“Who do they work for?” I press.
“We can’t even prove they exist.”
“The man who attacked me had that tattoo. He tried to kill me. He had to be one of them.”
“A dead man with a tattoo doesn’t exactly scream well-trained assassin.”
“You want to kill an assassin, you hire a better killer,” I say. “Obviously I was the better killer in his case.” I move on past that bad topic. “Romano. He said the words She bleeds because you bleed. It’s a quote from a movie that has a hell of a lot of ties to me.”
“In what way?”
“It stars Jensen Michaels, who went home with Alexandra the night I was attacked. He’s why she left me alone at the bar. But it gets even weirder. The film also has a connection to the case I was working when I was attacked.”
“Laney Suthers. The high-end call girl.”
“How do you remember that?”
“I told you. I’ve been looking for answers. I considered a connection to the case you were working the night of the attack but couldn’t find one.”
“And without the clue Romano gave me, you wouldn’t. That film with Jensen Michaels had the same Chinese financial backers as several B-list films Laney had starred in.”
“Who was the investor?”
“Ying Entertainment. Do you know them?”
“I know everyone who has financial interests in my territories, and they do. I’ll look into them further as well as the various connections to you they represent. Alexandra was with you that night. What’s your read on her?”
“Do I think she’s involved? We were close back then. It’s hard for me to see it, but then again, I didn’t see her with Eddie either.” I set that aside. “I need to talk to Romano myself.”
“I talked to him. He told me what he told you.”
“I have to talk to him again now that I’ve decoded his message.”
“He’ll repeat what he told me, which is that he received an anonymous tip that amounted to nothing more than what he shared.”
“Why would he even share a tip like that with me or you? I’m connected to you, and you two are enemies.”
“And that makes him the person I’d look to if anything happened to you.”
“But he came to me,” I argue.
“I told you. I’d refused his meeting.”
“Right,” I say. “You told me. I’ll get my own answers.” I step away from the window, intending to place space between us. Kane moves with me, standing up and placing himself in front of me, his location and proximity all but caging me between his big body and the window.
“You will not approach him,” he says, his voice hard, the set of his jaw harder.
“I’m a federal agent investigating a series of assassinations, not your little bitch, bedroom bitch, or stupid bitch. I will talk to him.”
“You’re a federal agent who was, and probably is, on an assassination list.”
I grimace. “And your point?”
“Push too hard, in too obvious a way, and you could end up dead.”
“I have more than my own life to think about, anyway.”
“We had an agreement. You stay away from Romano.”
“We did have an agreement,” I agree. “You were supposed to find the assassin named Ghost. But not only is his name a little too literal for me right now, it doesn’t sound like I’m looking for Ghost after all. At least not now. Not unless he has a blood tattoo.”
“Who says he doesn’t?”
“Are you saying he does?” I counter.
“Are you going to pass up the opportunity to talk to one of the most notorious killers in history, Agent Love?”
“That wasn’t an answer,” I bite out.
“You mean it wasn’t the answer you wanted.”
“I’m not negotiating. Ghost is still a suspect in these murders. You still owe him to me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m talking to Romano. I’ll let you set it up if it makes you feel better. And you’re crowding me.”
“Yes. I am. Get Romano killed and not only will his people look to me, there is zero chance of another message being passed to us.”
“I need to talk to him, Kane.”
“Okay. Done. Do you prefer Romano tied up in the garage or the living room?”
“Ha ha. Aren’t you funny? Good to see that you grew a sense of humor since I left. You needed one. But jokes aside, I’ll talk to Romano myself, but if you have tips, I welcome them. A favorite restaurant to meet. A favorite coffee shop. Lay it on me.”
“You’ll never get to him without me.”
“I’m more resourceful than you think,” I say. “Unless he’s dead and you really don’t tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
His expression tightens, seconds ticking by before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a disposable phone and punches a number before placing the call on speaker. “Hola,” a man greets in an aged voice.
“Old man,” Kane says.
“Pinche, Kane Mendez. I have nothing more for you.”
“Still feeling the rope burn, I see,” Kane comments. “It’ll get better soon and we can do it again.”
“What do you want and why the hell am I on speakerphone?”
“Lilah is here. Agent Lilah Love.”
“Agent,” he says. “That’s right. You get off on the forbidden. Obviously Agent Love does as well.”
“Romano,” I say.
“Whatever you want to know, Agent Love,” Romano replies, “I can’t help. I was given an anonymous tip to help me, not you.”
“Why help at all?”
“Have you told her nothing, Kane?” he asks. “Or is she testing your answer?”
“Answer the question,” Kane bites out.
“You die, Agent Love,” the old man says, “and Kane looks to me first. And at that point, he’s enraged, and others are, too.”
“You lost two people last night,” I say. “Did Kane do it?”
“What did he say?” he asks.
“What do you say?” I counter.
“No,” the old man says. “He did not.”
“Then who did?” I press.
“If I knew,” he says, “I wouldn’t tell you.”
Of course he wouldn’t, but I leave it alone, instead focused on a question that I should have asked Kane. “Why would that tip go to you and not Kane if it involved me?”
“Clearly whoever gave me the tip was helping me, not Kane. Other than that, I don’t know what you want me to say. It was an anonymous fucking tip.”
“The tattoos,” I say. “The assassins—”
“A legend,” he says. “A myth. Fiction.”
“And yet you seemed to indicate someone tried to kill me.”
“If the Blood Assassins came for you and wanted you dead, you’d be dead.” He laughs. “Or so the myth would have you believe. Maybe Pokémon is real, too?” He laughs louder and hangs up.
Kane holds down the Power button and then sticks the phone in his pocket again. “Satisfied?”
“No,” I say. “I’m not. He knows more than he’s saying, and you still haven’t given me Ghost.”
“You want a lot of things, Lilah Love,” he says, his voice warm, his eyes hot as he adds, “but so do I.”
“The difference is that I’ll get what I want, and you won’t.” I try to step away, but his hand comes down on the window, his arm caging me.
“Tell me,” he says. “What do I want?”
“Another palm, apparently.”
“How about I give you my palm, but on a different kind of cheek?”
“Maybe I will give you that knee.”
“And yet, I don’t have it.”
“And I don’t have Ghost,” I remind him.
“And if I give him to you? What do I get in return?”
Those questions make it clear that while he claims his recordings were not bribes, he knows they give me pause. They stop me from arrestin
g him.
“What do I get in return, Lilah?” he presses.
“Satisfaction.”
“I need more detail,” he says.
“I won’t fuck you,” I say.
“But you like fucking me.”
“A bad drug still feels good when you’re doing it.”
“And denial always feels bad and grows old.” He pushes off the window, backing away and perching on the edge of the desk again. “I’ll wait.” He doesn’t give me time for a rebuttal or to recover from his sudden withdrawal. Now he’s the one quickly moving on. “Ghost got word to me that he’ll be in touch. That’s the best you do with Ghost, and even if you did shoot me, I couldn’t change that. He watches you before he approaches you.”
“Like you film me and watch me? How did you know I’ve been sleeping with Cujo?”
“It was an easy assumption. You’re in the house where you were attacked, and it was on the desk.”
He knows me too well. And I know him, which reminds me of one of the reasons I’m here. “Rich isn’t leaving. My boss assigned him to my case.”
His eyes harden, darken. “Isn’t that interesting.”
“He’s going to come for you, push you.”
“Will he be fucking you while pushing me?”
“I ended things with Rich before I even knew I was coming here.”
“Will he be fucking you while pushing me?”
“No, Kane. He will not.”
“And yet he thinks he will.”
“He’s a good guy who thinks that if he fights for my honor, he’ll win me over.”
“You mean he wants to ruin me to claim you.”
“Yes,” I say. “That pretty much sums it up.”
“And I’m supposed to turn my cheek.”
“Yes.”
“All right,” he says, a little too quickly. “I’ll turn a cheek. For now, and that’s the best you’re getting, so take it.”
I take what I can get but make damn sure he knows what to expect, so I know what to expect. “He’ll be by my side while I investigate.”
“Exactly why I’ll tolerate him. He’ll have your back as he tries to stab me in mine. But don’t forget that your little investigation is about us and that night. No more secrets, Lilah, Agent Love. I know what you know. You know what I know. And don’t tell me it’s confidential on your end. These murders lead to you, a knife, a grave, and me. We need to end this before it ends us, and we need to do it together.”
“You get what you give,” I say. “Don’t forget that, and leave out your myths and theories, or you won’t like what I give back.” And with that promise, I round the desk and start walking toward the door. I reach for the handle and then pause with a realization and turn to face Kane, finding him still on his feet and behind his desk but facing me now. “I know why the Son of Sam popped into my head.”
“Tell me,” he urges, his hands settling on the wooden surface of his desk, his body leaning in my direction.
“He was convicted in the seventies, and at that time, he claimed he killed alone. In the nineties, he amended his confession and said he was in a satanic cult. The tattoos and assassinations, my rape. The movie and the case I was working at the time. Maybe the Blood Assassins aren’t assassins at all but cult members.”
“Nothing about these murders read like satanic killings,” Kane says. “They read like Ghost.”
“Maybe,” I say, offering nothing more. I exit his office, my mind focused on this cult idea, and I walk past Tabitha without so much as a glance. Kane’s right in his assessment, but everything inside me says that he’s wrong. My mind forms a theory. The Blood Assassins are a cult, and Laney, the call-girl case I was working during my attack, had to have been involved or a member. Which means my attack could have been a result of me getting too close to the cult or to someone involved in the cult.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I exit Kane’s office building to find my brother leaning on the hood of my rental car, his long, jean-clad legs stretched in front of him, his wavy, thick blond hair lifting in a salt-kissed gust of wind. That ugly-ass tan uniform shirt he’s always wearing, with a shiny police chief badge on the pocket, reminds me that brotherly love isn’t the reason Andrew’s here today. “Imagine seeing you here,” he says as I stop in front of him.
“If you dent my hood, you’re paying for it.”
“Because you pissed away all your money in Tinseltown?”
“Because unless you have doughnuts in your car, like a good cop, I’m hungry, and your ass is in the way.”
“Should I assume your visit with Kane was personal? Or professional?” he asks, obviously already past the sibling love.
“You have met Rich, right? The guy I dated after Kane.”
“The one you dumped right about the time you came back here? Yes. I met him. He doesn’t like Kane any more than I do.”
“Rich and I broke up right about the time he insisted we move in together instead of just fuck and fuck and fuck.” Andrew reddens and I smirk, loving the way I’ve made him uncomfortable, and not just because he was just an ass. Because it’s my job as a sister.
“I could do without details, little sis.”
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure you just demanded them when you inferred Kane and I were still a thing. And moving to business, Kane didn’t behead Romano’s people.”
“Because you got naked with him, looked into his eyes, and saw the truth and honor?”
“Because I threatened to take Kane in for questioning last night,” I say, not taking any chances he already knows I was at his place. “And in turn, he arranged a conversation between myself and the patriarch of the Romano family. Which I just had.”
He blinks. “You talked to Angelo Romano?”
“No. I talked to Old Man Romano, who is, in fact, the patriarch of the family.”
“The old man is not the patriarch.”
“Kane and the old man disagree, but whatever. Talk to the cover guy yourself if you want. He’s not going to turn on Kane. The real patriarch won’t let him. Now get off my car. I need to get stuff done.”
“If Kane didn’t kill Romano’s people, who did?”
“The old man said he wouldn’t tell me if he knew.”
“And what did Kane say?”
“That he’s being targeted. The old man seems to agree with that as well. Actually, he didn’t say that, but that was the vibe I got.”
“Why would the old man protect Kane? The two families are enemies.”
“Kane helped negotiate peace between the two families.”
“Of course he did,” he says dryly.
“You know, brother of mine, I get that Kane has slept with both your sister and your woman, and that you don’t like him. I do. But you’ve known him a long-ass time. When has he ever been blatantly stupid?”
“If Kane didn’t kill Romano’s people, then another member of the Mendez cartel has to be responsible, and that means Kane, in my book.”
“Since when is Kane a member of the cartel at all?” I ask, and for once it’s not to be a smart-ass. “When I questioned Kane, he insisted that he’s not that person. His uncle is, and operating far from our town.”
“And the old man isn’t the patriarch either,” he says, “at least that’s what law enforcement believed until you said otherwise. Kane’s uncle lives in Mexico. Kane has to be running the US operation.”
“If that’s true, why have you allowed it to continue in your city?”
“You don’t cross a man like Kane Mendez without proof.” He doesn’t give me the chance to beat that statement to death in about ten different ways, before asking, “Did you ask to speak to Kane’s uncle or to Angelo Romano, the patriarch law enforcement knows?”
“If Romano thought Kane or anyone else in the Mendez cartel killed his people, we’d be dealing with war, like the good ol’ days when Kane’s father was in charge. In other words, it would bleed into the Hamptons and your life would be hell. You do r
emember what that was like, don’t you? Because pushing them toward that again doesn’t seem smart to me.”
“The New York city officials want the crime solved, and they’re looking to me because of Kane.”
“Did they share the fingerprints lifted from the crime scene?”
“Not yet, but I talked to the lead detective. He’s sending me the report. There were a dozen prints, two of which belonged to the victims at the scene.”
“A dozen?” I ask, thinking of the crime scene. “Were they holding orgies in that tiny apartment or just selling drugs from the place?” I don’t wait for a reply. “Email me the list of names when you get them.”
“If this isn’t a Mendez-Romano situation, who does Kane believe is targeting him?”
“Someone who hates him,” I say, “and this is where this gets real big, brother. I didn’t press for a name because I didn’t want him to think of you. And you shouldn’t either, or the town will end up with legal action. Chew on that one while I go find those doughnuts.” I turn away and walk toward my door, and by the time I have it open, he’s on the other side, staring down at me.
“Do you really want to continue this conversation?” I ask.
“Your boss called me,” he announces.
“Then he’s an asshole, too. He’s not supposed to go around me. Did you take the opportunity to tell him I have a conflict of interest?”
“Yes. I did.”
“And he told you that he knew that and that’s exactly why he sent me,” I say. “And thanks for trying to get me fired.”
“I’m trying to get you away from Kane.”
“Oh goody. I didn’t know we were playing this game. I can think of all kinds of ways to get you away from Samantha.”
“Leave Samantha alone.”
“Leave Samantha alone. Live those words, Andrew.” I motion with my hands. “Breathe them in. Record them and play them by your bedside.”
His jaw flexes and sets. “Murphy wants proof that Woods is the killer we’re after, and that proof has to hold up in court. That came from you, didn’t it?”
“He asked me for proof that Woods is not the killer, too. It’s just the way he is. All about dotting those damn i’s.”
“What are you doing, Lilah? If you claim jurisdiction and news of a serial killer hits the press, this town becomes hell, and you hurt Father’s chances of being elected.”