CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I must have fallen asleep on the floor of Purgatory, because that’s where I wake up, lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, with the sound of my phone ringing, my body stiff and cold. I reach for the incessant-ringing beast and roll to my side to grab it, pictures of dead bodies and note cards now crumpled beneath me. Grabbing the phone, I sit up, a note card stuck to my hand that I shake off, and eye the caller ID, only to realize it’s not a call. It’s my alarm. I actually decided to sleep here because I had no energy to find my way to bed. I sit up and put my hand in the remainder of the strawberry pie, which is basically crumbs and whipped cream.
“Fabulous,” I say, licking whipped cream from the side of my pinky finger before checking my phone app to confirm I have no calls, and indeed, I have no calls. Which does not please me, considering I’ve called my brother, Eddie, and Alexandra numerous times about this Woods situation. They’re territorial. I get that. It’s a fairly normal reaction when the feds show up, except that I’m not just any agent. I’m flipping family. I also get that my father now wants to be a big-time politician and that he wants the case closed with as little press as necessary.
What I don’t understand is that phone call to Alexandra that makes me think she knows Woods, or why that call would be grounds for anyone to assume Woods’s guilt. Lord help me, this smells bad, and people I love are in the middle of it, which is why I need to get to Manhattan and try to expand my view before someone tampers with it.
I glance at the time on my phone: 4:40 a.m., otherwise known as too damn early. Unless, of course, you haven’t arranged a chopper and don’t want to drive three hours to Manhattan to investigate a murder, and therefore need to make one of the only morning trains out of this place, and I do. I push to my feet, grabbing a note card now stuck to my sticky hand and reading it: KAREN ADAMS—WOODS’S EX-GIRLFRIEND. Of course, I won’t be the first one to go and see her, but I am the first one who can bond over an ex with an unwanted relationship with law enforcement.
I set the card on the desk and hurry to the bedroom, pausing just a moment in the doorway when the scent of my mother’s perfume touches my nose. It’s crazy, of course, or maybe it’s not. This place feels and smells like her, no matter how long she’s gone, and that’s too long. I think of that night and how the truth of who, and what, her daughter has become would have destroyed her. She couldn’t have saved me. I can’t save me either, but there is always someone else who needs saving, and right now, that’s Woods.
Pushing forward, I hurry to the shower and then dress in all black—black jeans, a black sweater. My Chanel boots again. Because black is not only a Goth thing but also a New York thing, which could be one and the same. I manage to throw on some makeup and flat-iron my hair, the same plain-Jane brown it was yesterday, all in an impressive forty-five minutes. I head back to Purgatory, where I gather my work from the floor, including a stack of note cards with addresses and names of people, places, and things I think might lead me to Woods. Of course, the one of most interest is the girlfriend, and I rubber-band that one on top of the stack. Everything, including the notes Junior left me, goes in my bag, and I’m about to leave when I glance at the white boards filled with more information from last night’s pie session. Since Junior seems to be snooping around, I grab an eraser and clear all my writing.
My gaze falls on my computer, and I walk to the desk and sit down, reaching for the removable drive Kane had given me last night. I’m irritated that watching Samantha enter Kane’s house and exit hours later bothers me as much as it does. I remove the drive and stick it in my bag, then just decide to take my entire computer. The footage showing Junior putting the note on my car had been less than helpful, but I can spend time on the train ride home reviewing the recordings again.
Standing, I survey the office to make sure I’ve left nothing behind before heading to the garage, dumping my stuff in my car, and then hunting for batteries, which I find. They’re old, probably low in juice, but they’re better than nothing. I quickly find my way back inside, install them in the cameras, and decide to be sneaky this time. I stick one camera under a pillow on the couch, with a view of the sliding glass door. It’s not a grand plan, but at this point, Junior has access to the house, and I’m not letting that run me off. Tonight, I’ll find a way to make that work for me and play Junior’s game my way.
I grab my coat, head back to the garage, and get on the road, dialing the NYPD by memory on the way to the train station. “This is Agent Lilah Love with the FBI,” I tell the woman who answers. “I need to speak to Marcus Rick,” I say, a transfer-in from Chicago I unfortunately don’t know.
“One moment,” I’m told, and it’s more like three minutes later when she says, “Detective Rick is on a leave of absence.”
“Leave of absence,” I repeat, finding the loss of the detective on this particular case more than a little concerning. “Who took over the Emerson case?”
“Let me look.” Fingers click on a keyboard before she says, “Nelson Moser.”
And in a moment, Rick is replaced by a detective who hates me. If this is an accident, the universe hates me more than the locals.
“And he’s in the field,” she adds. “Shall I put you through to his voice mail or have him call you?”
“Is Greg Harrison in by chance?” I ask, hoping my old partner can zoom right past this problem for me.
More clicking of keys. “Not at the moment.”
“Right. Of course not. I’ll try back.” I end the call and bring the car to an idle at a stoplight while punching in Greg’s cell phone number. His voice mail picks up before it even rings, and I grimace but leave a message, leaving out details I’d rather not have recorded. “Greg. It’s Lilah. I’m in town. I need everything you have on the Trey Emerson case, and I need it to be off the record. It’s urgent. Call me.”
I dial Tic Tac and get his voice mail, because apparently two-something in the morning his time is too early for him. “I need to know why Detective Marcus Rick of the NYPD is on leave. Pull whatever strings you have to pull. I need a real answer.” I end the call as the light changes, and I pass through it, making a quick turn into the train station before parking among a cluster of cars. Killing the engine, I glance at the time on the dash that reads 5:45, which can be translated to late, or more accurately, really close to screwed. I grab my purse and briefcase, sliding the straps over my head and across my chest before opening the door.
Stepping out of the car, I’ve barely straightened when a man appears in front of me. “Ms. Love,” a tall man in a tan suit says, his camera people behind him. “Can you tell us why the FBI was on the scene of Wednesday night’s murder?” He shoves a microphone at me.
“Because apparently I can’t come home and just have mac n’ cheese waiting on me. My brother makes me work for it. It was a favor.”
Another reporter appears. “Was the death a suicide?” a blonde, twentysomething woman demands, shoving yet another microphone at me. “Or murder?”
“Yes, Ms. Love,” yet another man says. “Was it murder?”
I hold up my hands. “I’m not involved and I have no comment,” I say, charging forward and forcing the crowd of at least ten, now, to part while they continue to shout my name.
I clear the pile of people and head toward the station when a black Mercedes pulls up beside me, the window down to reveal Kane. “Get in. I have the chopper fired up and waiting.”
“How are you here?” I demand.
“How are they here?” he asks, motioning behind me at the same moment that I hear, “Ms. Love,” from at least three different people and microphones are shoved at me again, my departure by train this morning pretty much dust in the wind at this point. I start double-stepping, trying to break away from the crowd but without much luck. Kane pulls his car to a halt a few feet in front of me, offering me an escape and assurance that I will get to Manhattan. He’s dangerous. He’s temptation. He’s trouble. He also knows things about my family and my past, and perhaps these murders, that I need to know.
“Ms. Love,” comes a shout from I-don’t-know-how-many people, and that’s it—I make my decision. I start running, darting forward and past the cameras, while somehow managing to loop around the front of Kane’s car, and I don’t stop until I’m inside the car and in the passenger seat.
“Buckle up, Agent Love,” he says, putting us in Drive, a satisfied look on his face.
“Have I told you your stalker tendencies are creepy?” I ask, slipping the belt into place.
He laughs, that low, deep laugh of his that I used to love and now I hate, mostly because I could easily love it again. “And here I thought I was the hero saving the day,” he says.
Flashes of that night flicker in my mind. Me naked. Me covered in blood. Him entering the house from the patio, his jacket and tie missing, blood soaking his shirt. “There are many things I’d call you, Kane,” I say. “But hero isn’t one of them.”
“And what exactly would you call me, Lilah?” he asks, pulling us out onto the main road.
“Usually the devil.”
“Well you know what they say. The devil you know is better than the one you don’t. And you do know me, Lilah. Like no one else.”
He’s right. I do. I just spent a lot of our relationship pretending I didn’t. “How is it that I’m going to Manhattan on the same day you’re going to Manhattan?”
“The first Friday of every month I hold an executive meeting in the city,” he says. “And as for how I knew you’d be going? Your next logical and necessary move was a trip to the city and the NYPD. As was taking the early-morning train.”
“I could have taken a chopper.”
“I checked. You had no reservations.”
“I could have driven.”
“You hate to drive and how would you work if you were driving?”
“And you’re going to let me work in the chopper?”
He glances over at me. “I’ll be a perfect angel.”
It’s something he used to say when he intended to be no such thing. “Kane—”
“The devil you know, Lilah.” He glances in the rearview mirror. “And we have reporters following us.”
I turn to spy the van and look at him. “I can’t be filmed flying off to Manhattan with you, Kane. It’s bad enough I got into your car.”
“At this point, that’s irrelevant. Woods is Chief Love’s man.”
“For now,” I say. “That’s subject to change at any point.”
“Regardless,” he says. “You have proof of my alibi.”
“That alibi doesn’t exclude you from hiring a hit man.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Lilah. Now I’m stupid enough to hire a hit man to kill someone in my own town?”
“That’s not the point. The point is me remaining objective, and I don’t even do you any good in this if I’m not seen that way.”
“Tell them you’re milking me for information,” he says, tapping a contact on his phone, “which we both know is your intention.” He places the phone to his ear. “I have reporters following me. Take care of them.” He ends the call.
“Take care of them? Who is taking care of them and what does that even mean?”
“They’ll run them off the road and hope that no one dies,” he says, turning us into the airport.
“Kane—”
“Look behind us, Lilah.”
I rotate to find several security vehicles now blocking the entrance. “They’ll keep coming,” he says, as I settle back down in my seat. “Especially now that they have a piece of you on the morning news.”
“Damn it,” I say, grabbing my purse and digging out my phone. “I didn’t even think about warning Andrew about this.” I punch in his number and, of course, get voice mail again. “Now look who doesn’t answer his fucking phone,” I say to his voice mail as Kane pulls us into a parking spot. “Reporters cornered me this morning,” I add. “I thought you’d want to watch me on the news.” I end the call.
“You still have a way with words, Lilah,” Kane says, killing the engine.
“Believe it or not,” I say, glancing over at him, “I’ve learned to tamp down on that since I left.” He arches a brow. “For small windows of time,” I concede.
He laughs that damn laugh again and glances over at me. “Very small, I bet,” he says, opening his door and exiting the car. Not about to allow him to play gentleman, I quickly gather my things and do the same. And sure enough, by the time I’m outside, he’s towering over me, all six foot three inches of him in his custom suit, this one blue. Way too close, the sense of him being near way too familiar. I don’t like how it feels, but if I turn away, he’ll know he made me blink.
“We both know you don’t really believe I’d run those reporters off the road,” he says.
“I was in the moment.”
“The same moment you’ve been in for two years.”
“I’m done pretending you aren’t what you are, Kane. We’re enemies by trade.”
“I run a corporation, not a cartel, Lilah.”
“If you don’t run your father’s business, who does?”
“My uncle, Miguel.”
“Insulation,” I say.
“Distance,” he counters.
“Semantics,” I reply.
The air crackles between us, seconds ticking by. “Let’s walk,” he says.
“Yes. Let’s walk.”
We turn at the same time and start moving toward the building, that charge still between us, and yes, it’s sexual in part—it always is between us—but there is anger there, too, his and mine. It’s too raw, too intense. Too us. It’s driving me freaking insane. He is driving me insane, which is why I met him at the Cove where the energy is the place, not what is between us. It churns between us, both of us all about control, and I know he hates that he has absolutely none with me anymore. I can almost feel his determination to change that, and I am sure he can feel mine to ensure he continues to fail.
We reach the entrance and he opens the door for me. I don’t look at him. I walk through and he is almost instantly by my side again, a man in a black suit motioning us forward. Our path leads straight to the tarmac where Kane’s familiar private luxury chopper waits, complete with Mendez Enterprises’ logo on the side. At the steps, he motions me forward, and I climb the short staircase, greeted at the top with the same four leather seats, two on each side, that were here all those times I used to make this weekend trip with him in the past. We’d been inseparable, even sharing his Manhattan apartment during the week. And while I’d like some of the distance from that past right now, I choose the window seat on the right, as I always did, because really, fighting the norm that once was is wasted energy at this point.
I remove my coat, drape it over my seat, and settle into the cushion, grabbing my cell phone from my purse and then placing it and my briefcase beneath my seat. I’m just buckling up when the phone rings, and I glance at the number to find Andrew on caller ID. “Now that the press is involved, you call back?” I demand, watching the door for Kane, who has yet to arrive.
“I was asleep when you called last night. What happened with the press?”
“I was pretty clear on voice mail. They cornered me and I told them I did you a favor, since I was in town.” I change the subject before Kane is here and I can’t talk. “That wasn’t a confession. And why did he call Alexandra? Does she know him?”
“I have no indication that she does.”
“That message directed to her does not fit, unless she does.”
“I’ll find out.”
“I need her to call me. I left her a message. Was there DNA in the victim’s house to match Woods?”
“No.”
“If he was dating her there would be DNA. Do you have any proof the victim even knew Woods?”
“We’re questioning neighbors. Looking for eyewitnesses.”
“That’s a no on DNA or evidence against that man.”
“The call—”
“Nothing he said on that transcript made sense to me.”
“Lilah. The man is crazy. He’s talking crazy.”
“Are you a profiler now and I don’t know it? I came here for a reason and actually, why haven’t you asked me for more details about my cases?”
“I’ve been a little busy trying to actually catch the killer.”
“He doesn’t fit the profile.”
“Then let’s nab the copycat killer and you can have a clear view of the rest of the case.”
“Copycat?” I demand, as Kane steps into the helicopter, his eyes meeting mine, a brow arching to indicate he not only heard me, his reaction is about the same. “Again with this?” I demand of my brother. “I could claim jurisdiction right now. Even with Woods as a suspect.”
“We both know you don’t want to make a public announcement about a serial killer unless you have to,” he says while Kane claims the seat next to me and buckles up. “I do not want my community scared,” he adds.
“And if there’s another murder? How scared will they be then?”
“Look,” he says. “Lilah. Sis. Give me seventy-two hours to try to find Woods. If we can’t do it, I will humbly ask for FBI assistance.”
I inhale and let it out. “Fine. Yes.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Wait—”
He hangs up and I start tapping my fingers on my leg. Kane grabs my hand to still it. “Her fury does reveal itself. Deep breaths, beautiful. I don’t want you punching me or the wall. He’s responding to the pressure of the spotlight.”
The door slams shut, alerting me that I have about three minutes before we can’t speak without a headset and the pilot overhearing. I yank my hand from his and face him. “How dirty is my family?”
“Your father is Pocher’s puppet.”
“What does that mean?”
“Lilah—”
“I need answers, Kane. Do you know if my family is just reacting to political pressure to avoid bad press or are they in this deeper? Are they dirty?”
“You know I don’t know that answer yet.”
“I know? How do I know when we both know there’s plenty you’ve kept from me?”
“What exactly have I kept from you?”
“Tell me about the tattoo.”
The engine roars to life and I reach for my headset, determined to talk in code if necessary but finish this conversation, but I never get the chance. Kane’s hand is suddenly on the back of my head, his cheek is pressed to mine, his lips to my ear. “My turn to ask questions. My turn to need to know. Tell me about the note on your car.”