She had to run. And as for going with Aaron, well, he wasn’t really a stranger to her. Besides, he needed her help.
Decision made, she zipped her bag and returned to the living room to find Aaron and Freddy both missing.
Frowning, she looked around at the demolished room. Only it wasn’t. Aaron had picked everything up, restored order while she’d been getting dressed and packing her things. She heard his voice outside and realized they hadn’t gone far. She picked up Freddy’s dog bed and opened the front door.
Aaron was standing at the back end of the dusty-but-impressive Expedition. The tailgate was open, and Freddy was standing with his front feet up on the carpeted floor of the cargo hold, and he wasn’t budging. He was just looking at Aaron expectantly, as if he ought to know what came next.
“Um, Aaron, that’s not my car.”
He looked up as if startled. “I know. And you’re a fast packer.”
“It’s going to be a short trip. I hope.”
He nodded and returned his puzzled look to the dog. “Is there some kind of command you use to get him to jump the rest of the way in?”
“No. It’s just that he’s so big.”
“And that matters why?”
“He’d have to get a running start to jump all the way in, and in my car he bangs his head on the roof. So he refuses.” She eyed the Expedition. “He would probably never hit his head in this one.”
“Would you believe that’s why we’re taking it?” he asked.
She sent him a look that told him she would not.
He shrugged. “I didn’t think so. But I did overhear you talking to the redhead about this baby. No one knows you have it, right?”
“Only the redhead—er, Dr. Overton.”
“Good. She’ll never know we’ve taken it, and it’ll take your cop friend longer to sound the alarm if your car is still here,” he said.
“I should probably call her, though. She won’t say anything if I ask her not to, but I don’t want her to think I’ve been abducted by an amnesiac shooting victim—”
“You don’t think that’s what this is, do you? A kidnapping?”
She met his eyes. “If I did, I wouldn’t be going. Besides, if you try anything with me, Freddy will eat you.”
He shot the dog a quick look and nodded. “I bet he would. All right, good, then. You can call the doc later, though. We should get a move on before they figure out I’m not in the hospital. This is the first place they’re going to come looking.”
She nodded and set her overnight bag on the floor of the backseat. Then she found the release and folded those seats forward, making even more room for Freddy.
Moving to the rear, she arranged Freddy’s bed while he stood patiently, front feet still inside the SUV, watching her every move.
“I know, boy. I know.” She got behind the dog and, bending, cupped her hands to give him a boost up. He lifted one hind foot into her cupped hands and pushed off as she lifted.
“Hey, no, let me—” Aaron began.
“I’ve got this.” She put a little more effort into it, and Freddy got himself in, turned around three times and sank gratefully onto his bed with a sigh.
“Good Lord, woman, how much does he weigh?”
“Two hundred, give or take. Most of the time he gets in and out with a lot less help from me. Unless he’s really tired or doesn’t feel like going.”
“Or he’s under the influence of a tranquilizer,” Aaron said. Then he held up a piece of plastic, with part of a label clinging to it. “I found this near the outside of the fence—right there.” He pointed, and handed her the plastic.
She eyed it. “Ace-prome—huh?”
“Acepromazine. It’s a tranquilizer, commonly used in veterinary offices. It would take a big dose for a dog this size, hit him within an hour, and probably last for three or four. That timing fit with what happened here tonight?”
“Like a glove,” she said. “How do you know about veterinary tranquilizers?”
He shrugged. “Damned if I know. House all locked up?”
“I need to run back in for a couple more things.”
“I should pull your car into the garage. It’ll make everything look more normal.”
“You still have my car keys?” she asked.
“Left them in it—got distracted when I heard you cry out.”
“Okay. Grab some dog food from the bag out there while you’re at it, will you?”
“I’ll just bring the bag. In case we need to be gone longer than anticipated.”
A little shiver worked up her spine as the voice of doubt—the one she’d been actively suppressing—whispered a bit more insistently. What if, just what if, this man wasn’t what he seemed? “Maybe I should let Carrie know now that—”
“Let’s just get going, okay?”
She tipped her head to one side, suddenly less sure about him than she’d been before. “Maybe I should give this a little more thought, Aaron.”
He glanced at her, frowning, but then his frown eased and his face softened. “Hey, I don’t blame you. You don’t even know me.”
But she felt as if she did. And yet…something wasn’t quite right about all this.
“Then again, neither do I, at the moment,” he went on. “But, Olivia, someone tried to hurt you tonight. And it wasn’t me. Someone tried to hurt me, too. If the two incidents are related, then we have a common enemy. Even if they’re not, we both have someone after us, and we both want to find out who it is and make it stop so we can get back to our respective lives.”
She thought about that for a moment. It did make sense.
“Aside from the fact that someone else came after you, if I wanted to hurt you, I could have done it by now, couldn’t I? With Freddy tripping out on acepromazine and the phones dead? I could have taken either vehicle and been long gone before anyone even found your body.”
Her eyes flew wider as she shot him a look. “You don’t need to be so graphic.”
“I’m not your enemy. I may not know who I am, but…I know that.” He shook his head. “Look, I need to get out of here. I feel that right to my gut. I need to get somewhere safe, so I can stay alive long enough to figure this mess out. And I really don’t want to leave you here alone with some crazed lunatic still out to get you. But I will, if that’s what you want.”
Her throat was dry. She lowered her eyes, her mind whirling, as she realized she didn’t know what the hell to do. Trust him? Or stay home?
But the thing was, she couldn’t stay home as if nothing had happened. The new life she’d created, the new identity she’d claimed, the way she’d been living for the past sixteen-plus years—it was gone now. All of it. Someone knew her secret. So it wasn’t a secret anymore. Even if she let Aaron go without her, after the attack she’d already reached the conclusion that she would have to take off.
And she was rapidly reaching another one. She needed to face Tommy and get things over with once and for all. But she wasn’t so sure she could take him on all by herself and live to tell the tale. At least with Aaron at her side she would have one ally. For a little while, anyway. And while she hated to drag him into her mess, she supposed she could repay him for his help by helping him solve his own mysteries.