Page 47 of Deja Who
“Oh, God, all your hotness plus you’re a sworn officer of the Grammar Police.” He pretended to swoon, which was a good trick since he was sitting down. “You are the complete package.”
She shook her head.He approves of everything about me. Ergo, this cannot will not shall not last. As I foresaw. Too bad. It might have been spectacular.
“So, people you know? I mean really know, not just the charts in your office. Because don’t studies show we’re most likely to be murdered by someone we know?”
“That’s true.”Depressing beyond belief. And completely true.
“I know you don’t have a lot of—uh—the nature of your workdemands you keep a certain—um—distance—which isn’t to say you’re not—uh—you’re—”
Adorable!“I’m a chilly bitch,” she said, smiling, “and my only friend is the former mayor of Boston, who isn’t a racist. Oh, and you, perhaps.” She speared him with a look. “Are you a friend?”
“Nope.” He shook his head so hard his hair flew. “You can’t put me in that zone; don’t waste time trying. I’m your future snuggle sweetie and never forget it.”
“I will absolutely forget it if required to ever use the term ‘snuggle sweetie.’”
“Got it.” Now that she’d rearranged her clothing, Archer again patted the space beside him on the sofa and she sat. She hadn’t bothered to put her shoes back on, so she curled up and tucked her legs beneath her. Archer, meanwhile, had moved over the small empty space on the sofa so fast and hard that he nearly knocked her through the arm rest. “That’s better.” He patted her knee. “Argh, even your knees are sexy.”
“Archer...” She rolled her eyes.
“So, people in your life. We can eliminate me—”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Don’t start that again,” he almost pleaded. “I’m begging, here. What about your boss?”
“I’m the boss. I mean, it’s not my clinic,” she clarified, “but I’m the head Insighter. My supervisor no longer sees patients. She’s in administration and likes it that way, and likes that I’m good at my job. She’s the last person who would kill me, if for no other reason than it would make her life difficult short term as well as long term.”
“Okaaaay.”
She smiled at him. “That’sgoodnews, Archer.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He would not look at her, just kept making notes. “What about colleagues? Were you ever killed by someone you worked with?”
“Not that I recall. It’s not like I’ve got a mental file cabinet of all my lives and can effortlessly call up even the smallest detail at any time.” But oh, wouldn’t that be efficient! And convenient! “And they might not love me, but I don’t think they loathe me enough to kill me. One of them could knife me out of envy? Malice? Resentment because I refused to chip in for the birthday cake fund?” She would never,everunderstand the forced socializing expected at work. She had zero interest in their birthdays, or her own, and they in hers, so why pretend? Also, cake? At 10:00 a.m.?
“Don’t joke, babe.”
“Ugh. Babe?”
She put her tongue out at him, but he refused to be distracted. “People knife each other for a lot less.”
“Oh yes! But in this case, none of them care about me enough to want to kill me. They only want to force pastry on me at all hours of the workday. We’re all quite jaded, and nobody wants to take on my case load. So again: good news.”
He looked at his notes for a few seconds, then back up at her. “Your idea of good news is different from mine. And you’re so calm about it. ‘Nobody cares about me enough to kill me’ isnotgood news, Leah, okay? It’s pretty sad news, in fact. More on that later because I can tell you’re already tuning me out, but we’re definitely not done discussing this, get it?”
She shrugged.Tack “tenacious” onto “adorable.” Tenorable? Adoracious?
“Okay, what about that nervous-looking bald guy at Nellie’s house? Your mom’s agent and I guess yours, too, once. He seems pretty furtive.”
“Tom Winn of Winner’s TalentTM(ugh). Don’t be fooled, though. He’s a Hollywood agent, he can’t help it,” she explained. “Tom’s furtive because it’s his nature, not because he’s murdered me a dozen times.”
“And you know this how?”
“That wet-eyed bastard has been in my life for years; he’s had several opportunities to kill me. Anytime she decided I needed new head shots, for example. The cattle call for the Tampax commercial, for example. The callback forSweets to the Suite, for example. My entire childhood and a chunk of my adolescence, for example.” She took a closer look at Archer and saw he was still puzzled. “It doesn’t work like that, anyway. It’s not going to be some random stranger who knifes me on the subway. It’ll be someone I know, even if just briefly. A patient, or someone who referred a patient. A former teacher.”
“Then why stab me? I was a stranger!”
“Instinct?” she suggested. But it was a fair question. “It’s one thing to intellectually understand my killer is going to strike again and when he does, he’ll be known to me. It’s another not to fight against someone who’s been following me for weeks and then corners me in an alley.”
