Kill Me Again (12 page)

“This is nice out here,” she said, tipping the bottle to her cup before sitting up straight again. “It's beautiful. And we're safe.”

“For the moment,” he said.

“I should have been doing this all along.”

“Running from a hit man or drinking rum?”

“Camping. With Freddy. And…you. Or some nice guy somewhere.”

“Oh. So you haven't dated much, huh?”

“Not at all. I've spent my whole life hating men. Not trusting them, you know? Even though I know, in the practical part of my brain, that not all men are jerks like Tommy. I work with lots of decent men. But I keep my distance. A loooong distance. Do you know how long it's been since I've had sex with a man?”

He felt his throat go dry. “I, uh…no.”

“Years.”

“Oh.” He wasn't quite sure what she was saying. But he was interested enough to want to find out—and fast. “So are you saying you…want to?”

She sipped again. “I'm saying, if it happens to happen—happens to happen. That's funny.” She paused to laugh at her own joke. “Where was I?”

“If it happens to happen,” he prompted.

She laughed again. “If it happens to happen, I won't be upset about it.” She tilted her head to one side. “You?”

“I… No. I wouldn't be upset about it, either.”

“Cool. So we'll just enjoy the night and the stars and the fresh air and the rum, and see what happens.”

He swallowed hard, because in the back of his mind warnings were going off as loudly as the red-alert siren on the Starship
Enterprise
. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong with the notion of having sex with this woman. Even beyond the fact that she was too drunk to know what she wanted, it felt wrong. It felt as if it would be some kind of violation, as if it would be breaking a rule that was carved in stone.

What could account for that?

He frowned and looked at his hands, spreading out his fingers.

“What?” she asked. “What are you thinking? You looked really pens—pens—
thoughtful
just now.”

He shrugged. “I was just wondering if I'm married or…you know, in a relationship with someone in the life I can't remember.”

She frowned. “I really don't think that's the case, Aaron.”

He met her eyes, then rolled his. “You don't even know me. How can you have an opinion?”

She drew back slightly, letting him know his reaction had hurt her feelings. But she covered quickly with a nonchalant shrug. “Because anyone who writes about relationships the way you do can't possibly be in one.”

“
If
I really am Aaron Westhaven—and I'm not convinced I am—but
if
I am, then I'm a fiction writer. Do you really think every author writes what he lives? I mean, do you think mystery writers are into committing murders, or even solving them? I don't. So you shouldn't think a guy who writes the stuff I do is living his own life of…of—”

“Unfulfilled yearning,” she interjected. Only
unfulfilled
came out sounding as if she'd forgotten to include any vowels.

“Yeah, that.”

“I suppose you have a point.” She looked at his hands, then shrugged. “Still, no wedding band.”

“Doesn't mean there isn't someone in my life.”

She studied him in the darkness, with the campfire popping and snapping, its flames making her skin all orange and amber and dancing their reflection in her eyes. Her hair had come loose from its bun, and was falling all around her face and dangling over her nape. She was beautiful.

“Why is this just occurring to you now?” she asked softly. “Why didn't you wonder about it sooner?”

He shrugged. “I suppose because you brought up sex.”

“And?”

“And it felt…as if it would be wrong, somehow. On some kind of gut level. I can't explain it any better than that.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Yeah, okay. That…that really does seem as if there must be a reason.”

“That's what I'm saying.”

She stared at the fire, then heaved a big sigh and lifted her cup in the air in surrender, rum sloshing over the sides. “Fine, no sex, then. Is that stew about ready?”

 

Bryan Kendall was sitting on the wrong side of a table in his own police department's interrogation room. It was after hours on a Sunday night. The Fed, a wiry little assistant director by the name of Bruce Modine, sat in what should have been Bryan's chair, with a big open file folder and a notebook. No tape recorder. Bryan didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad one.

He'd been summoned from home by Chief Mac an hour ago, with a request he get to the station ASAP and he'd shown up to find this suit waiting to “talk to” him.

“Okay, for the record,” the A.D. said, “you are police officer Bryan Kendall of the Shadow Falls P.D., is that correct?”

“Why the formality, Modine? You're not taping this. And you know who I am.”

“So that's a yes, then.” Modine made a mark on his notepad with his pencil. The way his balding head remained upright, even as he bent over the notepad, made Bryan think of a German shepherd on alert. “Your record isn't exactly immaculate, is it?”

“Is yours?”

“You were suspended after shooting a suspect in a hostage standoff—”

“Suspension during the investigation is standard in any shooting. But I don't have to tell you that. I was cleared of any wrongdoing and returned to active duty. But I don't imagine I have to tell you
that,
either.”

“You were cleared,” Modine agreed, glancing down at his notes. “After several weeks in therapy for PTSD.”

“To rule it out, not to treat it. And it
was
ruled out.” Bryan tipped his head to one side. “Are you deliberately trying to rile me, Modine?”

“Just reviewing the facts. Now, as I understand it, right before you were supposed to return to duty, you became the lead suspect in several murders, didn't you?”

“I was being set up. The real killer was exposed, and he's dead.”

“Yes, your, uh—well, I guess
mentor
is the word, right?”

“Yes, that's the word. Nick and I were good friends, too. Or I thought we were. But again, I was exonerated. Completely.”

The man looked up, skewering Bryan with his pale blue eyes. He was sitting back in his chair, one ankle propped on the opposite knee. He dropped his gaze and pored over the file folder for a moment. “He's dead. Makes it a little hard to know anything for sure.”

“Doesn't matter. I've been cleared. It's all in the file.”

“Mmm-hmm. Okay, so what do you know about Professor Olivia Dupree?”

Bryan lifted his eyes. “You're here about Olivia?”

Assistant Director Modine lifted his head and met Bryan's eyes again, his own curious.

“It's just that the chief said this was about the gunshot victim we brought in yesterday.”

The Fed nodded. “Yes, but since she's the only person in this town with whom he had any sort of connection, naturally we want to learn all we can about her. And I was frankly surprised at how much there was to learn. So how well do you know her?”

Bryan didn't flinch as he held the man's gaze. “Barely at all.”

“And yet you refer to her by her first name.”

Bryan shrugged. “We were in a tense situation together a few weeks ago. Nick DiMarco tried to kill both of us. We survived. That tends to bond people.”

“So you have a bond. But you barely know her. Is that what you're sticking with, then?”

“That's the truth.”

“I see.” Modine made a note. “So you didn't know, then, that Olivia Dupree is not her real name?”

Bryan blinked, saying nothing.

“Her real name is Sarah Quinlan,” the other man went on. “She ran away from her abusive live-in lover in Chicago almost seventeen years ago, after buying herself some time to get away by turning him in for dealing marijuana. Took off with a pile of his cash and some pretty valuable documents.”

“Why would she do that?” Bryan asked.

Modine shrugged. “Probably figured he'd kill her if he caught her. She lucked out, though. Moved up here where she didn't know a soul. Got herself a roommate who wound up murdered, and with a whole lot of help from a cop with powerful connections, switched identities with the dead girl.”

“How do you know about all this?”

“It wasn't hard. She'd never have kept her secret this long if anyone had ever had a reason to take a closer look at her. But no one has. She's led a quiet, uneventful, even boring, life here.”

Bryan shrugged. “Maybe it would be best to let her keep on living it.”

Modine frowned at him. “Except that she's missing. And so is our guy.”

“Yeah,
your
guy. Do you mind if we talk about him a little more? 'Cause I'd really like to know who he is and why the Feds are so interested in him.”

The A.D. shifted his pale eyes back to the notebook,
too smart to risk giving away a thing via his expression. “I'm not at liberty to give you any details on that.”

“Is he this Aaron Westhaven, then?”

“I'm sorry, I can't say. But let's get back on topic. This Dupree woman, do you know anything about her that might help us track her down?”

“Believe me, there's not a damn thing I can tell you about her that you don't already know.”

Modine frowned. Bryan thought maybe the man had noticed the way he was choosing his words, giving away nothing without lying outright. He was worried about Olivia. Her secret was out—unless the Feds decided for some reason to keep it in.

“So Professor Dupree's ex thinks she's dead, then?” Bryan asked.

“He did. We believe he might know the truth now.”

“What makes you believe that?”

“I'm not at—”

“—liberty to say. I got it.”

“Sorry.”

No, he wasn't, Bryan thought. “Tell me this, Agent Modine. If Olivia is with this guy, is she in danger?”

“It's
Assistant Director
Modine. And, yes, she's in some pretty deep shit if she's running with our amnesiac shooting victim. So if you have any way of tracking her down, please don't keep it to yourself.”

Bryan nodded and felt his stomach twist itself into a hard knot. He wanted more information, and this bas
tard was about as generous with it as Shadow Falls's grouchiest miser, Nate Kelly, was with a dollar.

“You know, I'm going to know who he is soon anyway,” Bryan said. Hell, it was worth a try.

The man looked at him, brows raised. “You mean because of the X-ray you sent off to the crime lab? The one showing the serial number on the steel plate in his head?”

Bryan frowned, a little alarm sounding in his mind. This guy was way ahead of him. “Yeah, as soon as we enhance the image a little better, we just go to a Web site, key in the number and it spits out an ID.”

“Yeah. Well, you keep working on that.” The Fed flipped a card out of his shirt pocket like a magic trick and snapped it down on the table. “You call me if you think of anything, learn anything or hear anything from your pal Olivia.”

Bryan didn't bother adding another useless denial. “I will,” he said, lying outright for the very first time.

“Great.” Modine got to his feet, closing his file folder, tucking it under his arm. “In the meantime, I've instructed your Chief MacNamara to continue the press blackout. I don't want word of any of this leaking
at all,
if it can be helped.” He turned and headed for the door. “I'll be in touch.”

Oh, goodie, Bryan thought. He got up and went to the door, too, pausing there to watch Assistant Director Modine stride purposefully through the bullpen and out the far end.

Chief Mac was huffing toward the interrogation room before the department's exit doors swung closed behind Modine.

“Tell me you held your own, didn't incriminate yourself and didn't piss him off, Kendall.”

“I did, I didn't, and I might have.”

“What did he say?”

“Didn't give away a damn thing.” Bryan met the chief's eyes, shook his head slowly. “We need to get an ID on our John Doe, Chief. I think we've got a bigger fish on our hands than we thought. How is the crime lab coming with that head X-ray?”

Chief Mac's bushy white brows arched, making his forehead look like ripples in a pond. “Didn't he tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Bryan was afraid he knew what was coming next. And he wasn't wrong.

“Modine confiscated the film. Even went to Dr. Overton and got the copy she had.”

Bryan looked at the floor and shook his head slowly. Then he looked up, feeling a little more optimistic as he thought of one more option. “We'll hear from Aaron Westhaven's publisher tomorrow. At least we can find out if that's who this guy is.”

“If it is, he's a lot more than just some reclusive writer,” the chief said. “So what did the bald bastard pump you about?”

“Olivia Dupree.” Bryan drew a deep breath and knew it might be time for him to tell the chief what he knew
about the professor. He was constructing his words in his mind. They would have to go into the chief's office to talk privately, and he would have to explain why he'd kept Olivia's secret between himself, his fiancée and the notorious serial killer who had been a cop and his mentor. And why he had
not
told his boss, the Shadow Falls chief of police.

It wasn't going to be an easy thing to explain.

And maybe that was why he decided to keep it to himself for just a little bit longer. He didn't know if the Feds would give it away or not. But until they did, as long as it wasn't hurting anyone, he decided he was going to do his best to keep Olivia's secret. Her life here would be over if it came out, so as long as there was a chance it wouldn't, no matter how small that chance might be, he would keep his mouth shut.