One More Time

“No, I mean because of the people who did this to you,” he said. “They're still out there. What if they try again?”

“You're certain it was intentional?” I asked.

I already knew the answer to that question and I don't know why I even asked it. Although I didn't remember much, I remembered being hit on the back of the head. Clubbing somebody on the back of the head and leaving them inside a burning building couldn't be anything but intentional. And as I absorbed that fact, I felt a chill run down my spine, working its way through my gut, and finally wrapping its long, cold tendrils around my heart, squeezing it tight.

Oliver looked at me, a knowing expression on his face. “I'm almost positive,” he said. “And I can tell by the look in your eyes that you know it too.”

“Well, I'll have people watching over me,” I said. “I'll be fine.”

“That's not enough,” he muttered.

“Oliver?”

He turned to look at me, those brilliant baby blue eyes drinking me in. His gaze, so deep and so penetrating made my heart stutter and my pulse race. But, in those eyes, I saw so much sorrow and sadness. I saw so much hurt in his eyes that it killed me. It was physically painful to see the way he looked at me – and I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with our past. Or whatever you'd call what we had together.

“Is there something you'd like to talk about?” I asked. “Something you know that I – or the police – don't?”

He hesitated, then licked his lips and looked away again. His expression grim, he shook his head.

“No,” he said softly. “Not really.”

“Not really?”

“I mean – you're not the first,” he said. “You're not even the second. But you already know all that.”

“I do?”

“Your podcast,” he said. “You mentioned it last week. Right before the – incident.”

As he reminded me of it, I recalled briefly that, yes, I had been looking into a few suspicious cases of arson around the city. It wasn't anything in depth just yet, though. I mainly put it out there for my audience, telling them that the cases seemed to be linked, at least to me. I recall that I'd asked for anyone with any information about those cases to contact me.

The podcast had generated a few leads, but nothing concrete – and nothing I could remember at that moment. The blank spots in my memory made me glad that I always kept a paper trail of everything I did.

“You're right,” I said.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I'd written down. My notes. His reminder of that podcast sparked some interest running through my brain. Made me wonder if there was a connection between those cases and what happened to me. If nothing else, I was hoping that maybe sifting through my notes could help jog my memory.

The only problem was, all my notes were at home. I turned and looked at Oliver, wondering if he might be willing to – I cut off the thought mid-stream, though. I'd ask my best friend to bring them over with her when she came to see me. I didn't want to put that kind of pressure on someone I hardly knew.

“I'll see what I can figure out,” I said.

“I want to help you,” he said, running a hand over his short-cropped hair.

“You do?”

He nodded. “I have my reasons, but yes,” he said. “I want to figure out who did this to you. And why.”

&nbsp

; A small smile touched my lips. One I had to push away. I wasn't sure why the idea of working alongside Oliver made me feel giddy – the primal part of my brain telling me it was because he looked so damn hot. Or maybe it was because I'd always thought he was a pretty good guy.

Not that I'd ever needed a man in my life. But the idea of working with Oliver, having him help me figure out who'd done this to me and why, lifted my spirits a bit.

“Well, if you really want to help, do you think you could start by running over to my house and picking up a few of my things?” I asked. “Notebooks and recordings I made about my investigation so far?”

He stood up, but I stopped him before he left. He turned back to me and cocked his head, questioningly.

“Thank you,” I said, gripping his hand tightly.