” she said. “My lovely ex must have tried to blackmail her or her husband.”

“And she turned to her lover for advice on how to handle it,” Adam elaborated.

“If you're banging someone in the FBI, you'd definitely run a blackmail attempt by them,” she agreed. “So then she paid Tommy the hush money he demanded, and in exchange, he told her where she could find the disks with the evidence on them. He told her about
me
. He was telling us the truth about that.”

Nodding, Adam went on. “Bruce wouldn't have had
any trouble at all finding a legitimate hit man to do the job for his lady friend. But something must have gone wrong. Probably a leak. Someone else in the Bureau must have learned there was a hit being taken out on you and informed him. If he hadn't sent me in to fake your death and relocate you, it would have looked fishy. That was his job. So he did it. But he told the real hit man about it, or had her tell him. His job was to kill us both and get those disks, clearing her husband's path to the White House.”

“And his wife's path to being first lady. My God.”

She nodded slowly and met his eyes. It seemed there was more she was waiting to hear from him. But he could see she'd accepted what he'd told her so far. He could see it, he just couldn't quite believe it.

“You look like you believe me.”

“I'm choosing to believe you. I'm not being stupid, I want that clear. If you're playing me, I'll find out soon enough, but dammit, Adam, I want to believe you.”

“I swear to God, Olivia—”

“You don't have to swear. But dammit, Adam, it would be nice if you'd—” She bit her lip to cut herself off, shook her head hard.

“What?”

“Never mind. Let's just get out of here, okay?”

“How do you suggest we do that?”

“First we need to get out of this room,” she said. “Then I have a secret weapon. All I have to do is, uh, unleash it. So to speak.”

He met her eyes and felt hope for the first time. “Freddy?”

She nodded.

“Where?”

“Basement. He's being quiet and staying still, just like I told him, but that won't last forever. And if they find him…”

Adam felt the blood rush from his face to his feet, and went to the door, pounding on it. “We want to make a deal! Do you hear? We'll get all the copies for you.”

No answer. He pounded again. “Corinne, come on. You don't even know about the copies that are being mailed to the opposing party's leaders tomorrow.”

Staccato clicks came closer, and Corinne said, “What the fuck are you talking about now, Adam?”

“Open the door. We can do this like adults. Look, I've got secrets in my past, too. So does Olivia, as I'm sure you know. You smoked some weed. So what? It's not that big a deal. Not like murder. We can come to an understanding here.”

There was a sigh. “I'd be an idiot to let you live.”

“You'd be an idiot to murder two people, only to have the truth come out anyway, getting you twenty to life or worse for your trouble.”

“Ignore them, Corinne,” Bruce said.

“Yeah, ignore him,” Olivia shouted. “I'll be laughing in my grave when you go down in a public train wreck tomorrow afternoon, taking your unsuspecting husband with you.”

“They're bluffing,” Bruce said.

“He doesn't even know those disks exist, does he, Corinne? What do you think he'll do when he finds out what you've been up to?” Olivia went on.

The lock turned, and the door opened. Corinne was standing there with a gun pointed at Adam's chest.

Sighing so loudly it was almost a growl, Bruce stomped past her into the room, gun drawn. “Back up, Adam,” he said, aiming the gun at his forehead.

Adam took two steps back. No need to make waves at this point.

“You,” Bruce said to Olivia. “Come here.”

She stepped forward. Bruce grabbed her, twisted her around and pulled her back against him, one arm around her chest and his gun to her temple.

“
Now
we can talk.”

“I don't know,” Olivia said. “I don't really feel like talking now. I feel like screaming.” And then she cut loose with a shriek that should have had Bruce's ears bleeding.

He quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, cussing at her while ordering her to shut the hell up, but she bit him hard. And when he jerked his hand away in response, she screamed again.

“What the hell is
wrong
with you?” Bruce demanded, even as Corinne marched right up to Olivia and slapped her hard across the face.

She stopped screaming, but it didn't matter. The message had been delivered. And it took all of three seconds
before they all jumped, startled by a sound that could only be compared to a wrecking ball demolishing a condemned building with its first and only blow.

Wood cracked and splinted. The already rickety basement door didn't fly open—it exploded into a thousand bits, some the size of toothpicks. And then, from the midst of the splinter-starburst, came what looked like a rampaging bear.

B
ruce spun around, still holding Olivia to him. The skinny brunette shoved past them and leveled her gun at Freddy. But Olivia reacted instinctively. Leaning back into Bruce, she drew both knees up, then kicked out for all she was worth, landing a double-barrel blow to the small of Corinne's back and putting her on her knees. She never got a shot off before her gun was on the floor.

“Call him off! Call him—” Bruce didn't get to finish, because he'd turned his weapon away from Olivia's head, attempting to aim it at her best friend instead, and the instant he did, Adam hit him like a speeding semi, taking him down, and Olivia along with him, even as a shot rang out.

There was a horrible cry, a yelp that tore at Olivia's insides as she fought to disentangle herself from Bruce's grip. He tried to hold on to her—she was peripherally aware of him pointing the gun at her again and realized that he was speaking, probably something threatening. It had no impact. She was flailing her arms, kicking her
legs, twisting her body, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. She knew she landed at least a blow or two before getting free, and then she scrambled to her feet, racing to where Freddy had fallen.

Adam and Bruce were entangled in deadly combat as she fell to her knees beside the dog. There was an ominous hole in his chest, right between his front shoulders, and blood pumped from it in time with his heartbeat.

“No, no, no,” she moaned, pressing a palm to the wound to stanch the bleeding. “Hold on, boy, just—”

She broke off with a grunt of pain, as a pair of hands gripped her by the hair and jerked her backward. She landed on her ass but bounded to her feet, swinging at the woman who'd attacked her. She hit Corinne hard, barely seeing her, reacting purely to the surge of adrenaline.

A fist connected, then another, then a foot, and then she was straddling Corinne, pounding the woman's head repeatedly into the floor. “Hey.
Hey!
” Adam said. “Enough. You're gonna kill her.”

Olivia only glanced at him long enough to see that he was now standing, holding a gun on the prone and badly beaten Bruce. She looked back at Corinne just long enough to see that she was no longer conscious. And then she was scrambling on all fours across the floor and pressing her hands to Freddy's wound again.

“He's bleeding, Adam! Do something!”

“Already am.”

Another sideways glance told her that he was on a cell phone—calling for help, she hoped.

“There's been a shooting. A federal officer is down. Shooters have been disarmed. We need police and an ambulance. And the name of an emergency vet. We're at…” He shot her a look. “Damn, what's the address here?”

“The old cheese factory building,” she told him. “They'll know it. Everyone in Shadow Falls knows where it is.”

He repeated the information into the phone, then hung up even while the dispatcher was advising him to stay on the line. Moving toward Bruce, he waggled the gun. “Handcuff keys. Now.”

“Go to hell,” Bruce said.

“You hurt my woman, and you shot my dog, pal, and it's taking everything I have not to put a bullet in you for that. Just give me a reason.”

Bruce got the keys from a pocket and offered them to Adam. Rather than take them, Adam held out his arms, pressing the gun to the man's forehead. “Unlock them.”

Bruce obeyed, and the minute they sprang open, Adam snapped them around Bruce's wrists instead. Then, moving quickly to Corinne, he assured himself that she was out cold before he tucked the gun into his pants and joined Olivia on the floor beside Freddy.

Freddy's eyes were open, but they kept closing, stay
ing closed a little bit longer each time. His breath was coming rapidly.

“We're going to lose him,” she said through her tears. “Freddy, please, baby, hang on…”

“No, no way are we losing him. No way, babe. I'm telling you, he's going to be okay.” But his voice held no conviction, and she knew as well as he must that Freddy had been hit in the worst possible place, with the possible exception of a head shot. Her dog's massive heart lay right between his shoulders. It would have been a tough target to miss.

Sobs that had been caught in her throat suddenly broke loose, and she burst into a crying jag that rivaled the worst any woman had ever had.

“Keep the pressure on him, Liv. Keep it on. It's okay. You're doing great.”

“H-h-he's sh-shivering.”

“So are you.” Adam looked around the room, spotted a tarp stretched over some ancient piece of equipment and went to get it. He gave it a solid shake, sending a cloud of dust into the air, and then he brought it back and draped it over the dog, leaving room for Olivia to keep the pressure on his chest.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“I never should have brought him.”

“He saved your life. Mine, too.”

The dog heaved a broken, pain-wracked sigh.

“Oh, baby, I'm so, so sorry. Please hold on. Freddy, please hold on.”

But he only looked at her, his soft brown eyes more full of love and need than she'd ever seen them—and then they rolled back, flashing their whites in a brief, horrifying display, before those heavy lids fell closed.

Collapsing on top of her dog, and ignoring the sounds of sirens and the strobe lights coming through the windows, she sobbed as if her heart were broken. Because it was.

“What about Carrie?”

She lifted her head slowly and whispered, “What?”

“Where does she live?” Adam asked.

Her eyes widened as she realized what he was getting at. “Two miles, maybe less.”

“Okay.” He got to his feet, took the gun from his jeans and laid it on a table. Then he held his hands up, and faced the door just as it burst open and Bryan Kendall lunged into the room, his .45 leading the way.

“We're not armed,” Adam said quickly. “They aren't, either. But we need to get help for Freddy or we're going to lose him.”

“They shot him, Bryan!” Olivia yelled. “They shot my dog!”

“Shit. Okay, okay.” Bryan checked out the scene for himself before holstering his sidearm. Then, as his men swarmed into the building, he helped Adam pick up Freddy. The men grunted with the effort, and Olivia joined them to help bear the dog's weight.

As they loaded Freddy into the backseat of the nearest police car, Bryan shouted to his men, “Secure the scene, take those two into custody and—Holy shit.” He looked at Corinne, who was being lifted to her feet, her hands now in handcuffs, her face bruised to hell and her hair in her eyes. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “And the other one's my former boss.”

“Boss? Wait, he's FBI!”

“So am I,” Adam said. “Difference is, I'm clean and he's dirty.”

“I knew that prick was no good,” Bryan muttered. Then he tossed Adam the keys and said, “I've got to stay here. But I'll need a statement from you, ASAP.”

“Just as soon as Freddy's in good hands, I'm all yours.” Adam jumped behind the wheel, started up the engine and drove away without a moment's hesitation.

In the back, her knees on the floor, her body wrapped around Freddy's, Olivia wept into warm, soft fur, even while trying to keep the pressure on the hole still pumping out his precious blood. “Left at the main road, Adam, then the second right. Hurry!”

 

It was Sam who opened the front door in response to Olivia's frantic pounding. He was dressed in pajama bottoms, no shirt, and his hair was tousled. But he took one look at her tear-streaked face, then darted his gaze past her to where Adam was singlehandedly trying
to lift a seemingly lifeless canine from the back of a police car.

“Mom!” Sam shouted. “Mom, get your bag! It's Freddy!”

And then he was racing toward the vehicle to help. Seconds later Carrie, in a terry bathrobe, was there, and she and Olivia ran to help the men. The four of them managed to get Fred inside, where, with a sweep of her arm, Carrie cleared the kitchen table so they could lay him on top of it.

The table groaned beneath his weight, but it held. And then Carrie was shouting orders, and Sam was shooting back and forth, assisting his mother as if he were a seasoned medic himself. In a few minutes their frantic efforts slowed, then stopped.

Carrie sighed, leaning over the dog, one bloody hand covering her eyes and leaving red streaks on her forehead.

Olivia whispered, “Carrie? God, Carrie, is he…?”

“No. God, no,” the other woman said, her head snapping up fast. “But I've done all I can. He needs blood, and he needs surgery, Olivia, and I can't do that here. But I think I've got him stabilized enough to make it to the animal hospital.” She patted Olivia's arm. “You were smart to bring him here. As mad as I am at you for getting my kid shot, I'm glad you came to me. He would never have made it across town. But now…well, he's got a chance.” She glanced across the room to where Sam was speaking softly to someone on the phone.

“We're on our way now. Ten minutes or so,” he was saying.

When he hung up, Olivia went over and hugged him hard. “You saved my life, you know.”

He went red. “It was no big deal.'

“Thank you, Sam.”

“So what are you driving?” Carrie asked Adam.

“Police cruiser. You coming along?”

“He's my patient. I go where he goes until I can hand him off to another doctor. I only wish it were as easy to keep tabs on
all
my patients.”

She sent him a wink, then looked at herself. “Let's get him to the car. Put the heat on full blast, and drive as fast as you can. We'll throw on some clothes, and then we'll be right behind you.”

 

At the animal hospital, Olivia paced and waited. Bryan came by with a tape recorder and spent a long time in a small room talking to Adam, and then it was her turn. For the moment there were no Feds impeding his investigation. Bruce had been the only one to come to town, and he'd been working off the books. There would be others now, though.

She told Bryan everything that had happened, everything she had learned about Adam. And the whole time she was talking, her eyes were still glued to the mesh-lined glass in the door, beyond which she could see the waiting area and the double doors through which the vet would emerge when the surgery was complete.

Adam, Sam and Carrie were out there, along with Bryan's fiancée, Dawn, a friend of Olivia's and, more important, of Freddy's.

“I'm sorry to make you go through all this tonight,” Bryan said.

She nodded. “Maybe it made the waiting go a little faster. He must still be alive, though. I mean, if he'd died in there, they would have said so. So he must still be alive.”

“That would be my guess.”

She nodded hard, and dragged her gaze from the door to meet Bryan's. “Is it true, what Adam told me, Bryan? Is he really some kind of…undercover agent?”

“Yeah. And his agency is sending his former boss in to debrief him, and you along with him. That's why I wanted to talk to you now, before they get here and take over and tell me I'm not allowed.”

She frowned. “If you're not allowed, what good did it do you to talk to me at all?”

He shrugged. “I just wanted to make sure I knew everything, so I can help you later on.”

She lowered her eyes. “That's right. I'm going to have to face up to sixteen years of lying about who I am, aren't I? Did I break any laws, I wonder?”

“I don't know.”

She thinned her lips. “What about Adam?”

“What about him?”

She shrugged. “Do you think he'll go back to his old
job, now that this is all over? I mean, would they let him, do you think?”

He sighed, lowered his head. “I have no idea. You're going to have to ask him that yourself.”

The double doors opened then, and she saw everyone in the waiting room rise as one. The vet, still wearing surgical scrubs, walked in. Olivia rose and shot out of the room all in one motion. “How is he?”

The vet looked solemn, and Olivia felt her vision beginning to go dark around the edges, felt the horrible approach of a dead faint closing in on her. And then Adam was beside her, his strong arms holding her, supporting her, and the humming in her ears faded, allowing her to hear what the doctor—Dr. Lassiter, who was pretty and female and relatively new in town—was saying.

“We've done all we can. He'll either wake up from the surgery or he won't. Every hour he lives from here on will increase his chances of a full recovery. He just needs to hang on long enough to get some of his strength back. If he makes it until morning, he'll make it.”

Olivia released an openmouthed sigh that was only slightly relieved.

“He's made it this far, Liv,” Adam told her. His arms tightened around her, and he pulled her closer to his side. “He'll make it.”

“Can I stay with him?” she asked the vet.

“You can see him. But be very quiet and calm, and keep it brief. We don't want to put any strain on his heart right now. And besides, he's still unconscious, and we
hope to keep him that way until morning. Afterward, you might as well go home and try to get some sleep.”

“I can't leave him!”

“Someone will be watching over him constantly, Professor Dupree,” Dr. Lassiter said. “I promise, he won't be alone, and if he even starts to wake up, I'll call you so you can be here. Okay?”

Olivia blinked. “I'm so afraid to leave him.”

“You don't have to,” Adam whispered in her ear. “Go on in and see him now, hon. I'll be in shortly, okay?”

She nodded, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. Adam handed her off to Sam, who put a strong hand on her shoulder and walked with her and the vet through the double doors toward the recovery room.

The vet opened the door, and Olivia looked in to see Freddy lying still on a stainless-steel table, with a tube in his mouth. He was covered in a blanket, and his eyes were slightly open, mere slits in his face, which seemed worse than if they had been closed. She moved closer and carefully, softly, stroked his neck.