Kill Me Again. Maggie Shayne

it stands to reason I would understand and identify with you.” He nodded. “I’ve got to read some of my books.”

      “I anticipated that, brought some of them along. We can take turns driving if you want to read a little.” She blinked then, as if she’d just thought of something. “You didn’t forget how to drive.”

      “I didn’t even think about that.” He looked at his hands on the wheel and nodded. “It was kind of automatic, getting into the driver’s seat. It didn’t even occur to me that I might not know how.” He felt himself smiling and realized it was the first time since waking up without a past.

      “Maybe everything you ever knew is still right there, inside your mind,” Olivia said. “Maybe it just hasn’t quite surfaced.”

      He nodded. “I hope you’re right about that.”

      “So…when do you think it would be safe for me to make those calls? Not that I’m asking permission, of course.”

      “Of course. My suggestion,” he said, “would be to wait until we can pick up a new phone or two. The prepaid ones would be harder to trace.”

      “So we need to stop somewhere.”

      He nodded. “Once it’s daylight. And only if we can get access to some cash. If we use plastic, they’ll trace us.”

      “Well, even I knew that much,” she said. “But I think you might be a little overly cautious here, Aaron. It’s highly unlikely anyone is even looking for us yet.”

      “Oh, trust me. They’re looking. Those nurses are pretty diligent about waking up patients every hour or so. Mostly to tell them to get some sleep.”

      She smiled a little at that.

      “Besides, we already know someone is looking. Maybe not the police, not yet. But my shooter’s looking for me, and your housebreaker is looking for you. There’s no question about that. And we don’t know how sophisticated these men are—assuming they’re not the same man.”

      “Or how sophisticated the guys who hired them are.”

      He frowned. “You think someone hired that man to break in to your house, don’t you? And you have a good idea who.”

      Her face went serious, and she gave a nod. “I can get us plenty of cash.”

      “ATM?”

      She frowned at him. “Wouldn’t they, whoever they are, pick up on that faster than they would be able to track a cell phone?” she asked, and he wasn’t sure if it was just him, or if she was starting to sound a little impatient. “And wouldn’t it look fairly suspicious if I took a big chunk of cash out of the bank on the same night you went missing?”

      “See? Even you’ve read a few thrillers.”

      “I read widely. I’m an English professor, after all.” And then the stuffy facade wavered a little. “And I watch the occasional episode of Law and Order.”

      He glanced over at her, caught her sheepish expression as she admitted to what had to be a guilty pleasure, and for just an instant he got caught up in the way her thick black lashes framed her chocolate-brown eyes. A few crow’s-feet appeared at their outer corners when she smiled, but he got the feeling she hadn’t smiled a lot in her life. Then he forced his gaze back to the road, a feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him he had just been looking at the biggest potential complication of all.

      She was gorgeous. And he was attracted to her. He had to stop letting those facts catch him by surprise.

      “Once people realize that you vanished on the same night I did, there’s going to be plenty of cause for suspicion, believe me,” he said, getting his head back on topic.

      “Maybe not. I can be convincing on the phone, and I left a note at the house for Bryan in case he shows up and—”

      He hit the brake pedal, jerked the wheel and brought the SUV to a stop on the shoulder, raising a cloud of dust behind them and sending Freddy sliding. “You left a note?”

      Her brown eyes went slightly wider, and she clenched her jaw so tightly he thought her teeth must be grinding against each other. She nodded once, as if she’d just reached a firm decision, and closed her hand around the door handle as if she were getting ready to calmly step from the SUV in the middle of nowhere.

      He drew a slow breath. “What did you write in the note?”

      “None of your business.”

      “It is my business, since my life is on the line here, too.” But her jaw was still firm, and she wasn’t meeting his eyes. Her nostrils flared just a little, and he thought of a skittish horse getting ready to run flat out. He drew a deep, slow breath, calmed his tone and spoke to her the way he imagined someone would need to speak to that horse.