“I can’t even believe we’re having a conversation about an election ranking higher than public safety, but since we are, let me put this in terms you might actually understand. This is a bad gamble you’re taking. If someone else ends up dead, you look like you’re incompetent, and the only way Dad saves himself is to fire you. So what am I doing? I’m saving you from yourself and him.” I duck into the car, and Andrew stands at my door for several beats before shutting it. And damn it, I love that asshole, and right now, I really want to open it again and knock some sense into him before he ends up in trouble.
Unless it’s changed, there’s only one doughnut shop in East Hampton that I know of, and it’s usually packed, which means people will see me, talk to me, and generally be nice, even if it’s fake nice. I don’t like fake. Not boobs, lashes, or even smiles. I don’t even like nice. I just want a damn doughnut or three or four. Fortunately, with a quick google search, I discover that the shop still operates a truck, and I drive to a parking lot off the beach to peacefully have my sugar minus the conversation. I fail. The person inside the truck, while not familiar to me, is a talker. There are so many words between me and my doughnuts and coffee that by the time I have a bag with three plain and three cinnamon, I need more of the drugs Kane gave me.
I’ve also noticed a blue sedan sitting at the curb across the street between two houses that wasn’t there when I arrived. Keeping a discreet eye on it, hoping I might have a lead on Junior, I climb into my rental. Once I’m sealed inside, I inhale a plain doughnut and down half my lukewarm coffee before it has time to become cold. Meanwhile, the blue sedan hasn’t moved, but finally a thin, bald man in a dark suit, who may or may not be Mexican, exits. He walks to the doughnut stand, which seems innocent enough, but I am pretty sure that’s the idea. The dude knows I made him.
I glance at his bunched-up shoulders before eyeing my car display, which tells me that it’s ten thirty. Close enough to lunchtime to stop eating doughnuts, but I have no willpower. Solving that problem, I toss the bag into the back seat and start the car so that I won’t twist around and grab them. I have time before my meet-up with Rich, and my mind goes to Kane’s question about Alexandra and her involvement in my attack. Suddenly, I want to look her in the eyes and see how she reacts. I confirm the man at the doughnut stand is just as trapped by the chatterbox in the truck as I had been and pull up the number for the district attorney’s office in South Hampton. It’s an hour away, and I’m not driving there this afternoon if Alexandra isn’t in.
I hit the Call button and speakerphone. I don’t do Bluetooth. It can be hacked, and like sunglasses, I never can find the earpiece when I need it anyway. I have three rings to confirm that the doughnut man and the sedan man are still talking. “Is Alexandra Harris in today?” I ask when a woman answers.
“Do you mean Alexandra Rivera?”
“Yes,” I say of her married name. “Her.”
“Who’s calling?” she asks.
“Agent Lilah Love,” I say. “FBI.”
“Agent Love, she’s working at the East Hampton District Court at the town attorney’s offices. Do you need that number?”
“I’ve got it,” I say and then hang up, cranking my engine and placing the car in Drive.
I pull to the exit of the parking lot and pause, glancing back to find the bald dude in the suit fast-walking toward his car. And since Junior wouldn’t be this obvious or stupid, I’m led one other place.
I dial Kane on speakerphone and then pull onto the highway, headed toward the courthouse. He answers on the first ring. “Already miss me?”
“Is the person you have following me in a blue sedan? Because if so, you need to hire better people. He sucks.”
“I don’t hire people who suck. He’s not mine.”
“I saw your man in New York, Kane. You need better people. Are you sure he’s not yours?”
“He’s not mine, Lilah.”
“Huh. Okay. That’s all I wanted.”
I hang up and glance in my mirror. The sedan has yet to pull behind me, but then neither has anyone else, and yet it seems that I have eyes on me from all directions. I actually crave one of Junior’s notes right now. At least that tells me where Junior’s head is at, but I’m sure another one is coming. A lot is coming my way. I can almost feel the ball about to drop, and my mind settles on my mother, who loved her work but became scared of the rabid attention. I remember her saying: It’s unnerving. Every move I make, someone is watching, and you never know who might be crazy.
But I don’t get unnerved like my mother. I have a gun with bullets inside, and I know how to use it. And it doesn’t hurt that I’m far more comfortable with dead bodies than a huge portion of the living. That thought thrusts me back to the past and to the dark beachfront on the night of my attack. The scene plays out in my head, almost as if I’m watching from above: My attacker is on top of me, and I can’t seem to fight back. Kane pulls him off me, and the images shift. I watch myself grab the knife my attacker dropped in the sand, and then I’m shoving it in his chest. Over and over and over again. And I’d felt no guilt for the actual murder.
I still feel no guilt for killing that man. Even Kane, who seems to look straight to my soul and understand me, thinks that I do. Which lends credence to the suggestion that I’m good at my job for a reason: it takes a killer to outsmart a killer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I arrive at the tiny East Hampton courthouse, and the parking lot is a clusterfuck of cars, Super Walmart–style. All I need is a shopping cart to ram into my rental, and the comparison would be real. But lucky me, for the second time today, third if you count my doughnuts, I manage to snag another front-door spot. In fact, despite waking up drugged and a mess, I’m so lucky today that I’m contemplating a trip to Vegas. Then again, two parking spots and doughnuts don’t really constitute a change to my lifelong streak of bad luck, which is exactly why I’m here, prepared to drill Alexandra. I never count on luck leading me to answers. Doughnuts are another story. They lead me to tolerance, which I will need with Alexandra, and that’s why I grab the bag from the back seat before I head for the front door.
Once I’m inside the courthouse, I give a quick scan of the dreary lobby, and I’m reminded that for a town dripping with money, none of it is in this building. The floor is basic white tile. The walls scuffed and white. The reception desk a simple light wood. The young chick with glasses behind the desk is so awkward with my entry that she’s clearly a newbie and still in duty diapers. “May I help you?” she asks.
“No,” I say, and because she might slow me down if I don’t, I lift my jacket and flash my badge at my hip. “I know my way around.” I start walking, and why wouldn’t I? There isn’t a cop around, which really isn’t smart. It invites trouble from someone openly crazy, or even closet crazy like myself. Sadly, this fail falls under my father’s and brother’s responsibilities, but as I’m already turning down a hallway behind the reception area, I’m momentarily pleased with their current state of stupid.
Unavoidably, I travel a long path, passing random offices that I ignore in hopes that I won’t hear my name. Luck still likes me. I make it all the way to the door marked TOWN ATTORNEY with no one shouting my name at me, or any other name for that matter.
I step inside a workspace that appears to be a bullpen of sorts, the center without a receptionist, a half dozen doors forming a horseshoe. To my surprise, Alexandra’s name is on the door to my immediate right, which tells me this is now her permanent residence—an odd setup for an assistant DA for Suffolk County. But so are a great many things, including the local victim’s autopsy, which was done here rather than in the main location as would be standard procedure. It seems this town is interacting with other state officials in a great many ways that don’t fit the established processes.
Embracing what appears to be a bit more luck on my side, I find Alexandra’s door open and assume it to be an invitation I accept. I enter her office to find her sitting at a glass de
sk that is out of place in this shit-hole tiny office. A far cry from the corner office in Manhattan she’d always vied for.
On a gasp, she looks up from whatever papers she’s examining, her heart-shaped face pulled tight beneath some sort of updo, her brows high, and despite this unappealing combination, she’s still pretty—her brown eyes doelike, her skin ivory. Too damn pretty for the likes of Eddie, that’s for sure, but then I’ve long ago learned that some of the pretty ones are the most fucked in the head.
“Lilah,” she whispers, leaning forward, as if my name is a secret, my presence somehow scandalous.
“That’s still my name,” I say, claiming the seat in front of her and lifting the bag. “Doughnut?”
“What are you doing here?”
I grab a glazed delight and hold it up. “Eating doughnuts.” I set the bag down. “You should take one now before I eat them all, and I have a lunch thing that might make that a problem.” I take a bite. “God, these things are good.” I reach behind me and shove the door shut. “Eat one,” I urge.
“I have a meeting in a few minutes.”
“I have murders to solve, and you had contact with the suspect. Is it more important than that?”
“What murders? The decapitations last night? That’s not our jurisdiction, and I had no contact with anyone.” She narrows her eyes on me. “I told Eddie and your brother that Kane Mendez was too smart to kill those people and lead law enforcement to his doorstep.”
“I’m sure Kane appreciates your playing his guardian angel, but I’m talking about the cases everyone wants to pin on Woods.” I finish off my doughnut and point to the unopened bottle of water on her desk. “Do you mind?”
“Woods confessed and then killed himself,” she says.
“And your point?” I ask, and since she hasn’t denied me the water, I claim it and open it.
“He confessed,” she repeats, politely waiting until I guzzle her water and set the bottle down.
“How long have you and Eddie been married?” I ask, kicking my feet up on the desk, crossing them at the ankles.
“Two years.”
“That means you jumped from Jensen Michaels’s bed right into Eddie’s. Talk about night and day. How was that for you?”
“Eddie’s a good-looking man, Lilah.”
“I don’t remember commenting on his looks, but whatever the case, he’s an asshole. When did he become your thing? Right after I left, or what?”
“Before.”
“Really. As in before Jensen or after?”
“Before, but we weren’t exclusive.”
“But you didn’t tell me,” I point out.
“I wasn’t going to upset you if nothing came of it.”
I settle my feet on the floor and look her in the eyes. “Why did Woods call you to issue his first confession?”
“I told you why at dinner.”
“Dinner at my father’s house,” I say. “That’s right. I was distracted by the fact that you were actually at my father’s house and married to Eddie. Tell me again.”
“Am I being interrogated?”
“My boss is a pain in the ass. I have to write a report, Alexandra, and if there is one hole, we all have a problem. I’ll have to claim jurisdiction, and your husband and my brother and father will lose their shit.”
Her lips tighten. “Yes. They would. But Woods coming to me really isn’t all that odd. The district attorney assigned me to East Hampton right after you left. But I also do some random guest spots on one of the mainstream news stations out of New York City.”
It hits me now that she hasn’t given up her corner Manhattan office. She’s planning to go as part of my father’s entourage. Better her than me, as long as that path doesn’t include walking over Woods’s grave and framing him for murders he didn’t commit. “Has anyone but Woods ever randomly confessed to you?”
“No. He’s the first.”
“Do a lot of people come to you over my brother and his staff to confess?”
“No, but the TV segments have gotten more popular.”
My gaze catches on a blue folder she has lying on her desk, my eyes narrowing on the label that reads “Pocher,” before my eyes return to hers. “Why?” I demand. “Are you prosecuting a man funding my father’s campaign?”
“Of course not. I’m helping with your father’s campaign, and he’s a major contributor.”
Of course she is and he is. “Do you still talk to Jensen?”
She blanches. “What? No. I’m married.” But she cuts her eyes to her hand, and that’s her tell sign. That’s what she does when she’s lying. “And you’re all over the board,” she says when she looks at me again. “You’re bouncing between unrelated topics and giving me whiplash.”
“Really? Are they unrelated?”
“Of course they are. One has nothing to do with the other.”
“But they do. Two things actually: me and you.” And with that, I take my bag of doughnuts and her water, and I get up and leave.
Three minutes later, I’m inside my rental car, staring at the courthouse without really seeing it. She was nervous. Maybe she assumed I would disapprove of her role in my father’s campaign, when it’s not her I disapprove of. It’s Pocher. I’m not sure that was it anyway. She didn’t cut her gaze talking to me about Pocher. She cut her gaze talking to me about Jensen Michaels, who was with her the night I was attacked.
CHAPTER NINE
Realizing that your ex–best friend might have aided in an effort to kill you is like standing in the deep blue sea with colorful coral glistening beneath the clear waters: everything is beautiful until a shark shows itself and decides to take a bite. At which point you either fight, gouge its eyes out, and survive, or it’s all blood and death—for you, not it. I might be comfortable with dead bodies, but not enough to join them six feet under.
Thus, by the time I pull into the packed parking lot of the diner, I’ve changed my perspective on where I stand in this investigation, which results in three conclusions. One: Murphy is an asshole, but he wasn’t wrong. I need an investigator who I trust on my side, and Rich is the only shot I have of that happening. In other words, I have to shake some sense into him over Kane. Two: if he remains stupid over Kane, I’m getting him out of town, even if that means I grow some balls and do what I’ve resisted with him. I have to stop simply being resistant to his advances and start being a brutal-rejection bitch. It’s for his own good. To keep him from ending up six feet under.
And three: good thing I didn’t book that trip to Vegas, because my lucky streak has ended. There is no front-door spot for me at the diner. After fifteen minutes of trying, I accept this as fact and pull around to the side parking lot. “Damn it,” I curse, squeezing into a spot between a truck and another car, which offers shelter for Junior to leave me another literary masterpiece of love/hate in the form of a note. And hey, I’m down with the love/hate thing we have going on. The sooner we get to full-blown hate, the sooner we have a confrontation and end this matchup. Bring it, and all that grand shit. Except for now, when Rich will want to walk me to my car.
Though, I think, killing my engine, it will be interesting to see if Junior wants to remain secret, as in for my eyes only, or if he flaunts the notes in front of Rich. I open my door at the same moment my phone rings. Grabbing it from inside my jacket pocket, I glance down to find Rich’s number. “Are you here?” he asks the instant I connect.
“Parking lot. You?”
“I’m here, but there are no seats.”
“How long is the wait?” I ask.
“I’m trying to find out.”
With my strawberry pie in jeopardy and a to-go order in mind, I say, “I’ll be right there,” and end the call. Shutting my door, I lock up before weaving my way through the parked vehicles, but I never round the corner to the front of the building. Rich steps in front of me in a long-sleeve light-blue T-shirt and jeans; with his blond hair lying in waves, he looks every bit the hot surfer dude who
makes women swoon. Just not me. Not that I swoon at all. Ever. For anyone. “An hour wait,” he says. “And I doubt you want to hang out here that long.”
“They do have good pie.”
“You want to wait an hour for pie?”
“No?” I ask.
His brow furrows. “Yes?”
I wonder in that moment if our communication has always been this stilted and I chose to ignore it, before I offer him a firm “No,” though I’m going to have to come back later for that pie.
“Where else can we go and talk?” he asks.
“Right here and now works just fine,” I reply. “Are you here to help me with this case or stalk Kane?”
His eyes glint with anger. “Kane is part of this case. He’s probably behind every damn last one of these murders. And the sick fuck was probably just trying to get you here. How does that feel? To know people died to get you here?”
Considering my earlier conversation with Kane, Rich has hit about ten nerves. “What kind of prick lays that kind of guilt on someone? Oh right. The kind thinking with the head in his pants, not the one on his shoulders.”
“I don’t know how else to make you see him for what he is.”
“This isn’t going to work.” I turn and start walking away.
“I’m here because you can’t see him clearly,” he says from behind me. “That’s why Murphy sent me.”
I whirl around to find him on my heels. “Is that what Murphy told you?”
“It’s pretty obvious.”
“So that’s not what Murphy told you,” I say.
“No, but—”
“What did he say?”
“That you needed backup you can trust.”
“I do, and do you know why?”
“He said you’d update me.”
“And you actually thought my update would include my plea that you save me from Kane Mendez?” I don’t give him time to reply. “You’re here,” I say, lowering my voice, “because Woods didn’t kill those people. A professional assassin did. He’s just the fall guy.”