LITMIR.BIZ

       “We’re not those people any more—those people we once were.”

      “But we are,” Trent said. “We have their memories, their souls.”

      But not their hearts. At least not hers.

      Alaina reached for Trent. This time he came to her, desire catching fire between them.

      She was overwhelmed. “I can feel you … what you feel.”

      “I can feel you, too.”

      “You want me,” she said. “So take me. I want to know what it was like between us.”

      Trent shuddered now. She knew him so well. And still she wanted him?

      He took her in his arms. “This is your last chance,” he warned her. “Your last chance to leave.”

      She shook her head. “You don’t scare me.”

      “Then that makes one of us.”

      Dear Reader,

      Have you ever had a sense of déjà vu? I have. Maybe it’s just because I’m quite forgetful and don’t remember the first experience. But the fanciful part of me would rather believe I really have experienced it before—in another life.

      FBI agent Alaina Paulsen has that sense of déjà vu when she meets infamous horror author Trent Baines. But she doesn’t know if the man was her lover in a previous life or her killer. She remembers her past death, a murder so gruesome that she still has a scar. The killer has also carried over into this life, and he’s determined to kill her again. I hope you enjoy reading about Alaina and Trent’s thrilling Déjà Vu!

       Lisa Childs

      About the Author

      LISA CHILDS has been writing since she could first form sentences. At eleven, she won her first writing award and was interviewed by the local newspaper. That story’s plot revolved around a kidnapping, probably something she wished on any of her six siblings. A Halloween birthday predestined a life of writing paranormal and intrigue. Readers can write to Lisa at PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA, or visit her at her website www.lisachilds.com.

      Déjà Vu

      Lisa Childs

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      With great appreciation to Tara Gavin and Shawna Rice. Thank you for everything!

       Prologue

       Light glinted off metal as a clenched fist lifted a knife high in the air. The blade flashed again as it descended, slicing through flesh until the point plunged deep into her heart. The fist withdrew the knife and blood gurgled out of the wound as her last breath gasped from her lungs.

       “You’ll stop loving him now,” the man murmured as he wiped her blood from his knife.

       She stared up at him, her eyes still wide with fear even as she died and her spirit left this body….

      With the image so vivid in her mind, Alaina struggled to focus on the one in the mirror on the bathroom door. Her image. The steam blurred her features, so that she saw only blond hair and pale skin. She wiped a hand over the fogged-up glass, then dropped her towel.

      Her heart pounded hard beneath her breast. She lifted her hand to it and traced the puckered flesh of the scar. While it was on her body, the scar was not hers. She’d had no injury that had inflicted it. She’d been born with it. Alaina had brought the scar with her from a former life. A life, and a death, she remembered only in flashes.

      She hadn’t seen enough yet to identify her killer. But somehow she knew that he was still out there—waiting to kill her. Again.

       Chapter 1

      “Do you want me to call your lawyer?”

      Trent Baines spun his chair away from the window that looked out over the thickly wooded hillside, the trees the fresh green of new life, of spring. His hands shaking slightly, he planted his palms on the shiny mahogany surface of his desk and said, “That’s not necessary. I don’t need a lawyer to talk to her.”

      “But she’s with the FBI,” Dietrich said, the big man’s deep voice pitched low as if he worried she would overhear him, although he stood close to Trent’s desk and she was on the other side of the doors, at least. Probably down the hall in the living room or foyer. Dietrich was paid well to protect Trent’s privacy.

      A grin tugged at Trent’s mouth. “Do you think I’ve done something that puts me in need of a lawyer?”

      “I didn’t mean to imply …”

      “Do you think the FBI has a valid reason for questioning me?”

      “Sir—”

      Trent lifted a hand to wave off his employee’s contrition. “I’m just messing with you, Dietrich.”

      Anything to get a reaction out of the usually expressionless man—and to distract himself from what awaited him outside the pocket doors of his mahogany-paneled den. Fate.

      He drew in a deep, bracing breath and directed his assistant. “Show her in.”

      “She’s not alone,” the other man reminded him.

      Trent shrugged. “I don’t care who’s with her. I’ll only see her.”

      He had already felt her, drawing nearer as she drove up to the estate. Even if he hadn’t had the call to warn him, he would have known she was coming. With a connection this strong, she had to be the one.

      He had to be the one. Everything had led her here—to him. Trent Baines had to be the killer.

      “He will see you.”

      Startled, Alaina whirled away from the window and its fog-enshrouded view of the treetops. How had such a big man moved so quietly back into the living room where he’d left her and Agent Vonner? Then the young man, wearing a suit as dark as Vonner’s, turned to leave again.

      Vonner trailed after him and, her pulse racing, she followed Vonner. Their footsteps on dark slate flooring echoed in the two-story foyer through which they passed. On one side of it were the double doors from which they’d entered. On the other, an elaborate double staircase with a cathedral-size stained-glass window on the landing.

      As Vonner had commented, the place was a castle. And only one man lived here, with his servants?

      The butler or bodyguard—or whatever the young man was—held out a hand as if stopping traffic at the closed pocket doors at the end of the wide hall. “Mr. Baines will only see the woman.”

      “Agent Paulsen,” Alaina supplied her name.

      “No,” Vonner protested.

      “It’s fine,” she said. Her gun heavy on the holster on her belt, she wasn’t afraid for her safety.

      The man—Dietrich he had called himself when he’d let them in earlier—began to slide open the pocket doors.

      “You can’t see him alone,” Vonner protested and reached out to grasp Alaina’s arm.

      She glanced from the fingers crushing the sleeve of her dark suit jacket to his face. Then she arched a brow, uncertain of Vonner’s motives. Did he not want her to get all the glory if they had, at last, found a genuine lead? Or was his concern only for her safety?

      Neither option comforted her. In fact, she had been uneasy ever since Vonner had been assigned to the cold case with her. The male agent acted more interested in her than the case.

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