Dying to Have Her Read Online Free Page B

here for me.”
    “Sir, you’ve spoken with them both—”
    Olsen glared at Bill. “And get hold of Liam. We want to try very hard to keep whatever happened here down to just one … accident.”

Chapter 3
    L IAM TOOK ONE LAST look in the hatch of his black Jeep, marking off the contents. Fishing poles, skis, food boxes, tools, Miller Lite, and—the one major change in this trip’s packing—a few packs of Seagram’s wine coolers. Staring at them, he felt the slightest twinge of unease. He loved the wilderness, a rushing stream, the mountains. California was a great state, filled with boundless natural wonders.
    All his life, he had been fond of the wilderness. All his life, he had been fond of women. He’d just never tried to mix the two before.
    He liked being alone, with the natural world around him, though he didn’t always go alone. Once or twice a year he met Charlie Eagle, a member of the Nez Perce tribe, and they fished, hunted, drank too much beer and shot up tin cans together, discussing the fate of the world. As yet they hadn’t managed to do too much about it.
    Today, though, he’d be taking off with Sharon. Twenty-eight, platinum blond, long-legged—and the toughest little tomboy he’d ever met. She was studying ancient man, and she had visited a number of sites that had been found recently, proving there had been settlements in North America long before what had been previously believed. They’d met when, in the pursuit of a missing person, he’d found human remains in the desert. The remains were those of a murder victim, but as an L.A. medical examiner and his team of experts discovered, the poor fellow had been beheaded before the time of written history on the continent. As it happened, his story had been recorded in a nearby cave drawing, found after the discovery of the body had created an academic frenzy. Sharon and Liam had hit it off right away, which had been nice, since he’d still been lying awake far too often at night, recalling what almost was—and then wasn’t—with Serena McCormack.
    He should have known better, from the beginning. Serena’s world wasn’t real, and his was far too much so. She had been the most incredible woman he had ever seen. Coming close to her had been like throwing gas on a fire, truly explosive. And falling out with her had been the same.
    He slammed the hatchback with far greater vigor than necessary. He told himself that he was going to go and have a good time. He walked back into the house, sliding his fingers through his hair. He was supposed to call Sharon and tell her when he was leaving. He strode into the kitchen and reached into the fridge. Sparse, he thought, surveying the contents. He selected a large bottle of orange juice, shook two aspirin out of a container, and downed them, drinking the juice right out of the bottle. Then he headed for the living room.
    His place was small, a fine old house in Laurel Valley, carved into a canyon. Cowhide in front of the hearth, dark leather sofa and chairs. There was a lot of stonework in the house, and some paneling. A large elk head was flanked by a gazelle and a deer—not animals that he had killed but trophies that were in the house when he bought it from an attorney, who told him that the heads had been there when he had bought the place as well. So, they stayed. They were kind of like friends.
    There were a few pictures on the mantel. One was from his stint in the service, another from when he graduated from the police academy. In another he stood with Conar Markham, who was as avid a diver as he was himself. They had been involved with diving for the force at that time.
    Conar had gone on to acting; Liam had stayed with the police. He had liked his work. Curious, though, even to himself, that soon after the Hitchcock killings, which had involved the cast and crew of Valentine Valley last year, he had suddenly decided to leave the force. Maybe it had even been Serena. He had wanted to change his