Murder Girl (Lilah Love 2)

“Interesting,” he says. “Someone knew to call you. That means they’re close enough to this to know you’re involved.”

“Yes. Interesting.” But the call goes nowhere else interesting, except for a few more worthless comments and a skipped goodbye when it ends.

And just in time. I pull into the driveway of Kane’s rental house and park, the yellow crime scene tape still on display across the door. I exit the car and walk to the porch, intent on doing what I didn’t do the night of the murder: search every inch of this place myself. I start right where I stand, walking over the porch, looking for scrapes or footsteps, before searching the outdoor furniture and even the exterior wood panels. Looking for something, anything that might have been missed by the crew, intentionally or unintentionally.

I head back down the steps and do a slow walk around the front bushes, and then do both sides of the house, which leads me to the backyard, which is now cast in the shadows of dusk. The back door is my ultimate destination, and I rip more crime scene tape away before trying the knob, which is, of course, locked. A problem I should have anticipated, but I’m here now, I need to catch a killer, and I’m going with the flow. And since that flow does not include having my brother or Eddie swoop in and breathe down my neck while I work, I’m not calling them for a key. I grab a brick lining the base of a funky-looking bush and break the glass panel beside the door. I toss the brick and then reach inside, unlock the door, and open it. Kane can buy a new window.

Entering what is, of course, a stunning kitchen, since Kane owns the property, I glance around the room that is teal and gray with a stainless steel–topped island that is rather industrial. The crime scene is processed, and gloves are not officially necessary, but I reach into my field bag and grab a pair anyway. Once I’ve pulled them on, I relock the door, my intent being to slow down anyone who might want to surprise me and force them to reach through the broken window to enter. My phone buzzes with a text, but for now I ignore it out of caution. I do a quick sweep of the entire house, including the garage, to ensure I’m alone. The good news is that aside from the items taken in the first search, which from the paperwork I reviewed today amounted to not much, everything is intact. I return to the kitchen, double-check the door, and then grab my phone and look at the message, which is from Tic Tac: Nothing in our database about a known assassin with a scar on his face, but I’m going to dive into closed chat rooms on the dark net. See what I can find.

I don’t reply. I’m gloved and focused on searching every inch of everything, with an agenda: Why was this woman on the hit list of the assassin? Who did she cross? What does she have in common with the other victims? Does she have any connection to Pocher at all? I look in canisters. I look in drawers. I look in the freezer, which is a remarkably common hiding place, as are cereal boxes. Once I’ve declared it a room useless to my goal, the house is fading into darkness, and I have no choice but to turn on lights that could be noticed by someone else. I don’t want to do that at this point, but I’m here. I’m going to get this done.

I walk into the living room and to the table where Cynthia was found lying naked, dead, and with a bullet between her eyes. The room is draped in shadows, and my desire to turn on a light and announce my presence to a killer or an asshole like Eddie, who will surely get in the way of my work, is pretty close to zero. I glance at the heavy, closed curtains and decide my risk of being discovered is low, but I choose a small lamp as my lighting. I spend the next fifteen minutes moving about the room, standing in the exact spot where the body was found. And for the first time since these murders began, I’m alone, on the scene, and able to dig deeper into what took place.

I return to the table and stare down at it, picturing her body, the bullet hole. Cynthia was a pretty woman who could have tempted a criminal to use her for pleasure before she was killed. But the autopsy concluded that the killer didn’t rape her, at least not physically, suggesting a person of methodical control. He made her undress, though, since we know she didn’t have her clothes on when she was killed. So he watched her undress. She would have thought that she was going to be raped. I wonder if she cried, if she begged? Or was she defiant, as I would be? I think back to my attack, to that man on top of me, and I can almost feel his hands on my breasts. I couldn’t be defiant. I was too drugged. I don’t even remember how I got undressed. I pant out a breath and open my eyes. “Damn it.”

I refocus on the table and walk to the spot I believe she was standing when she fell. The spot where she undressed, and I wonder if the killer took a video of it all for the person, or persons, who hired him. I walk to the location where I believe he would have stood to watch her, to shoot her. I search the surrounding area but find nothing of interest before standing in his spot again. Would he have used his phone to record her fear? No. I don’t think so. That would be too easily documented. He’d use a separate device and deliver the footage without an electronic fingerprint. He’s proven from the cleanness of the crime scenes that he’s too good to do anything else. I consider recent purchases of cameras and recorders, but the murders are spread out, and the camera most likely traveled with him.

I finish in this room, flip out the light, and use the flashlight in my bag to guide me to the most personal space in any house: the master bedroom. The curtains are equally heavy in this room, and I flip on a bedside light. I search the room, up one side and down the other. Drawers, jacket pockets, jewelry box, bathroom cabinets. I’m about to give up when my gaze catches on the lamp on the far nightstand that I’ve left dark. Something is dangling beside the cord used to turn it on. I walk to it and catch the pendant in my hand, opening my palm to stare down at the Virgin Mary. And there it is, the proof that links Rick Suthers’s murder to two of the assassin’s victims: two with a necklace and one with a tattoo of the Virgin Mary. It also connects these murders to my attacker.

“Holy Mother of Jesus,” I murmur, my certainty that I’m dealing with a cult of some sort officially solidified.

I grab the necklace and drop it into a baggie before sticking it in my field bag. My cell phone rings, and I pull it from my pocket and glance at my brother’s number. I hit Decline and stick my phone back in my pocket. It buzzes with another call. I grimace and grab it again, and this time it’s my father. I decline again at the same moment my brother sends me a text: Answer. It’s important. I will keep calling.

My phone rings again, and I believe him. He’ll keep calling. And so I accept the damn call. “I answered,” I say. “Now what?”

“Dad needs to see you.”

“I don’t—”

“It’s important. You need to hear what he has to say. This is necessary, Lilah.”

Necessary. It’s an odd choice of word. “At the house?”

“No. He’s at Mom’s grave.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Dread isn’t my thing. I don’t find it to be a useful emotion, any more than I do fear. Both lead to over-the-top, irrational reactions to situations and people. Irrationality leads to mistakes, and mistakes get you killed. But as I pull up to the cemetery and park next to my father’s silver Mercedes, dread is a beast that refuses to be ignored, settling hard in my gut. Maybe there is even some fear. I suspect my mother was killed, and my father wants to meet at her gravesite to talk.

I kill the engine and exit the car, pocketing my keys. The cemetery is well lit, poles with lanternlike tops placed in random locations. My father is standing with his back to me, looking down at my mother’s grave. A willow tree, my mother’s favorite, is draped above him, shading the plot when there is sun rather than newly minted stars and a half moon. I walk toward him and he doesn’t turn, but of course he knows I’m here, and I wonder if he’s fighting that same beast of dread that I am. That’s all the more reason to get this the hell out of the way.

That thought steps up my pace, and I claim a spot next to him. “She was the sunshine in every room she entered,” he says.

“Yes,” I say. “She was.” But as hard as I

try to picture her smile and her laugh with those words, I cannot, and it’s moments like these that do indeed create fear. So really, I lied to myself when I said I have no use for fear. I clearly do. Just not about things that go bump in the night or monsters who live under the bed or on the next street corner.

“She knew I had political aspirations beyond this town,” he continues, the jump from sentiment to his drive for power proof that the sentiment was all about manipulation. “She supported me,” he adds, turning to face me.

“I have no doubt that she supported you,” I say, facing him, my gaze flicking over his neatly groomed salt-and-pepper hair and the navy-blue pinstripe suit that is no doubt worth a cool ten grand, money that he inherited from my mother.

“She would have told you to support me,” he adds.

“She would never have supported an innocent man taking the fall for these murders. And that’s what this is about, right? Me keeping this case open and hurting your record?”

A muscle in his jaw flexes. “The stakes are far higher than your little FBI job and a few murders.”

“A few murders?” I demand. “Five assassinations. Five lives taken.”

“There is a bigger picture,” he bites out. “I was selected, and subsequently groomed, for this run for office years ago by what some call the Deep State or the Society. They are the real rulers of the world. And yes, I said world. Our government, and many across the world, are set up to be the face of those who are really in power.”

“Who are they?” I ask, now faced with a version of a cult as I’d suspected. I just didn’t think my damn father would be involved.

“I can’t tell you that,” he replies. “I won’t ever tell you that. You don’t expose these people. And you don’t ignore their wishes without paying a price. I cannot dirty my record or they will not be pleased.”

“What the hell are you spouting, Father? This is insanity.”

“Call it what you will, but this is how it is, Lilah. They control all of us, but some of us know they have that control. We know because I am part of that inner circle.”

“Is Andrew in that circle?”

“He knows enough not to cross them.”

“That’s not an answer. Did Mom know about this Society?”

“Yes. They are deeply rooted in Hollywood. They are deeply rooted with anyone who has the kind of money that equates to power.”

“And Pocher heads this Society?”

“There is no one person who heads the Society, though there are heads of counsel.”

“But Pocher is involved,” I press.

“I’m involved,” he says. “That’s all you need to know. And you will not speak about this to anyone. Do not look for the Society, or they will kill you. And do not become a problem for them, or they will come for you.”