Love Me Dead (Lilah Love 3)

“Name dropping irritates the fuck out of me,” I snap.

“Being judged unfairly irritates the fuck out of me,” he replies, “especially when it’s not deserved. Call Murphy. I was put here for a reason, Lilah Love.”

Houston could be leading me into a trap, baiting me to find out what Murphy wants by placing me here in New York City, which is why I answer him with as direct of a fucking answer as possible. I turn away and enter the apartment again, leaving him in the hallway.

This time, I look at the room with new eyes, and the first thing I focus on is the desk in the corner. I walk over to it and do a visual scan. The top is clear, clean, freshly polished. I open the center drawer. It’s nearly empty with a few neatly placed pencils and a notepad inside. I move to the side drawer and pull it out. The files inside are neatly lined up and labeled. I kneel and look through them to find basic categories like taxes, warranties, and receipts, all of which seem to be what she says they are. She uses H&R Block, and she did her taxes late and recently. I take a picture of the accountant’s information who worked with her, as well as the receipts that might lead me somewhere, though none of this feels relevant. There is a birthday card, too, from “your sister forever.” She doesn’t have a sister. I shoot a photo of the return address and send it to Tic Tac with a message: find out who this person is to Williams.

I scan the room again and come to a bottom line: the anal nature of the files fits the setup that I found at the station in her office. It fits what I know of the killer. I have to consider that she might be the killer, but my gut still tells me that’s not the case. I stand up and shut the drawer, turning to move on when I all but run into Thomas, who is actually quite big and tall. And while his stance might seem unassuming and accidental, that’s bullshit.

“Personal space. What the hell?”

He stares at me for a few beats. “I didn’t expect you to run into me.”

“And yet you walked up behind me?”

“It’s a small space.”

“So is the place between your legs where I’ll put my knee if you don’t take a step out of my personal space.”

His eyes narrow, and he steps back. I step forward right back into his space. “Next time I’m this close to you, you’ll feel it for all the wrong reasons. Did you need something?”

He doesn’t back away. Neither do I. “To make a general comment.”

“Which is what?” I ask.

“She didn’t strike me as being as neat as this apartment. Her sheets are perfect. Her towels are perfect. Her drawers are perfect.”

“And yet?” I prod.

“Her hair was usually a mess. She spilled her coffee often. Something was usually hanging out of her purse.”

And he noticed. Why did he notice? Innocent observation? Maybe, but I don’t think so. “What’s your relationship with Detective Williams?”

“I observe people. That’s all.”

“And what did you observe?”

“I told you. She’s not this organized. It feels off. So off that I felt like she wasn’t fit to oversee the investigation.”

“What else?”

“I saw her get frazzled a few times during the past month after taking a call. She’d go into her office and shut the door.”

“Was that abnormal?”

“I didn’t work with her directly before this case,” he says.

“And yet you mentioned it.”

“Yeah,” he says. “What about it?”

“Would it surprise you to hear that her office is just as organized as her apartment?”

“It just doesn’t fit what I saw when she was in front of me, but hell, maybe she’s a contradiction or maybe she overcompensates for one thing with another.”

Or maybe, I think to myself, she didn’t organize any of this herself. Maybe it’s all the Umbrella Man. It’s a crazy thought but then crazy is what I do.

“Gather evidence,” I order. “Let me know what you find.” But he won’t find any. Because the Umbrella Man doesn’t want us to find anything. This entire scene is staged.

I think about every crime scene involved in this case and find myself questioning if all of the girls were actually scattered and disorganized until Umbrella Man arrived. What if the he cleaned them up or even made them clean up? I can almost picture them all cleaning desperately to stay alive. Would it have happened during a kidnapping before the murder? Every part of me wants to leave this apartment and do what I have to do to follow my thought process right now, but I blink and find Thomas staring at me, something in his eyes I don’t like.

“Go work,” I order.

“Yes, ma’am, Agent Love.” He turns away from me, and I swear I heard a hint of a laugh in his voice.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Where is Detective Williams?

It’s the question of the day. It’s the question Chief Houston asks when he catches me at the front of the apartment before I leave. “If not here, where?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re the profiler. If she’s dead, where is she now?”

“If she was dead—” I stop myself short, because unlike a lot of irritating people on this case, I don’t have foot to mouth disease. “We don’t know if she’s dead.”

He studies me hard and heavily. “Tell me where your head is right now. What the hell can I possibly do to help you catch this asshole if I don’t know what rabbit hole we’ve fallen inside?”

“I like to travel my rabbit holes alone rather than with a wolf that might eat me.”

“You’re no rabbit, Lilah,” he snaps, folding his arms in front of his chest. He’s big like Thomas, but he stays the hell in his own personal space. I still don’t trust him. “You still don’t trust me,” he comments, like he heard what I thought. Hell, maybe I said it out loud.

“Nope,” I say, sticking to the less is more idea.

“Okay then. At least you’re honest. I’m assigning Detective Carpenter to take over as lead for Williams, reporting to you, of course. You know him. You worked with him. He knows Williams.”

He’s right. I know him. I’ve worked with him. He’s an old geezer with a bald head. “Knowing him doesn’t mean I trust him. It doesn’t even mean I like him.”

“He knows Williams.”

“You said that.”

“You don’t. He can offer insight into where she might be right now.”

“Fine. Have him call me.” I turn to walk away.

“Agent Love.”

I grimace and pause, turning on my heels. “Yes?” I ask.

“Who can I give you that you will trust? Who do you want on this case?”

“Greg,” I say of my old partner. “He’s on leave because Moser set him up to take the fall for something he didn’t do. Payback because Greg knew he was dirty and wasn’t going to put up with it.”

“If I get him back?”

“Get him back. We’ll talk a bit more if you get that done.”

“You’re riding me like I’m a drunk fool, Lilah.”

“Agent Love to you, asshole, until you prove you’re not a drunk fool.”

“Call fucking Murphy and the ‘fuck’ in that sentence is me trying to relate to you because nothing else is working.”

Umbrella Man has a better chance of relating to me, but that’s my little secret. “Did you want a cookie or a proper lesson on pronunciation? Because you need to emphasize the F or the K in appropriate moments.”

He doesn’t laugh. “I’ll get your man back.” He presses his hands to his hips. “We have an issue though. The press got hold of all of this. They’re breathing down my neck. What am I giving them?”

“You have a suicide in a courtroom. Leave it at that.”

“I have two dead women. They know.”

“That, to the public eye, don’t connect.”

“The attorney general wants this case solved before panic sets in,” h

e counters.

“And let me guess, you told him that Ralph Redman is our killer?”

“Someone told him. It wasn’t me. And he has a reporter threatening him with a serial killer headline.”

Someone told him. The Umbrella Man told him. Killers want attention. He wants my attention, and he wants pressure on me to give it to him. Somehow, someway that bastard relayed the message to the press that he wanted to get out to the public.

“Give him what he wants,” I say, and I’m not talking about the attorney general, though I’m certain that’s what Houston will think. I’m talking about Umbrella Man. He wants it. Let him think he gets what he wants. For now. Until I get him.

I turn away and skip the Uber, despite the long walk ahead of me to Kane’s apartment, considering the sensitive calls I need to engage. I try Tic Tac and get his voicemail. I dart into a Starbucks where I order a mocha with a triple shot. My agenda with that caffeine high is to make myself a little less approachable than everyone has seemed to find me the last twenty-four hours. I’ve just exited to the street again when my cellphone rings with my returned call from Tic Tac.

“I need—” I begin.