Murder Notes (Lilah Love 1)

I don’t ask how he knows. “That’s right.”

“I’d say welcome, but there’s nothing welcoming about today.” He motions to an open apartment door. “We appreciate the feds loaning you to us today. I’m Detective Smith.” He shakes my hand.

“Happy to help,” I say.

He grimaces. “I doubt you’ll say that after you see the scene.” He motions to the apartment next to us. “Suit up in there. You need to be in hazmat gear.”

This is a first. “Hazmat? Why?”

“You’ll know when you get there.” He turns and walks away.

I grimace and enter the apartment, to be greeted by a guy in jeans and a T-shirt with red hair who looks me up and down. “Who the hell are you?”

“Lilah Love,” I say. “I’m supposed to suit up.”

“Lilah Love,” he repeats. “Who wanted you to grow up and be a stripper?”

“That joke is about as original as a teenage boy thinking a green M&M makes him horny.”

“M&M’s make you horny?”

Great. He doesn’t know that common teen joke. I really hate when no one but me gets my jokes. “No. They make you happy. And fat if you eat too many. Just like how bad jokes make you stupid.”

His extremely thick brows twist into a furry glower. “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” He reaches to a rack just behind him, grabs a hazmat suit, and shoves it at me. “Put it on. Don’t worry. You can leave your clothes on.” He wiggles a brow. “Unless you don’t want to.”

I give him a deadpan stare. “You’re so funny,” I say, my tone intentionally flat.

“And horny, sweetheart,” he says, tossing rubber boots next to me. “Those really get me hot.”

Pretty sure I’m losing brain cells every moment I participate in this conversation, and desperate to save the ones I have left, I give him my back and step into the all-white suit. Once I’m covered up to my shoulders, I zip up and leave the hood and mask dangling. I then pull a pair of rubber boots over the tops of my black Converses, their color masking the dirt from numerous sandy crime scene visits. The choice of brand masks my normal penchant for Louis Vuitton in all forms, including sneakers. Feet covered, I ignore the redheaded asshole and walk outside, immediately heading toward the crowd.

Detective Smith greets me with a command. “Hood and mask on. And good luck.” He steps aside and clears a path that leads me to a tarp walling off an investigative area and another apartment. I start moving again, and there is the clawing sense of dread in my belly that is always there just before I see a body, those moments before death whispers my name. And it does. Every day and every night. Blood rushes in my ears. Adrenaline pours through me. I pause and pull my hood and mask into place. Another few steps, and I barely register the moment I pass through the opening in the tarp, or the moment when I see the plastic sheets on the floor covered in bloody footsteps that warn of what is waiting on me at the actual murder scene. Or even the cop by the door who mouths, “Good luck,” before motioning me forward.

I step into the room, liquid sloshing at my feet. Everything slows down then, and my tunnel vision forms. My feet are plopping into a pool of red, so much red. My gaze swims past my feet to search for the body that isn’t there, catching on another person in a suit that points upward. I look to the ceiling, and my throat goes dry. There is a body anchored there, and it’s not in one piece. The limbs are detached and reconnected in odd places: the legs where the arms should be. The hands where the feet should be. The arms where the legs should be.

My gaze jerks back down to the blood that has started to congeal around my boots, and suddenly the room is spinning and my stomach is knotted. I rush for the door and exit, walking as fast as the tarp allows, and then turning and leaning against the walled area behind it. My knees go weak and I sink low, pulling away the face mask I’m wearing and gasping for air, my lashes lowering.

“You okay?”

I blink and open my eyes to find a man squatting in front of me. “Fine,” I say. “I’m fine. I’m going back in.”

“Everyone who’s gone in has come out just like this,” he promises. “Take a minute to catch your breath.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“I’m Rich,” he says, giving me this Ken-doll smile that reaches his pretty-boy blue eyes. “I’m here if you need me.” He’s coddling me. I do not need to be coddled.

“Yeah, well, fuck you,” I say, pushing to my feet. “I don’t need to breathe, and I don’t need you.” I pull my mask back into place and charge for the door.

Everything goes blank then. Everything is just black space until I am suddenly in another memory. I’m in the Hamptons. I’m at a fancy restaurant with him. He’s staring at me with those damn brown eyes. He reaches up and touches my face, then my leg. I was young and foolish. He was older and not even close to foolish.

I shove aside the memory and I’m immediately on that beach, that hellish night again, and he is there. I am trembling all over, blood at my feet, all over my body. “Go inside,” he orders. “Take a shower.”

“No,” I say. “No, I—”

He grabs my arms. “Go the fuck inside. Do as I say.”

“No, damn it. No!”

“Miss Love. Miss Love!”

I blink and sit up, realizing Texas is leaning across the seat and grabbing my arm, looking quite mortified. “Oh God,” I murmur. “Did I scream out?”

“Yes,” Texas confirms. “Quite loudly.”

“Fuck me,” I gush out and then hold up a hand. “I mean. Sorry about that. Are we about to take off?”

“We’re about to land. You slept through the flight.” She gives me a disapproving look and moves away.

I shift in my seat, and the file falls to the ground, the contents spilling out. Bending over, I reach for it, stuffing the contents back inside, and the tattoo photo catches my eye. I stare down at it and flash back to me lying on that beach, with my attacker on top of me, my gaze on his arm etched with the Virgin Mary, blood dripping from her mouth. I never knew who he was or why he came for me. I’d run instead, but I can’t run now, and I don’t want to, anyway. I have a killer to catch. One that seems to have more than one connection to me and my past.

CHAPTER THREE

Once I’m on the ground in New York, I check my messages, which include details on the chopper service I need to locate to get to the Hamptons. Clearly Director Murphy’s really damn eager to spend the money on this chopper service, and the more I think about that, the more uneasy I am with his willingness to spend $600 to speed up my progress into the Hamptons. What does he know that he hasn’t told me? I dial Murphy’s number as I head to the cab line to make my way to the private airstrip that will be my lift-off location, the call going straight to voice mail. Grimacing, I end the call, climb into the cab, and tab through my messages, deleting not one but three recordings from Rich, and I do so without guilt. He’s a good guy and I absolutely suck at being good to him. He needs to hate me and I need to make sure he does sooner than later. Why the hell doesn’t he already?

An hour later, I’m on a chopper, flying over Long Island, and my mind tracks back to the bloody scene in LA that I’d remembered on the plane. And I know exactly why my mind had taken me there. It wasn’t about escaping my past, or finding Rich that day, or rather him finding me. It was about how that day had led to me finding my zone, a place in my mind that I enter where blood and death are not real. I call it “Otherland,” and when I mentally step into that world, I don’t feel anything. I just process. I just profile. It’s sanity. It’s peace. It’s survival. And on that plane, my mind was telling me to make the Hamptons a part of my Otherland. A comical idea really, considering the Hamptons is an Otherland in and of itself. An alternate universe, where the rich and famous live the high life and shun those who don’t meet preordained standards that are known but not spoken. A universe that once owned me, controlled me. And I can’t let that happen again. I can, and will, survive by making thi

s trip a visit to one of my Otherland crime scenes, not a visit home.

Easier said than done, I decide as we approach the village of Wainscott, flying over the now-shadowy silhouette of the graveyard where my mother is buried, and a million memories—good and bad—erupt inside me. By the time the pilot sets us on the tarmac, I’ve wrestled them into submission, but I just want off this bird and out of this airport. I exit the chopper, grab the small bag I’ve brought with me, and head across the tarmac. My plan is to pick up my rental car and get to the cottage in Sag Harbor that I’ve booked for the night. Once I’m there, safely out of my family’s direct line of fire, I’ll try to recover the evening off the radar of everyone involved in this case, which I’d planned to do before Director Murphy announced my visit. I’ll let the local officials know I’m here, I’m tired, and I’ll see them tomorrow. And then I’ll dig around before anyone has real eyes on me.

It’s a good plan that goes bad in all of two steps inside the terminal when I find a tall, lanky police officer holding a sign with my name on it. And since I know the police chief’s territorial nature, I’m not mistaking this greeting as a welcome, but rather as his establishment of his control.

Crossing to the man, I stop in front of him. “I’m here,” I say. “I’m Lilah. Who are you?”

“Officer Rogers. Shirley Rogers.”