Déjà Vu

by Lisa Childs

  But he wasn’t imagining the connection between him and this woman, this stranger. Needing to touch her, he reached out, but before his fingertips could skim her cheek, she caught his wrist.

  “Don’t.” She dropped his arm and stepped back, increasing the distance between them.

  But he could still feel her touch, his skin tingling where her fingers had held his wrist.

  “You might be able to ignore it, but I can’t,” he said. “There’s something here….” Something in her that pulled at him, that drew him to her. “There’s something between us.”

  “Your ego,” she quipped.

  He laughed. Sick of adoring fans, he found her attitude refreshing and attractive. But then, he found everything about her attractive. “Alaina …”

  “These books,” she said as she lifted the one she still held, “these murders, aren’t from just your imagination. They are exactly the same as the real ones.”

  He shrugged again. “Haven’t you heard? There is no such thing as an original idea.”

  “I’ve heard that, but the saying I believe is that there is no such thing as coincidence.” She narrowed her eyes. “There’s no way you have all those details exactly the same by coincidence.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence, either,” he admitted. “I believe in fate, Alaina. I think that’s what brought you here.” He stood and closed the distance between them. This time when he reached for her, she didn’t catch his wrist. She didn’t stop him. His fingertips slid along the curve of her cheekbone, then down her neck to where her pulse pounded fast and hard beneath her pale skin. “Fate is what brought you to me.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. Then her tongue slid out from between her lips, sliding over the fuller bottom one.

  Trent leaned forward, drawn to her mouth, to her lips. But before he could taste more than her breath, the doors rattled under a pounding fist.

  “Alaina, c’mon,” a male voice called out to her. Trent felt and heard the man’s impatience. “We have to go!”

  As close as Trent was to her, just a breath apart, he caught the flash of regret in Alaina’s eyes before she pulled back.

  “No, you have to stay,” Trent urged her.

  She shook her head and, with a trembling hand, pulled a cell phone from her pocket. “I—I have to go.”

  “You will come back,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said to his relief, but then she dashed his hopes. “But just because you haven’t answered any of my questions.”

  He shook his head. “No, because you won’t be able to stay away from me.”

  She didn’t deny his claim. She just pulled open the doors and walked away, joining her impatient partner in the hall, so she didn’t hear his next words.

  “And because I won’t be able to stay away from you …”

  She turned back, their gazes meeting, holding like he’d longed to hold her. And he suspected that she knew, even if she hadn’t heard him.

  “What the hell was going on in there?” Vonner asked.

  Fortunately, he had to concentrate on the hairpin turns of the tree-lined road leading away from Trent Baines’s remote hilltop estate in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. So he couldn’t see Alaina’s face, which was certain to reveal everything she felt: stunned, overwhelmed and disappointed. Leaving Trent Baines hadn’t been easy; staying away would probably prove as hard as he’d warned her.

  She stared at the facedown book on her lap. His publicity shot added to the mystery surrounding the reclusive author, as his raised hand covered most of his face. Only the strong line of his jaw and wind-tousled dark blond hair were visible around his palm and fingers.

  “Alaina?” Vonner prodded her. “What happened in there? What was going on?”

  Fighting to steady her voice, she said, “I don’t know what you mean….”

  “Why’d you waste so much time?” the dark-haired agent persisted. “He’s not the guy. According to Igor—”

  “Igor?”

  “His butler,” Vonner explained. “According to him, Baines is only twenty-nine years old. As we both know, the last of these murders happened thirty years ago. Whatever Baines knows about the cases, he probably just figured out by reading old newspaper articles or talking to someone who was around back when the murders happened.”

  “But now there’s been another murder.” She reminded him of the call she hadn’t heard because she’d been too distracted. Or captivated.

  Trent Baines had nearly kissed her. And she was disappointed that he hadn’t, that they had been interrupted before she’d learned how his lips would feel, how his mouth would taste….

  Guilt gripped her now. While she’d been distracted, someone else had been murdered. Brut ally. Ritualistically. The M.O. exactly matched those thirty-year-old cases.

  “This murder is further proof that Baines can’t be the killer,” Vonner added. “Because you were with him when we got the call.”

  “We don’t know how long ago the murder occurred.” Due to a weak cell signal, Alaina hadn’t heard much of what her supervisor had said except that she needed to quit wasting her time on an unsubstantiated lead.

  Only she knew it wasn’t unsubstantiated. Only she knew that Baines had used details that weren’t even in the files of those cold cases. But if she told her bosses how she knew—that she remembered a past life … and death—she’d lose whatever respect and credibility she had in the Bureau. They would think she was as crazy as the killer.

  “The guy’s so isolated up here,” Vonner pointed out, cursing beneath his breath as a tire dropped off the edge of the drive onto the loose gravel shoulder. “There are no quick trips for him.”

  “We can’t rule him out yet,” she insisted, “not until we have more information about the murder.”

  “They’re not going to release the scene until we get there,” Vonner assured her. “But still I can’t see how Baines is involved.”

  And Alaina couldn’t see how he couldn’t be involved. He knew too much—and made her feel too much—to not be deeply involved.

  With the murders?

  Or just her?

  He’d found her. Or had she found him?

  With her blond hair and grayish eyes, she didn’t look or sound or smell the same, but then she was in a different body. Only her soul and her spirit had returned in the beautiful form of Alaina Paulsen.

  This time she would love him, only him. And if, like last time, she refused to give him her heart, he’d just have to take it.

  Again.

  Chapter 3

  Emotion overwhelmed him. This was why he isolated himself in the wooded hills of his estate—because he couldn’t block out what others were feeling. He couldn’t help but feel it, too.

  Disgust and fear emanated from the uniformed officers guarding the door. Trent passed them and ducked under the yellow tape. The crime scene had already been processed, so he was alone in the studio apartment. The victim’s body was on its way to the morgue, but he could feel the residual emotion left in the room.

  The paralyzing terror hung heavy in the air. He winced as the echo of the victim’s screams reverberated inside his head. He widened his eyes as he studied the scene—the blood spattered on the white walls and drying to a dark burgundy, the blood pooled on the hardwood floor, as thick and dark as tar. He inhaled deeply, trying to fill his shallow lungs, but he breathed in the cloying metallic scent of blood.

  His stomach cramped, and he doubled over, crippled with pain. But the pain was not his. It was never his. He always felt others’ pain, others’ emotions. Never his own.

  Until today. Until he’d met Alaina Paulsen.

  “What the hell!” a vaguely familiar male voice exclaimed in surprise.

  “How—Why are you here?” asked a woman. The woman—Alaina Paulsen.

  Like earlier today when he’d been with her, Trent felt none of her emotions. He felt no emotions but his own. Attraction, fascination and an overwhelming sense of destiny …


  “You can’t be here,” the man said.

  Trent assumed he was the other agent, the one he’d refused to see because he’d only been able to see her. This time he took a moment to compose himself, schooling his features back into his usual cocky mask, before he straightened up and turned to her.

  “How did you get here before us?” Alaina asked.

  “He must have a helicopter,” her partner answered for Trent. The man stood close to her, protectively. Were they more than professional partners?

  Trent didn’t care what they’d been. The guy was no threat to him. No other man had the claim on her that he did. As he met her gaze, one emotion gripped him—possessiveness. Mine.

  Her eyes widened, as if she’d read his mind, and she dragged in a shaky breath. “That explains how you got to Detroit before we did,” she said, “but how did you get here?” She gestured at the apartment. “Into our crime scene.”

  The “our” to which she referred was not her and her partner; Trent couldn’t accept that. It was him and her. She knew just as well as he did that he was part of this. If only he knew, for certain, which part.

  “I told you,” he reminded her. “I have a few fans in law enforcement.”

  “In the Bureau?” the male agent asked, his dark eyes narrowed with doubt. His suspicion was as palpable in the air as the scent of the victim’s blood.

  “Check out my story,” Trent suggested, more to get rid of the guy than to reassure him.

  The agent turned to Alaina, who offered a brief nod. With a warning glare at Trent, the man ducked under the crime-scene tape and slipped out into the hall.

  “So you’re the senior agent,” Trent observed.

  “What?”

  “He checked with you before leaving.” Or maybe her partner had just wanted to make sure she would be all right alone with Trent.

  Alaina didn’t satisfy his curiosity as she ignored his observation. “That’s why I went to your estate,” she said, “to check out your story. To find out what your involvement was in those old murders.”

  Her brow knitted as she glanced around the room, taking in the crime scene. Again, the color faded from her porcelain skin, leaving her ghostly pale.

  But she wasn’t a ghost. She was real. And for the first time in the memory of his own life, Trent felt real. His emotions were finally his own instead of what he’d empathetically picked up from someone or somewhere else.

  “Those murders happened before I was born,” he reminded her.

  “You do have a friend in the Bureau,” she said, accepting his claim without the confirmation her partner required. “A source.”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t call him a source,” he clarified. “More like a fan.” Someone who had contacted him a couple times throughout the years and whom Trent had felt comfortable calling to find out all he could about Agent Paulsen—like where she’d rushed off to in such a hurry.

  Before he’d had a chance to kiss her and test the strength of the passion she’d drawn from his soul.

  “A fan?” She shook her head, as if she doubted his claim or doubted that anyone would actually enjoy the novels he’d written.

  Sometimes he wondered about that himself. He didn’t enjoy writing them; they exhausted him as much as experiencing the emotions of others.

  “This murder didn’t happen before you were born,” she pointed out, her teeth nibbling at her full bottom lip. “Did you get sick of just writing about murder and decide to reenact one that you wrote about?”

  “No.” He wasn’t a killer … in this life. But if he had the soul of a killer …

  “No?” she repeated as if disappointed by his short response. “That’s it? You’re not going to eloquently profess your innocence?”

  While he shrugged, he was anything but unconcerned. “It doesn’t matter how eloquent I am. You’ve already made up your mind about me, Alaina.”

  “You’re involved,” she insisted. “Somehow, someway, you’re involved.”

  He wished like hell that he wasn’t. But he couldn’t deny her allegations.

  As if she dismissed him, she began to inspect the crime scene, ignoring his presence. He couldn’t ignore her; he could do nothing but stare at her.

  Then she uttered a sudden gasp.

  He followed her gaze to discover what had elicited the reaction from her. The blood, the gore? He would have expected that she was used to those things in crime scenes. Then he saw it, too: his book, lying atop the day-bed where the victim had been raped and mutilated. The book lay facedown, the hand lifted over Trent’s face in the publicity shot spattered with blood.

  As if he hadn’t already been blaming himself for this woman’s death.

  Her blood was on his hand. It had only been a book, Alaina kept reminding herself. But still she couldn’t get the image out of her head. She couldn’t get Trent out, either. She worried that he was in deeper than her mind, that he owned a part of her reincarnated soul.

  “Why are you so hung up on Baines?”

  She jerked away from her intense scrutiny of the bright lights of the cityscape outside her office window. Vonner’s startling question brought forth a rage of denial and resentment. “Why the hell would you say something so—”

  He held up a palm to interrupt her tirade and clarified, “As the killer. Why are you so hung up on him being the killer? Yeah, I get that the helicopter access makes him a suspect in this case, but he wasn’t even alive when the other murders occurred.”

  She turned back to the window, leaving Vonner sitting in front of her desk piled high with cold-case files. She only needed to glance at one of the folders to know exactly what was inside; she’d read them all so many times. But how did Trent know so many of the details it had taken her years to learn? “He knows too much.”

  “So you think he knows who the killer is?” Vonner asked with a heavy sigh. “That he interviewed him when he started writing those horror books of his?”

  He should have been excited by the lead he’d been chasing for months—Alaina for years—but they’d spent hours on the road after very little sleep. She understood his weariness.

  But Alaina doubted she would sleep anytime soon. The killing had started again. She knew this murder would not be a onetime thing; she knew it with as much certainty as she knew the contents of every one of those cold-case files. This new victim’s case would never get onto that pile on her desk; Alaina would not rest until Penelope Otten’s murderer was found.

  “Yes, I think he knows who the killer is.” Or he had been the killer in another life and his evil soul had called him to kill again …?

  She sucked in a breath at the horrific thought. She didn’t want him to be the killer. She just wanted—

  Vonner said, “We’ll have to talk to him again.”

  That was what she was afraid of—talking to him, touching him, kissing him, giving in to the passion that had burned so hotly between them that it was forever a part of her soul. But she would do whatever was necessary to find the killer. “Yes, we’ll need to interview him.”

  “That’s if the bosses will let us.” Vonner pushed a hand through his disheveled hair. “I still can’t believe he was granted access to a crime scene.”

  “A crime he could have committed,” she reminded her partner and herself. He could be a killer in this life, too.

  “Think the Bureau will let us use the helicopter to get back to the U.P.?” he asked. “I hate to think of doing that drive again.”

  “He’s here now,” she murmured, her skin tingling as she sensed him close.

  “What?”

  “He’s somewhere in the building,” she said.

  “What? Did Security notify you when he came in?” Vonner asked.

  “Something like that …” Her phone rang, saving her from offering a more specific explanation. Her partner would not understand her special connection with the horror author; she didn’t understand it herself.

  Vonner grabbed the receiver. “Age
nt Paulsen’s desk.”

  She held out her hand for the phone, but instead of passing it to her, he hung it up. “Who was that?” she asked.

  “The morgue.”

  Trent gripped the edge of the metal table on which the victim’s body lay. His vision blurred, a red haze blinding him as pain overwhelmed him. He felt every emotion she had experienced in those final moments before her death. Panic shortened his breath and quickened his pulse. Then the fear intensified to a terror so acute that his lungs burned with a scream he couldn’t utter. His throat ached as if strong hands wrapped tight around his neck, choking the life from his body. But before the threatening blackness claimed him, the pressure eased. He gasped for breath, trying to fill his aching lungs. Then pain shot through his heart, so sharp and intense he clutched a hand to his chest and dropped to his knees.

  “What’s he doing?” a male voice whispered. “Having a heart attack?”

  Trent turned toward where Alaina stood in the doorway to Autopsy. He hadn’t felt her this time. He’d been too connected to the dead woman, to the emotions echoing from her soul within the empty shell of her mutilated body.

  Those emotions clung to him no matter that he tried to shake them off. Exhaustion weighing heavy on his limbs, he lurched to his feet and staggered into the metal table. The woman’s stiff arm dropped off the edge, her hand open as if reaching out to him.

  Alaina stared at him, her eyes narrowed and her brow slightly creased beneath the fall of blond hair. The man, her partner, stood almost in front of her, as if protecting her from Trent or trying to come between them.

  A memory tugged at him, a memory of frustration and jealousy. Someone else had tried to come between them. In another life?

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Agent Vonner asked. “Are you drunk?”

  He ignored the man as if he was invisible. To Trent he was; he could see only her now.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him finally.

  “I was given access—”

  “To the Bureau’s morgue?” Vonner asked, his voice cracking with shock and indignation. “Who the hell gave you access?”