Kill Me Again (10 page)

She smiled a little. “Probably just your chivalrous nature leaking out,” she said.

“I think it might be more about you than me. But either way, I don't like it. If I can help make it stop, I want to. And I mean that.”

She thought he really did.

“But if you're looking for input as to where we go from here,” he went on, “I'd really like to find a haven of some kind. Someplace where we can just rest and go over what we've got here, figure out our next move.”

She smiled slowly, her guilt over being less than honest with him leaving a sour taste in her throat. “Okay. Let's go find a haven, then. One that accepts dogs.” She hefted her handbag higher on her shoulder. He took the bank bag from her, adding the file folder to its contents, and they went up to the register.

The young clerk sent Olivia a big smile and began
tapping keys. “Okay, let's see then, you had twenty-two black and white, two dozen color—”

“We know what we had, hon,” Olivia said quickly, silencing him before he got to the DVDs she'd used and blew her secret wide open. As well as they were getting along, she would hate to piss off Aaron now. “Just give us the total.” She pulled out her wallet, removing some of the cash she'd transferred into it from the bundles in the safe-deposit box. And then she said, “As a matter of fact, don't. Here.” She handed him a pair of twenties. “You just keep the change, okay?”

“Oh. Uh, sure. You want your receipt?”

The bell above the door jingled, and a chill went down her spine. She saw Aaron from the corner of her eye as he turned to glance over his shoulder. As if in slow motion, she saw his expression turn tense. He recognized the man who'd just come in. She saw it. His hand moved to the back of his jeans, and she knew he was going for the gun he'd taken from her attacker.

She drove her fist to the bottom of her purse, gripping her .38 and pulling it out. As one unit, the two of them spun around, leveling their weapons at the man who'd come into the store.

The guy in the doorway didn't seem too upset. He smirked, but lifted both hands. “I don't want any trouble,” he said.

“Then you shouldn't have been beating up on a woman or drugging an innocent dog, should you, pal?” Aaron asked calmly.

“Don't know what you're talkin' about…pal. Must have me mixed up with someone else.”

Olivia glanced sideways at Aaron. “It's him,” she said. “I recognize his voice.”

“Voice. Great. I recognized his shoes.”

She looked down at the ordinary shoes the man wore, seeing nothing special about them. Aaron really didn't miss a thing, did he?

“Don't you try anything, either, kid,” Aaron said to the clerk. “This isn't about you. Just stay out of it and you'll stay alive, okay?”

“I'm not doin' shit, mister.”

“Keep it that way.” Aaron moved closer to the man in the doorway. “Keep your hands up. Liv, keep your gun on him.”

“Oh, believe me, I am. He twitches and I'm going to dot his third eye for him.”

Aaron patted the man down with one hand.

“I'm unarmed,” the guy said.

“Bullshit. Where are your car keys?”

“Right jacket pocket.”

Aaron reached in and pulled out a key ring. “What are you driving?”

The man held Aaron's eyes. “Blazer. Red.”

“Let's go.”

“If you were gonna call the police once we leave,” the man said, addressing the kid at the counter as he opened the door, “don't bother. I've got this.”

Olivia turned to face the young man and lifted her
hair, revealing the still-purple bruise there, then angling her jaw toward him to expose another. “He did that to me, not to mention he nearly killed my dog,” she said. “He's a criminal. We're the good guys. We just need to make sure he doesn't keep following us. Promise.”

The kid nodded, but he looked scared out of his wits.

“Come on, pal. Let's go.” Aaron reached behind him. “Give me the sack, Liv.”

She hurried forward, picked up the sack he'd dropped to the floor when he'd gone for his gun and handed it to him. Aaron stuffed his weapon into the bag but kept hold of it, pointing it at the other man as they moved out the door. Olivia tucked her gun into the back of her trousers and wished for more casual clothing. She untucked her silk blouse and let it hang out, more or less hiding the gun, but it didn't have much of a tail, and she was sure someone would glimpse the weapon.

She walked behind the two men. Out of the building, to the left, then down the sidewalk. The man, who looked like a weasel to her, with his pinched-up face and too-close-together eyes, began to whistle an off-key, unrecognizable tune.

“Stop it,” Aaron barked.

They'd reached the end of the building when
something
from the alley came out of nowhere, right down onto Aaron's head.

He hit the sidewalk like a ton of lead, the bag and his weapon falling from his hands. The first weasel bent to
grab his keys from Aaron's limp hand, while the other went for the sack. Olivia sprang forward like a shot, so automatically that she didn't even think about it first. She was reaching for her gun as she lunged.

“Back off!” She landed with one foot on the bag, the other one kicking the car keys out of reach. They plunked right through a drain grate, into the sewer. Her stance was wide, her aim steady, as she pointed the weapon at the two men, moving it constantly from one to the other.

The bastard who'd drugged her dog whirled and set off at a dead run. The other one stood there, hands up, rapidly shuffling backward.

“Who do you work for?” she demanded. He moved faster. “Wait, dammit. Who sent you?”

He just shook his head and, having backed up enough to feel brave, turned and ran after his cohort. He was out of sight behind the building in a second, and she heard his footsteps only a few seconds longer.

When she was sure he was gone, Olivia returned the gun to her pants and bent over Aaron, all the while keeping an eye out around them.

“Aaron? Are you okay?”

He lifted his head, blinking her into focus.

“You're bleeding,” she said, her fingers parting his hair to reveal a gash in his forehead. A tire iron lay on the sidewalk nearby. No wonder he was bleeding. “Your head again. God, I think you're going to need stitches.”

“I'm fine,” he said. “Did they get the disks?”

“No, but they did get away.” She tore her eyes from him and looked around again. “We're going to have a crowd around us in a minute, though. You need to get up, Aaron.”

He braced his arms on the sidewalk. She reached down to help him, even while keeping her eyes busy, watching the cars moving by on the street and the onlookers, a few of whom were starting to venture closer. She held up a hand at the closest one. “We're fine, thanks. We're fine.”

The kid was in the doorway of the store. No doubt he'd hit the alarm button by now. Aaron was on his feet. She held his arm, her purse and the bag, and made her way across the street to where they'd left the SUV. As fast as she could, she opened the passenger door, kept hold of Aaron while he got inside and then ran around to the driver's side. Leaning in, she tossed the bank-logo bag in the back, then she got into the driver's seat, putting her handbag on the floor beside her feet.

Freddy was agitated, standing on all fours in the back, moving as close to the front as he could and leaning over the seat to try to lick Aaron's gashed head. She pushed the dog back—a little pressure from the palm of her hand to the front of his chest and the word
back
was all it took. She couldn't have actually
pushed
him if she'd wanted to. Then she handed Aaron the little packet of tissues she kept in her purse and set the SUV in motion.

She would have sworn she didn't breathe again
until several blocks later. “I don't think we're being followed.”

“We weren't being followed all day. But they found us anyway.” He pressed a wad of tissues to his bleeding head. At least this injury was in the front, not the already wounded back of his skull. “We need supplies,” he said.

“What you need are stitches.”

“They know what we're driving,” he went on. “They tracked us here. But how? They weren't in sight. I would've spotted a tail.”

“Right. Authors always know how to spot a tail,” she muttered.

“Wait a minute.”

“I'm not waiting a minute, I'm driving. We're either going to a clinic or an E.R.”

“Drugstore. You can patch me up as well as they can. But first you'd better pull this damn vehicle over so I can search it.”

She shook her head firmly. “You can search it while I go buy first-aid supplies. Maybe they have kits specifically designed for men who get lots of holes in their heads.”

He sent her a look, but when their eyes met, his warmed, and that made her feel warm inside, too. “You did all right back there,” he said. “Pulling the gun, keeping those guys off me. I wouldn't have expected an English professor to handle herself that way.”

“There's still a lot you don't know about me, Aaron.”

“A lot I want to know,” he said softly.

She had to avert her eyes. “Are you really okay?” she asked him.

“Yeah. But really, you need to stop.”

“Do you think it's safe? Do you think they'll come after us? I mean, I kicked their keys into the sewer, but—”

“I missed that. You're like Jane Bond or something.”

“So you don't think they're…in pursuit?”

“Not without a car, they aren't. If they show up again, I'm shooting first and asking questions later.”

She looked at him, and her fear must have shown in her eyes, because he put a hand on her shoulder and gave a slight squeeze. “I think we have time. Even if they have a spare set of keys somewhere, they'll want to regroup, make a new plan. Just pull over.”

“I am. Right here.” She nodded at the sign towering above the drugstore and pulled into the lot, then drove around to the back, where the semis parked to unload their inventory. Out of sight. “I'm going to run in and get some stuff to patch you up. You search to your heart's content while I'm in there, but keep an eye out, okay?”

“Don't be long, Olivia. In case I'm wrong about them needing to regroup before making another try.”

“I'll hurry. But you haven't been wrong about much
so far.” She turned around, patted Freddy on the head. “Keep an eye on him for me, boy.”

She got out, and so did Aaron, still holding the tissues to his forehead. Olivia hurried into the drugstore, moving so rapidly that she attracted a few odd looks. Bandages, gauze, antibiotic ointment, butterfly tape for holding the edges of the wound together, a small pair of scissors. It took her about two minutes to locate everything she thought she might need, and another five for the cashier to ring the items up and bag them, despite the fact that she was willing the girl to move faster than your average snail.

Finally she was done. Olivia grabbed the bag without waiting for the receipt and ran to the exit. The SUV was sitting right there, Aaron at the wheel, the engine running, Freddy looking as eager to get moving as Olivia was. He obviously sensed the excitement going on around him. He always knew when things weren't right, and things were definitely not right at the moment.

Aaron reached across to open her door, and the moment she hopped in, he took off—fast.

“Okay, so it's safe to assume you found whatever you were looking for?” she asked, as she tugged the seat belt around her.

“Yeah. There was a tracking device hidden in the wheel well.”

She felt her eyes widen. “You mean someone has been tracking us, everywhere we go?”

“Yeah.” He sounded disgusted, as if it were his fault.
“I took care of it. But they had time to track us here before that, so we need to move.”

She nodded and held on as he accelerated. “I can't very well patch up your head while we're speeding.”

“We're not speeding. That would attract attention. We're going the speed limit. This won't take long.”

Sighing, she held on as he drove through town. She found herself keeping a close eye on every vehicle they passed, scanning the interior of each one in search of the weasel and his partner, who she'd dubbed the pig. She didn't see them, but that didn't mean they weren't around. The police were probably at the business center by now, asking questions. Had the kid gotten a good look at their car? Would the cops set up roadblocks before she and Aaron managed to get out of town?

Her stomach was in knots.

Aaron touched her leg just above the knee, a comforting touch, not a sexual one. “Don't look so frightened. They can't follow us now. I bought us some time.”

“How?”

“There was an unattended semi back there, so I slapped the device on the bottom of the fuel tank.”

She turned to stare at him in amazement. “That was…that was pretty smart for a guy with two holes in his head. But…what if they shoot the poor truck driver?” she asked.

“They're pros who were paid to get those disks. Pros are not going to shoot first and ask questions later, or
they won't get the disks, and if they don't get the disks, they don't get paid by whoever hired them.”

She stared at him, brows raised. He seemed to feel her eyes on him, and he glanced back at her. “What?” he asked. “Writers
know
these things.”

“Yeah, so I've been told.”

He shrugged, but the joke did make her feel a little easier.

“So now what?” she asked. “You've got blood running down your face, you ought to be in the hospital from that earlier head wound and you probably shouldn't even be driving.”

“Let's put some miles between us and them,” he said.