Designed for Murder (Killer Style 4)

“Yes, who hates you enough to fuck with you this hard?”

Unease prickled her skin. “Keenan Galligan’s parents, but it’s not them.” Just saying his name out loud turned her stomach.

It took every ounce of concentration to push the bolt of purple broadcloth back into place in the back of the cabinet and shut the tall door. She wiped her clammy palms across her jeans and turned to walk away, but she couldn’t quite take those first few steps—they were always the hardest.

“Who are they and why not?” Carlos’s voice was as soft as his questions were hard.

Oh, they were easy to answer, but they brought with them the difficult truth that if she’d only listened to her gut about Keenan then, Hana would be alive today.

“Their son killed my little sister, and my testimony landed him on death row.”

Her words floated in the air like an ugly black cloud, heavy and oppressive. She tried to avoid this conversation at all costs, because when forced to tell it, this was the part when the hugging or the words of condolence came out. People were well meaning, but their sympathy only deepened her shame.

“You want to tell me the story?”

Her gut cramped. “No.”

“That’s fine, but you need to explain why it couldn’t be them.”

“After the trial, they moved to Europe—Switzerland, I think.”

This time it was Mika who needed the movement, the physical activity, to maintain her equilibrium. She reached up and twisted the unfettered hair at the end of her braid around her finger. The silky texture smoothed away the rough edges of her emotions.

Carlos reached out, but she avoided his touch, swerving around him and getting a glass from the cabinet. Her hand shook only the slightest bit as she filled it with water.

He didn’t follow her, seeming to understand her need not to be touched at the moment. “Is the son still on death row?”

“He is.” She downed the full glass of water like a college kid chugging a red Solo cup of beer.

“And they don’t visit him there?”

She flipped the glass upside down and placed it in the sink. The memories of the police investigation, the trial, and the sentencing hearing whipped around her, threatening to knock her down. “Turns out they’re not that kind of family.”

“What kind is that?” he asked.

“A family.” The loss of her own tore at her, ripping through the protective fabric of her made-up LARPing family. After Hana had died, her parents had divorced. Her dad had moved to Japan, supposedly for business, but she knew the real reason. It was because he couldn’t stand to see her and not think of Hana. Her mom lived in Harbor City, but she rarely left her Upper East Side apartment.

All of it could have been avoided, if only…

She shook the never-ending argument out of her head. Regret and guilt, like scar tissue, thickened with age but never went away. “Look, I’m exhausted, and unless you put dibs on the couch, I’m claiming it.”

It was large enough to stretch out on and comfy enough to make her forget the world, but she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. New battles and old troubles would see to that.

“Nah.” Carlos shrugged in that easy way of his. “My duffel has a sleeping bag in it.”

“Aren’t you a Boy Scout.”

“Computer club,” he deadpanned.

She chuckled, the joke lifting some of the misery from her shoulders. “Close enough.”

“Do you mind if I use your computer?”

She nodded and glanced over at the desktop outfitted with the latest textile design software and more bells and whistles than she’d ever use. “Knock yourself out.”

Carlos settled in behind the computer. It was a decent setup—not what he was used to back at Maltese, but he’d make do. The to-do list unfolded in his mind. He needed to track down this Keenan kid’s parents, do a little background snooping on Mika to see what she was leaving out, and hack his way into the police server to track the lab results for the LARP costume.

The bathroom door opened and Mika emerged in an oversize Harbor City University T-shirt they’d gotten at the drug store along with a toothbrush. The T-shirt stopped mid-thigh, and the extra material gave just enough of a tease about what lay underneath to make Carlos pop the knuckles on his right hand.