Déjà Vu

by Lisa Childs

  He closed the lid on the box, which would soon fill with more hearts. Because now he knew what he had to do, who he had to kill. Again.

  Chapter 5

  “So did you talk to the director?” Alaina asked as Vonner dropped into the chair across from her desk. Dust danced in the morning sun streaming through the windows. Since she’d forbidden the night-shift cleaners from touching her office, and potentially misplacing some of those files, she’d have to clean it herself soon.

  After taking a swig of coffee from his paper cup, Vonner grimaced and shook his head. “No. I talked to Bilski first, like you suggested.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged. “He doesn’t think Baines is a problem.”

  Alaina rubbed her fingers over her tired eyes. She hadn’t slept at all last night, plagued by the images chasing through her mind. Of that poor woman … and Trent, leaning close to her in the hall, his eyes promising her the passion she remembered from another life. Maybe she should have gone with him, wherever he’d wanted to take her. Maybe she should have let him take her….

  Maybe then she would have had the answers she’d sought for so many years.

  She opened her eyes and focused on the pile of cold cases. Which woman had she been of the twelve murdered at the hands of a sadistic serial killer?

  “You and I both know better,” Vonner prodded her.

  “What?” Heat flushed her face. She did know better than to trust a man who could have been that killer.

  “We both know that Baines is a problem,” Vonner explained. “A big one.”

  Yes, a problem for her peace of mind. For her heart.

  But was he the killer? God, she hoped not.

  “So Bilski wouldn’t speak to the director?” she asked, trying to follow the conversation when she was tempted instead to follow her heart.

  “No.” Vonner snorted his disgust. “He figures Baines already left.”

  A twinge of regret tightened her chest. She rubbed her knuckles over it, feeling the faint ridge of the scar beneath the thin fabric of her lightweight sweater. She closed her eyes again, as an image taunted her.

  Lips on her breast, the skin smooth and clear over her heart. Hands tightening on her hips, lifting her to meet his thrusts.

  She opened her eyes, trying to clear her head, and she met his deep green gaze. Trent Baines stood behind Vonner, leaning against the open door of her small office. Heat rushed to her face as if he’d caught her like she’d been in that memory—naked and vulnerable.

  “Good morning,” he greeted them.

  Startled, Vonner jerked and inadvertently squeezed his paper cup. Coffee surged between the rim and the lid and ran over his fingers. He set the cup on the floor and cursed.

  Trent clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I figured you’d have sharper reflexes, being an agent.”

  “Damn you.”

  He shook his head. “You better run some cold water over that. Looks like it could be a nasty burn.”

  Vonner, his dark eyes hot with anger, glanced back at Alaina. “Go ahead,” she assured him. “I can show Mr. Baines out.”

  “Show me out?” he asked after Vonner knocked against him, passing him in the door way.

  She rose from behind her desk and walked around it, blocking it and those files from his view. This was her personal space; she wanted him nowhere near it. “You must be leaving, right? Heading back to the U.P.?”

  “Not yet,” he said, his gaze intent on her face, as if he knew what she’d been thinking, what she’d been seeing.

  “There’s no reason for you to stick around,” she pointed out. “You won’t talk.”

  “There’s another reason for me to stick around,” he said, leaning close.

  She needed to step back, to get away from him, in case he tried to kiss her. Because somehow she knew that if his lips touched hers, she’d be lost.

  But instead of kissing her, he murmured, “I need to see those cold-case files.”

  She stepped closer to him, tempted to shove him out the door. “You exploited those women enough already,” she said, anger choking her. “You’re not using them anymore.”

  “I only have your word that my books match those murders,” he said.

  “You were there yesterday, at the crime scene.” It still galled her that he’d beaten her there. “You know those murders match the books.”

  “No, I know that murder matched my books.” And it drove him crazy that that woman might have died because of him, because some lunatic had decided to copy what he’d written. Or what he’d done.

  “It’s the same as the others,” she insisted. “There’s no need for you to go through the files.”

  “You should want me to take a look at them,” he said. “I can help you.”

  She shook her head, and while he couldn’t feel her emotions, he glimpsed the fear in the depths of her gray-blue eyes. Maybe, like him, she was afraid of the answers to the questions, afraid of what she would learn about herself. “What makes you think I need your help?”

  “You came to me,” he reminded her.

  “For answers. You haven’t given me any.” Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You have nothing to offer me.”

  His lips twitched, and he grinned at her challenge. “We both know I have a lot to offer you.”

  He had to touch her, so he reached out to skim his fingertips along her delicate jaw. But she pulled back so his skin just brushed hers. It was enough that he felt her heat. And he knew that if he ever really touched her, passion would burn between them, brighter and hotter than even those images that flashed through his mind. “I can give you pleasure….”

  “You arrogant bastard,” she said. “You might be used to women falling at your feet. But I’m not a fan. You don’t impress me.”

  “Has any man?” he wondered. Or had she spent her life as he had, searching for something, for someone, he hadn’t been able to find? Until now.

  “My personal life is none of your damn business,” she told him.

  “Do you have one?” he wondered. “The director told me you’ve been working this case for a long time, almost obsessively.” He narrowed his eyes, studying her face, wishing he could feel what she felt. But only his own emotions—his attraction and fascination with her—consumed him. And others’ emotions edged in: pain, frustration, anger and resentment. “Why does this case mean so much to you, Alaina?”

  “Every case means a lot to me,” she said, but her voice lacked the strength of conviction.

  “This case is personal to you,” he said. “Why? Was one of those women your mother? Sister? Aunt?” Or, as he suspected, her?

  “No.”

  “C’mon, Alaina, let me help you,” Trent urged her. “You’ve gone over those files so many times that I’m sure you’ve missed something. I can be your fresh eyes, your fresh perspective.”

  “She doesn’t need you,” a deep voice informed him. The surly agent had returned. The cold water must have soothed away the burn of the hot coffee, for his fingers weren’t red anymore.

  Yet Trent saw the red in his mind, as if he weren’t the only one with blood on his hands. Maybe he was just projecting, looking for someone else to blame for what he’d caused.

  Vonner stated, “I’m her fresh eyes on this case.”

  “You just recently got assigned to it?”

  Vonner nodded. “Unless you’re willing to tell us who fed you the information from those files, you really have no reason to be here.” The guy’s dark gaze flicked to Alaina, as if staking his claim. “Why don’t you end your little field trip to the FBI and go back home, Baines?”

  “I have every reason to be here.” And she stood right in front of him, her eyes narrowed with distrust. She was smart not to trust him when he didn’t even trust himself.

  Vonner was right; Trent needed to leave. It was better if he returned to the oblivion in which he’d been living. No emotions, others’ or his own. No desires, like the passion that burned insi
de him for her.

  As he met her gaze, he saw another woman, one with red hair and pale skin, standing naked before him, her lips curved into a smile of pure temptation. Her image superimposed over Alaina’s until the two became one, as if the soul of the red-haired woman lived inside Alaina’s beautiful face and body.

  It had to be her….

  She shivered, despite the turtleneck she wore beneath her dark suit jacket. She’d worn a high-necked sweater yesterday, too.

  He’d understood it up north, where the wind was cold even this late in spring. But here, in the warmth of the city, he didn’t understand her conservative dressing.

  Was it so she would be taken seriously as a female agent? Or was it to protect herself, to hide away the sensual woman he was certain she’d once been? The one who’d made love to him so thoroughly he could still feel her touch, her fingertips sliding over him, her lips closing around him….

  “Baines?” Vonner snapped his fingers, as if trying to break the connection between Trent and Alaina.

  He was certain someone else had tried the same thing … at another time. Resentment and anger surged through him, familiar and too powerful to be ignored.

  Maybe he had been what he feared most—the monster about which he’d written his bestselling series. And maybe, if he stayed here, with her, where he felt more than he’d ever felt before, he would become that monster again.

  “You’re right,” he told Vonner. “I need to leave …” Before he did something, and became someone, that they would all regret.

  Alaina almost ignored the ringing of her cell, but with a resigned sigh, she pulled the phone out of her pocket. “Agent Paulsen.”

  “Where’d you go?” Vonner asked.

  “Home,” she said as she pulled into the apartment complex parking lot. As late as it was, only spaces far from the building were empty.

  “I need you here,” Vonner insisted, “to talk to the director with me.”

  She sighed, her frustration with her overzealous partner growing. “Bilski told you not to—”

  “But he was wrong about Baines. The guy is a problem.”

  “The guy left,” she reminded him. “He went back to the U.P.”

  Vonner uttered an expletive. “He lied to us. He didn’t go anywhere. He just walked in with the director right now. They went to dinner together.”

  “The director’s a fan of his books,” she said, just as Baines had claimed. Maybe she could trust him….

  “The director’s a fool to let him get this close to the case,” Vonner said, his disgust apparent. “Baines is one of those guys we learned about in profiling classes. The serial killers who try to help solve the murders they themselves committed.”

  “You were the one who pointed out he’s too young, that he wasn’t even alive when those old murders occurred,” she reminded him. “There’s no way he could have been the killer.” Except there was one way …

  “Maybe he’s the apprentice to the original killer, who’s too old and weak now to commit the murders himself,” Vonner rationalized. “So Baines has taken over and is doing his killing for him.”

  “Do you have any proof to support your suspicions?” she asked. Because she needed some. She needed something to remind herself that Trent Baines could be a dangerous man and not just a sexy, attractive one.

  “No, but—”

  “When you do, then we’ll talk to the director,” she promised.

  “It may be too late by then,” Vonner warned. “We have to do something about him now, Alaina.”

  “Go home,” she advised her partner as she shut off her Chevy TrailBlazer.

  Vonner had been out all day, interviewing Penelope Otten’s family, friends, coworkers and neighbors, searching for some lead on the killer. She had stayed back at the office, going over the old files, trying to figure out how that killer from thirty years ago could have begun killing again.

  She’d checked the rational ways. For recent parolees. For recently released psychiatric patients.

  But she suspected there was no rational explanation for how the Thief of Hearts had begun killing again.

  “Let me come over to your place, then,” Vonner implored. “We need to talk about how we’re going to handle Baines.”

  She didn’t want to handle Baines, to touch him, to kiss him….

  God, she wished he’d gone back to his secluded estate. She needed to get some distance from him, some perspective. Images kept flashing through her head, images of a naked man, caressing her skin, kissing her lips, her throat….

  But that man wasn’t Trent Baines. It couldn’t be.

  “Alaina,” her partner prodded her. “Tell me how to get to your place.”

  “No.” Vonner didn’t know where she lived, and she intended to keep it that way. “It’s late. Go home. We’ll talk in the morning.” She clicked off the cell and shoved it back into her pocket, then she stepped out of her vehicle, slamming the door closed behind her.

  Tall pines blocked the light from the streetlamps and cast shadows across the asphalt. The hair on her nape prickled as a cold wind rushed over her. She was not alone. Someone was watching her.

  She reached beneath her jacket and rested her hand on her holster, so that she would be ready. She would not be a victim. Again.

  Of course she was probably overreacting. With the size of the complex, anyone could have been coming or going. People worked all different shifts. Or, unlike her, they had social lives. Went out to dinner, watched movies. Dated.

  But with the sound of heavy footsteps behind her, she closed her fingers over the gun handle and whirled around to confront her potential stalker.

  “Dietrich!” she exclaimed in surprise.

  “Mr. Baines sent me to give you this,” the man said, his voice calm and his eyes devoid of fear or even surprise despite staring down the barrel of her gun.

  “How did you know where I live?” she asked, the hair still lifted on her nape, the fear clinging to her despite the fact, or because, she’d identified the threat.

  And Dietrich, with his hulking size and strange demeanor, was a threat. She kept the gun trained on him as she edged closer to the building and the security lighting.

  He followed her and held out a box, on the top of which her address had been scribbled in familiar handwriting. “Mr. Baines gave me directions, too.”

  As if he’d already driven past her place himself. How had Trent Baines known exactly where she lived?

  She shivered despite the warm breeze. But she refused to let him intimidate her. She did, however, study the box, trying to determine what the twelve-inch by twelve-inch by six-inch-deep box could hold. “What’s inside?”

  The man’s monster-wide shoulders rose and fell in a heavy shrug. “I don’t know.”

  She believed him, although with his lack of expression, it would be nearly impossible to tell if he lied. But the box was sealed, Baines’s handwriting scrawled across some of the tape. Unless Dietrich had seen what his employer had put inside, he could have had no idea of the contents.

  Thinking about what had been missing from every crime scene—from every victim—including the most recent one, Alaina had an idea of what could be in the box. But she hoped like hell she was wrong … about everything.

  Chapter 6

  Her breath escaped through parted lips. As her eyes widened in surprise, her body stiffened. But he wouldn’t let her stop moving. His hands grasped her hips, pulling her up and dragging her back down the hard length of his shaft.

  A groan tore from his throat as she came, pouring hot sensation over him. He wouldn’t let her finish so quickly, though. He reached between them, rubbing his thumb against her most sensitive spot. Then he arched his back,

  lifting up from the mattress, and skimmed his mouth across the slick skin of her breast. He closed his lips around the nipple, biting gently before stroking his tongue across the peak.

  She screamed his name, her body shattering in his arms. Then, finally, he
released his tenuous hold on control, bucking beneath her, slamming in and out of her wet heat until his world exploded with a powerful orgasm.

  And love. He loved her.

  A pounding noise abruptly drew Alaina’s attention from the pages of the galley of Trent Baines’s yet-to-be-published novel. Her fingers trembled as she reluctantly dropped the copy onto her soft cotton sheets. She wanted to ignore the interruption … for so many reasons.

  But the hammering persisted at her front door, echoing down the hall to her bedroom. She slipped from between the tangled sheets and reached for her robe. After belting it tightly around her waist, she left the room. But she couldn’t leave behind the effect of Trent Baines’s words. Heat flushed her skin, and her pulse raced, as if she’d been the woman in the book, the woman making love.

  A sigh slipped through her lips, as she realized she couldn’t remember the last time she had actually made love. She could remember neither the man nor the encounter.

  Because no man had been him.

  Was Trent Baines?

  She knew who knocked, but still she opened the door … to Trent.

  He leaned nonchalantly against the jamb, as if he hadn’t been insistently pounding. As if he’d dropped by for a casual visit.

  “You’ve been expecting me,” he observed.

  She nodded. “Ever since I received the galley you had delivered.”

  To her home. Had he been taunting her with the fact that he’d found out where she lived when he’d sent his assistant to personally deliver the copy of the book?

  “I told you that I’m a good investigator, too,” he reminded her as he flashed that arrogant, sexy grin. “I can help you with this case.”

  “And I told you that I didn’t want your help.”

  As if she’d invited him inside, he stepped through the door and brushed past her, so close that his T-shirt-covered chest grazed her satin robe.

  Her breath caught. “I only wanted you to answer some questions. I can’t answer any of yours.”

  He paced her living room, inspecting her Spartan furnishings more thoroughly than he’d checked out the crime scene. Because he’d been there before?