Love Me Dead (Lilah Love 3)

“And yet, I’m standing right here in New York City, wearing an FBI badge.”

“Are you here to work the case?” he asks.

“No, I’m here to bring you lunch.” I reach in my field bag and hand him a package of cheese crackers that are about a year old. “I heard it had been a long night.”

“Smartass,” he grumbles, staring down at the crumbled mess in his hand. “I see your attitude hasn’t changed.”

“You mean the one I learned from all you old-timers who thought I was too young to profile?”

“You were a kid when you started out. You still are.”

I don’t bother to tell him that twenty-eight is not a kid, or that my brother is North Hamptons’ police chief, a job he inherited from my father, who is now the mayor. I stopped justifying my skills versus my age a long damn time ago, but my silence doesn’t matter. Carl is still talking.

“Take it from me,” he adds. “Opt out of this one. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

In other words, a little girl like me just can’t play with the big boys. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You haven’t even been up there yet.”

“Exactly,” I say. “I should, in fact, be up there right now, but you know why I’m not?” I don’t wait for a reply. “I’m not up there now because I’m standing here wondering what idiot thought this spot where we’re standing isn’t part of the crime scene? Which idiot is that, Carl?”

He blanched. “I—the detective in charge—”

“Before you finish your sentence, there’s a person who lost their life tonight. If that was your mother, father, daughter, son, or wife would you want muddy boots stomping past this door?”

His jaw clenches. “I’ll handle it.”

“Get a tarp here ASAP and set it up as wide as possible. We need the teams to be able to cover up and clean up before and after they leave the building.”

“Got it. Handling it.”

“Is Roger here yet?”

“Roger Griffin?” he asks. “I haven’t heard any mention to him showing up. I thought that’s why they called you.”

He’s wrong. Roger doesn’t give up a crime scene. “Who exactly is in charge of this scene?”

“Lori Williams.”

“Wrong answer,” I say. “I am.” I open the bag I have hanging at my hip and pull out a pair of booties, stepping close to the door to slip them on my wet feet.

Another cop, a big burly guy with brown hair, tries to enter the building. “Hey!” I snap. “Don’t even think about walking in that door without covering up.”

He glares at me. “Who the hell are you?”

“The girl who will bitch slap you, and it only took one meeting, if you don’t do what the fuck I told you.” I shove my hand into a glove and then repeat.

“That’s Lilah Love, Reggie,” Carl chimes in. “She’s FBI and a profiler here to help. She’s also a bitch. I’d take her seriously if I were you.”

I give Reggie a condescending smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t turn you in to your boss. I’m not that big of a bitch. I’ll just tell the family of the victim that we’re sorry that the evidence was destroyed, but Reggie hates covering up, and we don’t like to make Reggie uncomfortable.”

“Bitch,” Reggie bites out.

“Now you get the idea,” I say, pleased that he’s not the slow learner I’d suspected. I eye Carl. “What floor?” I ask.

“Ten,” Carl replies.

I shrug out of my raincoat and drop it next to Carl because, unlike the rest of these assholes, I don’t plan on contaminating the evidence with a dripping wet jacket. I enter the building, stepping into a small foyer with mailboxes to the left. Taking nothing for granted, considering the fuck show this has proven to be, I scan the area, eyeing the ground, and even looking up toward the ceiling. I find nothing of interest, but I repeat my scan because what we miss the first time, we might not miss the second.

I start the walk up the narrow stairwell, which must be a bitch to travel after a big meal or a bunch of booze. For a big man, it would require skill to navigate quietly, a detail that I tuck in the back of my mind for later review. Even without overindulgence, for someone who doesn’t run five miles a day, much of it in the Hamptons on the sandy beach, like myself, this walk would be tough. That says something about the person who maneuvered the steps and disappeared without notice. Unless they were noticed. Maybe they belong here. Maybe they visit regularly. Maybe they’re a delivery person.

Apparently ten is the top level, and that was too simple a description for Carl. I pause at the top of the steps and canvas the roughly seven-by-four foyer, another tight spot, in this case, a tight spot that would be hard to escape for a woman being overpowered. There’s nothing here that presents like obvious evidence, just a few bagged jumpsuits waiting to be used, which tells me the scene is bloody. That’s one of my dirty secrets. Despite my comfort level with dead bodies, I don’t like blood, at least not in excess. Blood is actually fine. A bucket of blood, not so much. Blood to the ankles, which I’ve experienced, definitely not. I freak the fuck out. It’s a weakness that I don’t share with anyone, and yet, today, I’m asked for, by name, and the scene is bloody. Some might call that a coincidence, but as Roger taught me years ago and has always proven true, there is no such thing as coincidence. The fucked up part of this equation is that Roger knows exactly how I feel about blood. He was with me the first time I freaked out, the only time anyone of professional consequence has ever seen me freak out. Okay my ex back in LA might have seen a little bitty incident, too, but that was literally ankle deep blood, and he wasn’t a superior of professional consequence.

CHAPTER TWO

Setting aside my personal hate for blood and the fact that I now estimate the amount beyond that apartment door to be excessive, I have questions, starting with: where the hell is the person who’s supposed to be making sure we wear those bagged jumpsuits laying on the ground? If they’re counting on humans being smart, they’re stupid, which proves my point: someone should be on guard in front of the door, managing the integrity of the crime scene.

Oh, wait. There is no integrity to this crime scene, which is so poorly managed that I wish I was a drinker. I’d drink myself into throwing up and then check into recovery, where I’d survive a few days before my irritation at the people who couldn’t control their urges would then cause me to beat some asses. Which would be highly hypocritical of me since I have a few urges I can’t seem to control either, like killing people and ending up naked with Kane fucking Mendez. A thought triggered by the ringing of my phone in my pocket that is most assuredly Kane fucking Mendez.

I ignore the call simply because I don’t want to ignore the call. Fuck you, Kane Mendez, for making me want to talk to you. Just because you buried a body for me doesn’t mean you get to control me.

I grab one of the suits and dump my field bag on the floor. Reggie appears at the top of the stairs, hovering there. I have a bad history with the name Reggie. The body Kane buried for me bore a tattoo done by a guy who worked for a tattoo parlor owned by another Reggie. Therefore, if your name is Reggie that immediately puts you on the wrong foot with me. I shove my arms into my suit. He’s still watching me. “Are you role playing for some practice session at the police academy and pretending to be a Peeping Tom or is creepy just your thing?”

“You aren’t the detective in charge,” he snaps.

“Did you know,” I begin, zipping up my orange suit and wondering why cleanliness means looking like an inmate in this city, “that I was the girl most likely to in high school?”

“Most likely to what?” he asks, taking my bait, his thin lips thinning even more when they’re already pencil drawings on his face. “Get naked?”

“Kill someone,” I say, grabbing my field bag and sliding it over my head and across my chest, so I don’t have to try to hold onto the damn thing when my feet and stomach are

swimming in blood. “You wouldn’t be my first,” I add. “Put on a pretty orange suit or don’t come into the apartment.” I offer him my back and reach for the door.

“You aren’t the detective in charge,” he bites out, repeating himself, his limited vocabulary rather irritating, as is his need to get the last word.

That said, I’ve found that men who need the last word with a woman typically have deep-rooted confidence issues, in essence, little man complex. And since Reggie isn’t little anywhere that I can obviously identify, I can only assume his lips aren’t the only things pencil thin. I feel sorry enough for him to let him think he’s won: I give him the last word.

I open the door and inhale the scent of iron, that distinctive promise of blood, lots of blood, but I don’t find it. The scent is there, but the room before me is a simple, clean living space with an untarnished, basic cream-colored couch, and two pastel blue side chairs. Of the not one, but four, jumpsuit-clad forensic specialists working the tiny space and beyond in an open concept dining room and kitchen, not one of them so much as looks up to greet me. That’s okay. I don’t need to be greeted. I’m here for the victim and no one else. This is a crime scene, and while this space might be missing the body that is here somewhere, it could hold clues. I stand there, taking in every detail, eyeing the painting of an ocean on the wall and nothing more. There are no photos of people. No trinkets. No memories. This person is as fucked up as me. That means he or she doesn’t let people close.

“Ms. Love.”

At the sound of my name, I turn to find a thin redhead, I’d place in her mid-forties, who isn’t wearing a jumpsuit. “Agent Love,” I correct. “And were you afraid the orange would clash with your hair or did you just not give a fuck that you might contaminate the crime scene by failing to wear one?”

“I’m not rolling around in the mess that’s been made,” she bites out. “Nor should you. You’re supposed to profile the killer, not perform forensic analysis.”