by Lisa Childs
“Yes, you can,” Alaina assured the other woman. “We’ve been talking for years online.”
“About our memories, that scar.” Beverly nodded. “But the man that came by, he warned me. He told me that I shouldn’t trust you.” Her eyes wide with fear, she added, “That you weren’t stable.”
Alaina’s heart pounded against her ribs. Was she already too late? “What man?”
“The FBI agent. He left me his card.” Her fingers shaking, Beverly lifted a business card from the end table next to the couch.
Alaina took it from her. Agent Vincent Vonner. “He was here? When?”
“Last night.”
She shivered with the knowledge that Beverly had already been found. “Was he alone?”
“No, there was another agent with him—some gray-haired guy. He didn’t tell me his name. But Agent Vonner told me to call him if I needed anything.” Beverly’s eyes warmed with appreciation of Vonner’s good looks, and she smiled. “And he promised that he would come right back.”
Alone? With no witnesses? Maybe Trent’s suspicions about the agent were justified and not just the jealousy she’d suspected.
Alaina moved from the couch to the window, peering through the sheer lace curtains at the street outside the small house. The dark-colored sedan she’d noticed when she’d driven up was gone now. If it had been the federal protection that she’d promised the women, that she’d hoped it was, the agent wouldn’t have left.
The car, and whoever had hid behind the tinted windows, was gone. For now.
But whoever he’d been, Alaina knew that he would come back.
To finish what he’d begun over thirty years ago.
He studied the silhouette at the window, behind the lacy curtain. He recognized the willowy figure. It was her—Audra Kooiyer. Or as she called herself now, Alaina Paulsen. She was here. To protect the other victim or to die with her?
But he didn’t want to kill both women. Not anymore. Killing those old victims, stealing their hearts, gave him no satisfaction. As they had in their past lives, they proved poor substitutes for the real woman. For Audra …
She had been so beautiful with her pale skin and red hair. So passionate with her kisses, her caresses.
His body hardened, needing hers. But she had just left his arms.
The only woman he wanted to kill was her. She had to die.
Her and Trent Baines.
Chapter 18
“I expected a federal agent to have better security than that flimsy lock,” Trent mused as he stared down the sight on his gun to Vonner’s dark gaze.
“What the hell do you want, Baines?” Water dripped from his black hair and ran down his face.
If the agent hadn’t been in the shower, Trent probably wouldn’t have gotten the jump on him. As it was, Vonner had been reaching for his gun, sitting in his holster, on the chipped porcelain sink, when Trent had burst through the bathroom door.
“I want the truth.”
Vonner snorted his derision. “You? The way you blur the lines between fact and fiction? You’re not interested in the truth. You’re interested in sales, in stirring up interest in your books.”
“What?”
“That’s the only motive I could figure for your starting up the killing again. Of course, you could just be nuts.” As if Trent didn’t have a gun on him, Vonner reached for towels, wrapping one around his hips and rubbing another over his head and chest.
The bathroom was small, steam fogging the mirror. Moisture even beaded on the barrel of the gun Trent held steady on the guy. His vision blurred, not from the steam, but with confusion over Vonner’s obvious truthfulness.
“You really think I’m the killer?” Trent asked, amazed that the guy seemed so certain. If Vonner had only been trying to hide his own guilt, he wouldn’t have been so sincere.
“Convinced,” the agent said matter-of-factly.
“I think it’s you,” Trent admitted.
Vonner laughed. “Yeah, right.” Then he met Trent’s gaze and his laughter faded. “You’re serious. Why the hell …? What reason would I have?”
“Maybe you’re acting out. You’re pissed because the woman you wanted rejected you, then chose someone else.” That had been the Thief of Hearts’ motive thirty years ago.
Vonner snorted his disbelief. “Alaina? We’re talking about Alaina?”
“Isn’t she why you got yourself assigned to this cold case?” Trent prodded him. “You wanted on it because she was working it?”
Vonner pushed a hand through his wet hair. “No. I didn’t even know who Agent Paulsen was then. I didn’t even know anyone was working that case. It sure as hell didn’t seem like anyone was.”
The agent’s anger and resentment overwhelmed Trent again, the emotions so dark and intense. But Trent’s brow furrowed in confusion. He didn’t understand any of what the other man felt.
“Why did you want to work that case?” he asked. “Why does it mean so much to you?”
“None of your freakin’ business,” Vonner snapped. “You know you’re in deep now, right? It was one thing for you and her to show up at a murder scene—that could have been the accident or coincidence you claimed it was. But this,” he said, gesturing toward the gun Trent held on him, “is breaking and entering, threatening the life of a federal agent. You’re going away, Baines.”
That had been his plan. To take Alaina away, to bring her back to the fortress and keep her safe. But then he’d realized that wasn’t the best way to keep her safe. The best way was to find the killer and stop him. His finger twitched where he held it along the barrel.
Vonner narrowed his eyes, studying the way Trent held the gun. “I’ve checked you out. Extensively,” he admitted. “You’re a college dropout. A recluse. And even though I looked and looked, I couldn’t find any source you had in law enforcement. It actually seems like you’ve done very little research for your books.”
“Yeah.” Trent conceded the veracity of the agent’s claims.
“So where the hell did you learn that?”
“What?”
“The finger along the barrel,” Vonner pointed out. “That’s a cop’s safety.”
“Cop’s safety? What the hell are you talking about?” And why? To distract Trent so that he could overpower him? He tensed, staying alert. However, nothing but curiosity emanated from Vonner now.
“Because police weapons don’t have safeties, cops hold their finger along the barrel instead of the trigger,” the agent explained. “Who taught you that?”
Trent shrugged. “I don’t know …”
“I didn’t find anyone, but you must have someone inside the department or the Bureau,” Vonner said. “That’s how you got so many of the details right in your books. It can’t be Alaina. I found no connection between the two of you beyond when you met just a few days ago.”
If only he knew how many years, how many lifetimes, their connection went back. But the agent had laughed at the idea of reincarnation.
“Graves denied it,” Vonner persisted, “but is it the director?”
“He did work the case back then,” Trent said, “with another detective.”
Vonner snorted his disgust. “The guy that got burned out and took off? He was no cop.”
“No,” Trent agreed. “He was a fool.” He sighed and lowered the gun. “And so am I. I thought it was you. I hoped it was you.”
“Because of Alaina,” Vonner said. He didn’t reach for Trent’s gun or his own. “If it’s not me and it’s not you, couldn’t it be her?”
Trent shook his head. “You know it’s not me?”
Vonner sighed. “I’ll admit I wanted it to be you.” He shook his head, as if disgusted with himself now. “But my gut tells me it’s not.”
“What about the director?”
“Could be,” Vonner allowed. “I don’t trust anyone, you know.”
“Yeah.” Trent didn’t even trust himself. “The director said Rosenthal worked the murders, t
oo.”
“Rosenthal? The coroner?” Vonner chuckled. “I can’t see him as a killer. At least, it would seem like he’d do a neater job of taking out the hearts, you know? Most people call coroners butchers, but I never figured Rosenthal that way. ‘Course he is a fan of yours. So’s the director.” Vonner snorted again. “Go figure …”
“I take it you’re not a fan?”
“Hell, no. I question the sanity of anyone who is—” His body tensed, and Trent felt his disgust and resentment. “You glorified the killer. Now that guy, whoever the hell he is, must be your biggest fan.”
Trent closed his eyes as the realization overwhelmed him. “Oh, my God …”
“You know who it is!” Vonner exclaimed.
“My biggest fan …”
The man’s rage and hatred surged through Trent. How had he not felt it? How had he not known all these years? “We have to hurry.”
He was going after Alaina.
Trent just hoped they wouldn’t get to her—to them—when he had the last time, in their past life. When it was already too late.
Frustration tensed Alaina’s muscles, so that she moved stiffly as she walked into her apartment. Her reflexes slow, she gasped at the shadow looming in her living room before she reached for her gun.
It wasn’t Trent. As she’d walked up, she hadn’t felt him; she’d known before she’d opened the door that he’d be gone. But she hadn’t expected anyone else.
“Ms. Paulsen,” Dietrich said. “Mr. Baines asked me to wait for you to return.”
“Where’s Trent?” she asked, full of concern for the man she loved, regardless of who he might have been.
“He left already for the estate.”
“I was supposed to go with him,” she said. “This morning.” The sun had only been up for a little while. “He left without me?”
Dietrich nodded. “It was too much for him to be in the city.”
Of course. All the emotions. It was too exhausting for him to experience everyone else’s feelings. She should have realized that; she should have gone back last night when he’d wanted to go.
“He had to leave,” Dietrich said. “But he had me wait for you, so that I could bring you up to him.”
“I can drive myself,” she assured Trent’s loyal assistant.
“No, that’s not necessary,” Dietrich insisted. “He left me the helicopter, so I can get you to the estate—to him—quickly.”
And no doubt so that his assistant/bodyguard could protect her from the danger he worried that she was in. “Then how did Trent get back?”
“Mr. Baines chartered a plane,” Dietrich answered matter-of-factly.
Her lips twitched into a smile; no matter who he’d been, Trent Baines was a powerful man, the kind who was used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. Like her. She smiled with affection for the man she loved. “Of course he did.”
“He didn’t want to drive or fly himself. He’s writing,” Dietrich explained. “He said he needed to finish the book. I know the publisher’s been on him because he’s missed his deadline. And Mr. Baines has never missed a deadline. I hope you understand.”
Her smile widened. She did understand that not only was Dietrich Trent’s employee but he was also his biggest fan. “Let me grab a bag and we can leave right away.”
She needed to be with Trent. He wasn’t just finishing a book; he was finishing their story. Even now, from this distance, she could feel his fear and anxiety. She didn’t want him to face the killer alone, even if it was only in his mind.
Dietrich glanced at her face as she descended the stairs from the helicopter pad on the roof of Trent Baines’s fortress. Except it wasn’t Trent’s. He might have bought it in this life, but it didn’t really belong to him.
It belonged to Dietrich; it was his heritage. His legacy. Just like the books were his story.
And her—she belonged to him, too. She just didn’t realize it yet. But she realized Trent wasn’t here. He saw the knowledge widen her eyes, saw her reach for her gun. But his hand was already there, pulling it from her hand as he jerked her up against him, trapping her between the cement wall of the stairwell and his hard body.
“What did you do to him?” she asked, her voice trembling with fear. Not for herself but for him—her lover. “Where’s Trent?”
“I would worry less about Trent and more about yourself, Ms. Paulsen,” he recommended.
“It’s you,” she said, her eyes glistening with tears and resignation as she shrank back against the wall. “It’s always been you.”
He laughed. “I didn’t realize it myself … until I read his first book. Then everything clicked. All those feelings I had, all those violent memories. It all made sense. He made me make sense.”
“Is that why you came to work for him?” she asked. Maybe she did understand him. “Because of what he’d written?”
“About me.” Pride filled him.
“But.” Her throat moved as she swallowed hard. “But weren’t you worried that he might catch on?”
“It wasn’t easy,” he admitted with frustration. “I could see that he felt things, that he felt all the emotions that other people felt. I had to be careful, so careful, around him.” All those years of bottling up his emotions, of controlling his urges, so that Trent wouldn’t figure out—too soon—who he’d been. Who he really was.
“So if it wasn’t easy,” Alaina asked, “why did you want to work for him?”
“We were friends, you know,” he said. “All of us, in another life. We met in college. You and I were there for journalism, he for criminal justice.”
“You remember everything?” she mused, her voice soft with awe.
He nodded. “And soon he would have, too.”
“That’s why you wanted to be around him,” she said, her voice quavering now with the hint of tears that glistened in her wide eyes. “To stop him from remembering.”
Dietrich realized that she must believe that he had already stopped Trent, that her lover was already dead.
Maybe that was how he should have handled it then and now. Maybe he should have killed his old friend first. But then he wouldn’t have had the privilege of watching him suffer for all that he’d lost….
“No. I had to stick close to him because I knew you would eventually find him. I knew it was you when his editor called and said a female FBI agent was looking for him. I knew it was you. That was why I killed that first woman, because you’d started it all up again.”
Her breath caught in an audible gasp and guilt rounded her eyes.
“Yeah, thanks for creating that website. It really helped me out,” he taunted her.
“But why? You hadn’t killed anyone yet. And you hadn’t even met me. How could you know for sure that I was … that I’d been …”
“Audra. You’re Audra.” He laughed, letting to the surface all the bitterness that he’d harbored for two lifetimes. “You wouldn’t leave him. You wouldn’t stop loving him, even after I cut out your heart. It was supposed to be mine. You were always supposed to be mine.”
She shook her head, and her blond hair swirled around her shoulders and a lock of it brushed across his jaw. He wrapped the pale strands around his finger. But in his mind, he saw the fire of her red hair; he saw the woman she used to be.
And he heard her voice when she said, “I loved him then and I love him now.”
“You’re going to make me do it again,” he said, choking against the bitterness and regret. Of course he’d known even before they’d laid eyes on each other what would happen when Elijah and Audra met again. The same thing that had happened last time. Love at first sight. And he’d been dumped with an apologetic “I hope you understand, Ben. Please, let’s all stay friends.”
“You bitch,” he cursed her, and his grip tightened on her hair until she winced. He shoved her back against the wall, away from him. “You’re going to make me cut out your heart.”
“It still won’t belong to you,” she t
aunted him. “I will always love him.”
He struck her then, hard enough to crack her lip and send droplets of her blood across the wall of the stairwell. She only fell back a step; she didn’t fall down. She didn’t pass out. She was stronger this time.
When she lifted her leg to kick out, he raised the gun he’d taken from her and pressed the barrel to her temple. “Do you want to end it this quickly?” he asked. “I had so much more fun planned for us.”
She shuddered in revulsion. “I know what you have planned. I remember …”
“You only know how it ended for you,” he pointed out. “You don’t know how the rest of it played out. You don’t know what happened to me and Trent in the past life.”
Her eyes widened. “Trent’s still alive?”
He chuckled in anticipation of what was to come. “Just for now. But don’t get your hopes up. Just like last time, he won’t outlive you by much.” He tilted his head, altering his plan a bit. “Actually, I think you won’t outlive him by much, just enough so that this time you’ll know exactly what will happen to him if you don’t fall for the right man.”
Her breath caught, then expelled in a shaky sigh. But it was apparent her fear was more for her lover than herself when she asked, “What are you going to do to him?”
“Shh …” he said, pressing his finger across her swollen lip, pushing hard enough that she winced again. But she didn’t whimper or scream. Yet. “Don’t worry. You’ll know soon enough.”
Her mouth moved against his finger, smearing blood across his skin. He pulled his hand away from her face and studied the bright red streak. And he remembered the last time her blood had run over his hands, when he’d held her heart in his palms.
“Tell me what happened last time,” she persisted, “between you and Detective Kooiyer.”
He shook his head, amused by her attempt to outwit him. “Nice try, but we’re going to wait for Trent. And then you’ll find out. I’ll show you exactly what happened.”
She licked the blood from her lip. “B-but … what if he doesn’t come?”
He laughed at her ignorance. She knew so little of them all. “He’ll come.”