Kill Me Again Read Online Free

though, she was the first person who’d walked into this room that he felt glad to see. He was actually interested in talking to her. The others had been boring. Not one of them had any useful information to share, but they’d all been full of questions he couldn’t answer. Doctors, nurses, cops.
    Damn, he hated cops.
    He didn’t know how he knew that, or why he hated them, but he knew it was true. It had to be true, as uncomfortable as he’d been with the one who’d been in here grilling him.
    Someone had shot him. Shot him. He closed his eyes and thought, yeah, that sort of thing would tend to make a lot of people ask a lot of questions. Personally, it made him feel sick.
    And now there was this…Olivia. She wasn’t a medical professional—unless she was a shrink. And she wasn’t a cop. He knew that for sure, though again, how he knew was a mystery.
    â€œOlivia,” he said, repeating her name and waiting to see how it felt on his tongue. Familiar? Sadly, no. “Are we…lovers?” he asked.
    Her eyes widened, and the word no burst from her lips before she could give it any thought. A rush of heat suffused her cheeks, and she didn’t meet his eyes.
    He lowered his head as if disappointed, and said, “So we’re just friends, then?”
    She frowned at him, tipping her head to one side and searching his face as she finally caught on. “Are you teasing me? A man in your condition?”
    â€œMy condition isn’t all that bad. Doc Redhead out there tells me I’m fine. Aside from the fact that the only thing in my head right now is a massive ache, I actually feel pretty good for a guy who just took a bullet. And no, I wasn’t teasing. Not entirely. I was hoping to God theyfinally found someone who knows me. Intimately.” He sighed heavily, told himself to quit with the self-pity and get on with this. “So how do you know me, Olivia?”
    â€œI don’t,” she said. “I’m sorry, but we’ve never actually met.”
    Nodding, and trying not to literally deflate in disappointment, he said, “Figures. It’s just about in keeping with the way my day’s been going, I guess.”
    He pursed his lips and reminded himself that this poor woman wasn’t the one who’d shot him. Then again, how could he even be sure of that much?
    He looked at her again, and thought, no, she wasn’t the kind to put a bullet in a man. Not like that—not in the back of his head. She was stiff, kind of wary, maybe a little repressed, but not mean. Not a killer.
    â€œWhy don’t you sit down, Olivia, and tell me about myself?”
    â€œI’ll try.” She moved to the chair beside the bed and adjusted it to a position she liked, a little closer, angled toward him so she could see his face. Then she sat down, her lithe frame folding itself into the chair in a smooth, easy motion. She crossed her legs at the ankles, leaned her knees to one side. “I didn’t expect you to be so…”
    â€œWhat? Grouchy? Sarcastic? Getting shot in the head will do that to a guy. Sorry I’m not pouring on the charm.”
    â€œI understand that,” she said. “It’s just that your books are so—”
    â€œMy books? ”
    She bit her lip, then nodded and shifted in the chair. “Maybe I’d better start at the beginning.”
    â€œMaybe you’d better.” He sat up in the bed, though he’d been told not to.
    â€œOkay.” Smoothing her skirt over her nicely shaped thighs, she seemed to organize her thoughts. “Okay,” she said again. “I’m Professor Olivia Dupree. I teach English over at the State University of Vermont’s Shadow Falls campus. Shadow Falls—that’s where you are now. I’ve been here for sixteen years, and I’ve been helping to plan this year’s summer fundraiser series for—”
    â€œExcuse me.” He