“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
