Bloody Vows (Lilah Love 5)

He turns the computer around and shows us an image of a person in a large jacket and a baseball hat pulled low. “That’s doesn’t help,” Andrew says, “but what the hell, Lucas? What are you doing, man? Besides trying to get yourself in trouble?”

“Working for the FBI,” I say, focusing on Lucas. “What about further down the street?” I ask. “Can we get a better image?”

“The person goes down into the subway,” he replies, “and there’s no way to know where they come back up to the street level.”

“In other words,” I say. “Jamie made damn sure he wasn’t going to be found.”

“He bought six phones that day,” Lucas says, turning his computer around to face him again. He scrolls through some kind of data and writes down the six numbers. He then starts keying them into his computer. A minute later he says, “Bingo. Two of the numbers are registered on the game. If I can get to them while they’re on the game live, I can track their IP address.” He eyes Kane and gives him a little chin lift, like, “See, I’m a badass.”

Kane actually laughs and Andrew and Lucas both look at him like he’s an alien. Because they don’t know the Kane I know. “Who are you?” Andrew asks him.

“I thought you already knew all there was to know about me,” Kane challenged. “So you tell me.”

Andrew’s cellphone rings and he scowls at the interruption, apparently eager to continue that challenge with Kane. Thankfully, for his own good, he glances at his caller ID and takes the call. “Talk to me. Did we get her?”

I wait for that answer, disappointed at my brother’s scowl that tells me all I need to know before he tells his caller, “I’ll be at the station in twenty.” He disconnects. “We found the car fake Naomi was driving. No fake Naomi. The car was stolen from a Westbury, Long Island, address a good hour and a half away over a month ago.”

“What about cameras on the highway?” Lucas asks.

“Not on that stretch of highway.” He glances between me and Kane and adds, “Bottom line, unless we get some kind of DNA or prints from the car or your place, that we can actually match up to the database, she got away.”

My mind flashes to the moment when fake Naomi brought us that plate of shrimp. She was wearing gloves. “Fake Naomi was wearing gloves every moment I saw her in the house,” I say. “I’m guessing she wore them in the car as well. And even if you found DNA evidence, as you said she has to match up to the database. I’m betting she won’t. This was well planned and she was calculated in all she did. We might as well all be wearing clown noses. She made fools of us. And yes, she got away.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

By the time Andrew leaves, I have eaten cake and pie, and we’ve all agreed that Chef Roswell feels more like a token in the game, not a real player, but we’re not ruling him out. I order some cake to go, and once Kane has paid for our meal, we prepare to leave.

“Don’t you need me to look some more stuff up for you?” Lucas asks, looking baffled.

“Find me those IP addresses,” I say. “That’s what matters.”

“I can set-up a program and capture those numbers when they sign on,” he says. “I can do more.”

“Find out what nefarious acts are performed under the cover of the ‘Billionaires Are Bullshit’ site.”

“Banking the Billionaire,” he corrects as if I’ve forgotten the name.

“Banking your bullshit,” I say. “Maybe you can’t do it.”

“Not this again,” Lucas snaps. “I’ll find what you need, but I want an official FBI role. I want to know I’m covered.”

“I’ll make it happen,” I say when of course, I’m the one banking on bullshit. Murphy isn’t big on bullshit, but he wants me on his team, too. Almost too much, I think. But then, the man was in love with my mother. For now, that’s the only nefarious thing I’ve found on Murphy, though Kane has hinted at more. It’s time I push him for answers I should have pushed for long ago. He hasn’t been willing to talk, but that no more secrets part of our storyline is clear and present.

It’s time to talk.

***

Fifteen minutes later, with that and more on my mind, Kane and I are on the road when I motion to a certain street and Kane knows exactly what I want. This is the path to my old house, the one I inherited from my mother that burned down several weeks back.

On the short drive, memories punch at me, so many memories, good and bad, and Kane is a part of most of them. No. Some of them. He pulls to a halt in what was my driveway and kills the engine. It’s a bright night, the moon high, the snowstorm long past.