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KILL ME AGAIN

Maggie Shayne

Secrets of Shadow Falls Trilogy, book 2
On Sale July 30th

Chapter One

Today was the day Olivia Dupree was going to meet the only man on the planet who saw life the way she did—as one long series of disappointments—as a perilous journey best navigated entirely solo—for the very first time, and she didn't have a thing to wear.

Not that what she wore really mattered.  She wasn't that sort of a fan.  She didn't think he would care what she looked like or wore, and she would be extremely disappointed if he did. 

And yet, she'd given in to the idiotic teenager that had never been her, and stood on her bed, so she could gauge her appearance in the big mirror that was part of her dresser.  She didn't own a full length mirror.  She'd never thought she needed one, and still held that opinion.  Her ordinary style was pretty basic.  For work, she wore skinny, knee length pencil skirts with matching blazers when it was cool, and sensible pumps with two inch heels.  She kept her dark hair in a tight bun and applied her makeup in the same, minimalist fashion every weekday.  College English students didn't really care what their professor looked like, after all.   And she wasn't out to capture the attention of anyone else who might.

On weekends, she traded the suits for jeans, the bun for a ponytail, and the makeup for sunscreen. 

Now she needed something in between.  Something relaxed, but attractive.  Not seductive, just attractive.  She was not a doe-eyed, adoring fan.  But she'd never met Aaron Westhaven before and she wanted to make a good impression.

Nothing more. 

Freddy, her very best friend in the entire world and the only specimen of the male gender she trusted with her heart, canine or otherwise, tipped his massive head from one side to the other as he watched her standing on the bed.  Standing was not what the bed was for, he seemed to be thinking. 

She glanced down at him.  "It's okay, boy.  I'll get down momentarily.  And standing on the bed is still verboten as far as it applies to you, okay?"

He heaved a giant sigh, and lowered his two-hundred pound, brindle patterned bulk to the floor.  He was only average size for an adult male English Mastiff, but even she had trouble believing how big he was, and she'd had him for three years.

She hoped Mr. Westhaven didn't have an aversion to dogs.  He hadn't written dogs into any of his novels, so she couldn't be sure, but she suspected he would love Freddy.  Because anyone with a heart would love Freddy, and Westhaven certainly had a heart. 

She felt like she knew him well.   The reclusive author's heartbreakingly tragic novels lined her shelves, and spoke to her soul.  They were her own guilty little secret.  But they so reflected the way she felt about life and love.  You really couldn't depend on anyone but yourself.  He seemed to understand that.  God knew she did.

He was due to arrive there, at her home in Shadow Falls, Vermont, that very day. 

She glanced at the combination she now wore, a pair of dressy black trousers, a lavender, button-down blouse, a black blazer over it.  She unbuttoned the blazer, and thought she still looked stiff and formal.  Then she took it off and thought she looked too casual. 

Frustrated with her wardrobe, she threw the blazer onto the bed.  Big mistake.  Freddy saw that as an invitation, sprang upright, and bounded onto the bed with a giant "woof" that reverberated through her chest.  The mattress sank and the box springs squeaked in protest.

"I couldn't see anything from the waist down," she explained as she tried to keep her balance. But he gave a little "bucking bronco" leap, and a mattress-tidal-wave rose beneath her bodily.  Laughing, she fell onto her butt among the rumpled covers, and Freddy moved over her, trying to lick her face as she laughed too hard to breathe.  "You're a lug.  Get down!"

He obeyed immediately, then stood there waiting for her to join him.  She got down, traded the trousers for a skirt, slid her feet into a pair of sandals, and looked at the clock on the nightstand, then at her wristwatch.  "Gee, Freddy.  Mr. Westhaven is late."  Then she frowned as a little knot of worry tightened in her stomach.

"He's really late."  And she was concerned.  Because, though she admired him, she didn't trust him entirely, simply because he was male.  That he'd agreed to be the surprise guest speaker at the English Department's summer fundraiser, had been nothing less than a stunner.  She'd invited him with every expectation he would decline, if he replied at all.  The man never made public appearances.  She'd been shocked—and a little bit suspicious—when he'd agreed. 

But she'd chalked that up to her own man-issues, and tried to trust him to show up as promised, and not pull a no-show.

Maybe that had been a mistake. 

Time would tell, she supposed.  She brushed the dog hairs off her ordinary blouse and exchanged it for a silk, sleeveless button down one in jade green.  It would just have to do.

#

Samuel Overton wasn't supposed to be driving at all without his mom in the car, much less driving a big Ford Expedition that wasn't even theirs.  But he was doing it anyway.  He didn't really know how she expected him not to.  It was the Funkmaster Flex, limited edition, not just any SUV.  And it was freaking sweet.  Checkered flag design on the dashboard and console, unique black and red paint job, sound system to die for.  Better yet, it had a 300 horsepower, 5.4-liter iron-block, 24-valve V-8 in it.  Hell, this thing was a dream vehicle.  Car-show worthy. 

Besides, he didn't have any reason to think his mom would find out. 

He should have known better.  She always found out.

Kyle Becker, Sam's best friend, cranked up the music, and Sam shoved his hand away from the dial and turned it back down.  "It's distracting."

"It's Metallica.  You don't turn down Metallica."

"Then turn it off."

"No way.  It'll do you good to get used to distractions," Kyle said, with the wisdom of a licensed sixteen-year-old, a whole six weeks older than Sam himself.  "And while you're at it, you might want to go faster than thirty-five."

Sam pressed on the gas pedal, picked up speed, and sent a cloud of dust up behind them.  They'd taken a back road where there would be little traffic, so he could practice driving a car that had a little more guts than his mother's mini-van.    

He felt a little ping, knew he was throwing up pebbles in addition to the dust cloud, and shaking his head, he hit the brakes and pulled over.  "This is stupid.  This dirt road is no good for a cherry ride like this."

"I told you, we'll wash it before we take it back," Kyle insisted.  "No one will ever know!"

"Right, unless I end up dinging it or something.  Professor Mallory will notice that when he comes back from Europe, even if Mom doesn't."  Sam sighed, frustrated with himself as he slowly realized there was almost zero chance he was going to get away with this undetected.  "I must have been a moron to have let you talk me into this."

"No, you weren't.  You've got to practice on something, right?  How are you going to pass your test next week, if you don't?  And you can't take your mother's mini-van when she has it parked outside the damn hospital all day every day."

"Yeah, well, I can't keep taking Mallory's dream-machine out, either.  I mean, I shouldn't.  He left it with Mom for safe keeping while he's away.  I doubt this is what he had in mind."

"Why the hell not?  You're not hurting it any.  And he did ask your mom to drive it once in awhile to keep it loose, right?  You're helping him, dude."

"You wouldn't be saying that if it was your fantasy vehicle I was driving over a cowpath," Sam said.  "If Mom finds out, she'll have a freakin' breakdown."

"She's not gonna find out."  Kyle said it as if he were offering his personal guarantee that it was true.

The dust was clearing, and Sam sighed, and reached for the shift again. "Let's just go.  We still have to have gas it up and wash it, and hope to hell nobody sees us driving it back."

"Yeah," Kyle said.  "We probably better get on that.  But we can take it straight back to your mom's garage, bring the gas in a can and wash it right there, so we aren't drawing notice.  You want me to drive it back?"

Sam nodded.  "Just in case we meet a cop or something," he said.  "My old lady would be even more pissed if I got a ticket for driving on a learner's permit without an over-eighteen licensed driver along."  He opened his door, getting out of the SUV to go around to the passenger side. 

Kyle got out his own side, but then he just stood there, staring toward the side of the road a dozen or so yards ahead of them.

And then he went really tense all of a sudden, and his mouth opened.

"What?" Sam asked, trying to see what he was looking at.

Kyle lifted a finger and pointed.  "Jesus, is that a body?"

"No way!"  Sam turned fully, and spotted the lump that had caught his pal's attention.  Something that looked like a person lay in the deep grass at the bottom of a patch of sloping ground along the side of the dirt road.

The two boys headed for the human-shaped lump of clothing.  When they got as close as they could without leaving the road, Kyle said, "Sure as shit, Sam, there's a guy down there.  And he isn't moving."

Elbowing his friend, Sam said, "Go see if he's alive."  Then he tugged his cell phone out of his shirt pocket.

"Screw you, you go see if he's alive!"

"Fine."  Sam held out the phone.  "You can call 911 . . . and my mom at the hospital."

Sighing, Kyle shook his head.  "I'll go see if he's alive," he said.

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