Kill Me Again (23 page)

Maybe he was more like that fictional Harvey what's his-name than he'd known, he thought. Maybe he was used to living his life alone.

“It's going to be okay,” Olivia said. “I know it is.”

“I hope so.” He let himself squeeze her hand as they walked back down the block to his building. Freddy stayed right by his side, despite the absence of a leash and all the exciting new scents around him.

He went to the door, wondering how the hell he was going to get in, looking for a keypad or a magnetic key reader or something he would be unable to access. But before he could even finish his assessment, the doors were opening, and a uniformed doorman greeted him with a smile.

“Mr. Adams, welcome home. I trust you had a good trip?”

He blinked at the man. God, what kind of man gave his own doorman a phony name? “It was…eventful.”

The doorman frowned. “I'm sure you're glad to be back.” Then he nodded at Olivia. “Ma'am. That's one beautiful dog you have there.”

“I hope it's all right to bring him inside,” she said. “He's very well behaved.”

“I can see that,” the doorman said. “And around here, anything Mr. Adams wants is all right with us.” He sent Adam a wink, as if he should have known that was the case.

She nodded and smiled, then spotted the elevators and let Adam know with a single swift look. He followed her cue and saw that one of them was marked Private.

She beamed at the doorman again. “I swear, his manners sometimes…I'm Olivia, and this is Freddy. You are…?”

“Billy.”

“Good to meet you, Billy. So is that private elevator ours?”

Adam squirmed a little at the word
ours,
then pretended to be distracted by something outside, so Billy would be forced to answer.

“Yes, ma'am, that's the one. You have your key, sir?”

Unsure, Adam pulled the key ring from his pocket.

The man looked at the key, then at Adam. “No, I meant the keycard for the elevator.” Then he looked harder. “Are you all right, sir?”

“Mr. Adams had an accident. He was pretty banged
up, and he's been a little disoriented since. I imagine the keycard is lost for good.”

“Why didn't you say so?” The doorman's eyes widened, then he pulled on a ribbon that led to his pocket, and out came several keycards, all clipped together. Fanning them out, he found the one with the P on it and hurried to the elevator, sliding it through the reader.

There was a ping, and the doors opened. Billy stood there holding them open, smiling as Adam, Olivia and Freddy, who looked warily around the car first, stepped inside.

“You just let me know if you need anything, sir. Anything at all. I'm sorry about your accident.”

He meant it, Adam realized. “Actually, I don't want anyone to know I'm here.”

“Absolutely, sir. You can count on my discretion, as always.”

“Thanks. Has anyone been here looking for me. Asking about me?”

“No, sir. No one.”

“You let me know if anyone does, okay?”

“Immediately, sir. As always.”

Adam nodded and said, “Thanks for going above and beyond,” one hand automatically slipping toward his pocket, before he remembered he didn't have any cash there.

But before he could confirm that, Billy was holding up a hand and shaking his head. “No need, sir. You go
on, get some rest. I hope you feel like yourself again soon, sir.”

“Thanks, Billy.”

Billy nodded, reached inside the car and pushed the P button, then backed out again as the doors slid closed.

The car swept them upward at a rapid, nonstop pace that made Freddy tense and whine up at Olivia. Then it stopped smoothly, and the doors opened again to reveal a foyer of sorts. A couple of claw-legged, brocade-covered chairs flanked a sofa table with no sofa. A huge arrangement of fresh flowers took up most of the tabletop, reflected in the high mirror behind it.

Freddy bounded out of the elevator, spun to look back at it and released a small woof, as if telling it off. Adam stepped out more slowly and stood for a moment staring at the door to his home. It wasn't as ornate as he'd expected. Just a plain, darkly stained, rich wood grain door with layers of shellac making it shine.

He jumped when the elevator doors slid closed behind him, too intent in his contemplation of the door to have noticed anything else. The doorway to his life. The portal to his past. All of his memories, and the truth about who and what he was, lay beyond that door. And suddenly he was cold to the bone and nauseated to boot.

Olivia's hand slid up his arm to rest on his shoulder. “You're scared, aren't you?”

He looked down at her. “I don't want to walk in there and find out that I'm a piece of shit.”

“A piece of shit wouldn't be bothered by finding out he was one,” she said.

He frowned. “You're going to need to translate that.”

“I mean, if you were a piece of shit, you wouldn't be worried about it. You wouldn't care. The fact that you want to be a good person tells me that you
are
one.”

“Maybe I am now. Maybe I wasn't before.”

“I don't think people really change all that much. You are who you are, memory or not.”

“I don't think that's true. Look at you. Would you be who you are without your memories? Hell, your past has formed your entire life. Even your identity.”

She held his eyes. “You're delaying the inevitable.”

“Okay.” He took out the key and walked right up to the door, feeling as if he were about to unlock a cage that held a deadly beast. He didn't know why he was so unsure about what he was about to find. He already had a pretty good idea, didn't he? Of course, he was hoping there would be a logical explanation for all of it. That he wasn't going to turn out to be a hired thug who killed for money. But he was pretty sure that was exactly what he was. Or what he'd been. And then he would lose her.

And he cared about that, he realized slowly.

He put the key into the lock, turned it, heard the tumblers fall. Closing his hand around the doorknob, he twisted it and pushed. The door opened a few inches. He paused and looked down at her. “Whatever we find in here, Olivia, I want you to know that I…I like you.”

“You
like
me. Gee, thanks.”

“I care about you. I've become really invested in making sure you're safe. And I would never hurt you, not on purpose. Whatever I might have been in the past, whatever I might have done…or planned to do…those things are true. And they'll remain true. I'm not faking anything here. Okay?”

She frowned deeply at him. “Okay.”

He steadied himself, lifted his chin and opened the door.

 

Olivia tried to calm her nerves as they stepped inside. Part of her expected some gorgeous blonde model with legs up to her neck to come prancing out of a bedroom wearing one of his shirts.

That didn't happen. Thank God.

He walked in ahead of her, and for a moment she was more interested in watching his reactions than in looking around the place herself. Freddy had the opposite notion, quickly moving from room to room to check things out for himself.

Olivia saw that the ceiling opened up via skylights to the building's roof, so sunlight poured in like the cascade from Shadow Falls. The place was decorated entirely in an African tribal theme. Authentic masks and wildlife photography lined the walls. There was a lioness and her cubs moving through the tall grasses of the Serengeti. There were graceful giraffes bowing to drink from a water hole. The end table was a kettledrum with a sheet
of glass over the goatskin drumhead. One entire wall was lined in books. The interior foyer spilled into the living room, where brown leather furniture was draped with orange and green throws, and pillows that added splashes of yellow to the mix. She could see through to the kitchen, which was huge and entirely done in stainless steel and black. Black granite countertops. Stainless-steel double sink and appliances. Recessed lighting. An island delineated the boundary between kitchen and dining room, and a stairway led up between the two rooms.

She wondered where the stairs led. Onto the roof? She looked at him, half expecting him to tell her, but his expression stopped her. He was standing still, his gaze moving slowly over everything around him, his eyes wide at the power of the emotions surging through him.

She moved closer, sliding her hands up his broad chest. “Adam?”

“It's coming back. It's just…so much.” He didn't meet her eyes. His own were jumping from one thing to the next. “That kitchen has state-of-the-art everything because I cook. I'm a gourmet cook, in fact. I love it. It relaxes me.”

She smiled broadly. “That's fantastic, Adam!”

He shot her a quick look, nearly beaming. “Yes, Adam. That's my name, I'm sure of it now. Adam Selkirk, but I don't give it out. Everyone here knows me as Mr. Adams.”

“And why is that?”

“My work—if people knew where to find me, I'd end up…dead.” He frowned. “But why?”

“Just take it slow. Come on, show me around.” She closed her hand on his upper arm and walked him into the kitchen, admiring the rack with the cookware dangling from it, the well-filled spice rack, the brick oven in the wall and the flat-topped range built right into the counter.

“Where do these stairs go?” she asked.

“Breakfast nook.”

“Breakfast…” She looked curiously at him, then went up the stairs to a landing closed off by a steel door. She unlocked the bolt and pushed it open, Adam right behind her.

A warm, heavily scented breeze gusted right by her face as she blinked into the sunlight. She was on the roof. Potted plants stood around a tiny square table and two chairs. A red-and-white striped umbrella for shade lay furled nearby. Flowering plants were everywhere, spilling their fragrance into the warm air.

“You have your own little haven up here,” she said.

“Yeah.”

She went back down the stairs, sensing he needed a moment alone to process the myriad thoughts that must be racing through his mind, and looked around the kitchen, then headed back into the living room and through a door on the far right wall. It opened into what looked like a small den, with an archway at the far end
and a bedroom just beyond that. The den held bookshelves, a spotless desk and a computer. More wildlife photos in here, though she had yet to see any dead creatures, mounted on the walls. Thank goodness.

She walked far enough inside to peek into the bedroom. His bed was a California King, neatly made up as if waiting for his return. The bedding was a tribal art pattern of lines and angles in vivid colors. The curtains were white, the walls sky-blue. And the dog was lying right in the middle of his mattress.

“Freddy, get down,” she told him.

He sighed but obeyed, front legs first, hind ones splayed as he slowly dragged his body to the very edge, lowering those big back feet to the floor only when he had to. Then he lay down on the plush carpet and looked up at her with long-suffering eyes.

She could see a door that must lead to the bathroom. But she was more interested in the den. She moved behind the desk just as Adam, having finished his inspection of the rooftop paradise he'd created, came in.

“Remember anything else?”

“It's like a flash flood.” He sounded distracted. “Almost more than I can…” He held up a hand as his voice trailed off, and wandered through into the bedroom.

Olivia rifled through the desk drawers, finding ordinary items like paperclips and staples, printer cartridges and paper. She flipped on the computer, then crossed the
room while waiting for it to fire up and went to check out the closet.

“The bathroom has two doors. One leads back into the living room,” he called.

“This is a really nice place, Adam.”

She opened one of the closet's double doors and looked inside. It was deeper than it was wide, with shelves and clothes bars on both sides, and a lone hook right in the center of the back wall, which held a single bathrobe. Not two, one. And no women's clothes, either. In fact, she hadn't seen a single sign of a female presence in the entire place.

She frowned. There was something wrong with the closet, though. It was odd enough to have a clothes closet in the den, but that bathrobe? It belonged in the bedroom, or maybe the bathroom.

“Where did you go, Liv?” he called. She heard his footsteps coming toward her. “Olivia? Wait up, don't—”

She spun to face him, lost her balance and grabbed the robe to steady herself. The hook gave at the pressure, and the wall swung away.

“What the—”

“Olivia, don't!” He sounded almost panicked.

But she was already moving into the newly revealed opening, and as soon as she stepped through, lights came on. A motion sensor?

She stared around her. The room was small, maybe four by six or so. But it wasn't the size or the motion-
sensitive light or the hidden entrance that made her jaw drop. It was the racks upon racks of weapons. Shotguns, rifles, handguns. There were small guns that would fit into a pocket, and one so big she didn't know what it was even intended to kill. And ammunition. Boxes and boxes of ammunition.

Adam was standing in the doorway now. “Olivia, please come back out here.”

“No.” Her eyes widened and slid to the only spot that was clear of weaponry: a small desk, with a chair in front of it. On the desktop was an eight-by-ten color photograph of her. A large sheet of paper, its edges torn unevenly, lay beside it. Across her face, in silver marker, was this mathematical problem:

She felt everything inside her go icy cold. There was no way to misunderstand what she was seeing. This was the arsenal of a professional killer. A killer who had been offered a million dollars to murder her. A killer who had apparently been paid half already.