Love Me Dead (Lilah Love 3)

“Detective Williams, though I’m not sure why Lily would be emotionally attached to Detective Williams. Maybe they’re lovers. That actually makes sense. They could be a couple. Damn, Williams must be gay. Or maybe Lily’s a niece. I need to find out. I’m better with killers than I am normal people and their love lives.”

“I thought Ralph was her boyfriend?”

“Right. Okay. She’s not a lesbian.” I shrug. “Okay, well, maybe she’s bi.”

“Or maybe Lily’s not a girlfriend.”

“Yeah, maybe, but that’s not as romantic, now is it?”

“And you are, of course, so romantic?”

I frown. “I can be romantic.”

His lips curve. “Can you now?”

“I can. Remember your birthday the year before I left?”

His voice softens. “But you left, Lilah.”

“That doesn’t erase the good times.”

“Is that right?”

“Now you’re clearly baiting me to say what you want. I baked you a cake. I don’t bake. That’s romantic.” I sit on the edge of the desk. Kane claims the spot next to me while I shift back to the case. “If I go grab Lily, it seems to me that he might kill Williams.”

“I think that’s a reasonable assumption,” Kane agrees, shifting topics with me, without so much as a blink. “Why don’t we have my men watch Lily?”

I push off the desk and step in front of him. “I’m pulling a lot of your resources.”

“And that’s a problem why?”

“That problem you told me about,” I say, thinking of his uncle. “Isn’t that where your focus needs to be?”

“I’m capable of multitasking in all ways, Lilah, or I’d be dead already.”

“Are you trying to convince me that you are or are not your father with that statement?”

“I’m not my father, but I am my father’s son.” His voice hardens and he repeats what he told me in his office. “I can’t change that fact. You know that.”

“I do know that,” I say, a realization coming to me. “What I also know is that you’ve changed. You used to deny it all. Even when I got back into town, you weren’t your father or your father’s son. Now, you’re at least admitting the part we both know we can’t escape.”

A muscle in his jaw flexes. “Call Jay. Tell him what you need.” He pushes off the desk. “And I’ll trade our coffee in for something stronger.” He walks away, and I’m living a déjà vu moment from our past, when I knew that he was dealing with cartel business, and I pushed him about it. He’d shut me out, he’d push me back. Which was almost as bad as the times I knew he was dealing with cartel business and we both pretended I didn’t. I don’t know how to make this work with us, and yet, I’m ready to admit that I don’t know how to not make it work anymore either. Right now, though, I just need to focus on Umbrella Man before he kills again.

By the time Kane returns, I’m on the floor in front of the chair with a fluffy rug beneath me, and I’ve just finished up a call with Jay. Kane sets a glass of wine on the table next to me. He then claims the chair opposite the table and opens his MacBook; another déjà vu moment. This is what we did. I worked. He worked. We were always together.

“Any problems with Jay?” he asks.

“Not with Jay. I’ve already established my dominant alpha role with him.”

Kane laughs. “I have no doubt.”

My phone rings on the table with what I am certain is a Texas number. I move to the chair and answer the call that is, in fact, the lead law enforcement officer handling the crime scene for Shelly’s parents. “This is relevant to a case we’re currently working,” I say. “What is the condition of the house? Messy? Immaculate? Average?”

Officer Wright is quick to answer. “Average to messy.” Considering Ralph’s nasty toilet, we’ve now confirmed that the suicide victims do not receive the same one-on-one personal attention from Umbrella Man which I still believe is about worth. He doesn’t find them worthy of his time.

“How long have they been dead?”

“I’m no medical examiner but I’ve been around the track. Three days at least.” They died before their daughter. That has my mind racing and I quickly finish up the call.

I sit there a moment and consider what I’ve just learned. Ralph killed himself and Williams is missing. If she ends up dead, the suicides taking place before the murders, supports my theory that he taunts the loved ones of the victims before killing the victims themselves. But if that’s true, who did he taunt before he killed Mia? There may be a body we have yet to discover. I quickly dial Houston and follow that with a call to Tic Tac. We’re now looking for another body and anyone who traveled to Texas recently who is on our list.

Through all of this, Kane works on some sort of financial project for his oil business which I know because he shares a few details about a new drill site he’s launching in between my calls. But Kane doesn’t interrupt my process. He understands me and my Purgatory, in ways Rich never could fathom. Rich couldn’t handle how dark I get in this place. Kane can handle anything. We don’t work unless he knows that I can, too.

It’s late, well after midnight, when my work slows, and I turn my attention to Kane. He feels my stare and looks down at me, where I’ve settled on the floor again, and as he always does, just that quickly, I’m his full focus. He sets his MacBook aside. “What do you want to ask me, Lilah?”

“Who did your uncle have killed?”

The air shifts, his mood darker, but he doesn’t pull away. He never pulls away. He stares at me a moment and then takes my hand and guides me to his chair and scoots over, giving me room to join him. I sit down next to him, and he meets my gaze before he says, “I know that I told you that if you asked, I’d answer, but you don’t want to know, Lilah. And I don’t want to tell you.”

“You can trust me.”

“It’s not about trust, beautiful. You know enough about me to destroy me if you wanted to, and even when we were apart, I knew that would never happen.”

“If it’s not about trust, what then?”

“That promise I made you earlier. I promised that I wouldn’t let you become what you could become, what my world could make you if we let it. When you start crossing certain lines with me, that’s what will happen.”

I’m not sure if he believes that or if he fears that I’ll hate him if I know all that he is and can be. I did shut him out after he buried that body, and by doing so, I gave him every reason to assume that in the right circumstances, I will judge him as a monster. “I’m not going to push you now, but you say that I save you. I can’t do that if you don’t give me the chance.”

“You do, Lilah. You are the only thing that saves me.”

“Then in your silence and mine alike, you find acceptance from me for that life that isn’t there.”

“Without it, I find hate,” he says, confirming what I’d just assumed.

“No. I promise you that is not the case. Make yourself tell me. That will force you to limit yourself.”

“Lilah—”

“If you want me to stay, Kane, we both know that I can’t let you stay silent. We both know that the middle isn’t me pretending to be in the dark.”

He stands up and takes me with him, his hand under my hair at my neck. “There is no if, Lilah. You’re staying.”

“I’m trying to save you.”

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“You save me by staying.”

“Would you rather me imagine what you’re doing, than you just telling me?”

“Yes,” he says, without hesitation, and then he kisses me. “Yes, I would.”

In other words, he believes that nothing I can imagine is as bad as reality. He kisses me then and I let him, and in that kiss, I remember now what I’ve failed to remember since the night of my attack. When Kane kisses me, he always kisses me like he needs me to save him, while I always kiss him like I’m hoping he’ll destroy me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I wake in a bed I once said I would never sleep in again, pressed close to a man who is the devil incarnate, but apparently, I still love that devil. My cellphone is also ringing, so I roll over and grab it, answering without even looking at the caller ID. “Agent Love.”

“Agent. I can’t get used to that title.”

At the sound of Roger’s voice, I sit straight up. “Roger.” Crap. My voice sounds like someone shoved a damn banana in my mouth and said eat it all now. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Kane is immediately next to me, grabbing my leg and grounding me. God, this man knows me. “Are you back in the city?”

“I am, and I hear I’m reporting to you on this case.”

“I don’t think you need to report to me, but I’ve got this one.”

“You’ve got this one?” he challenges, sounding quite peeved. “Why wouldn’t you use me? One of our own is missing. Why don’t we meet for coffee? We can talk it out.”

“Are you at the station today?” I ask.

“I am.”

“I’ll find you there.”

“I’m shocked you don’t want to have coffee. We’re old friends. You’re like a daughter, Lilah.”

“I have a meeting. I’ll find you.”

“Huh. Yeah. You do that.” He hangs up.

I scoot to the side of the bed and grab Kane’s work shirt, pulling it on. By the time I have it wrapped around me, he’s standing in front of me in his pants. “You’re making this worse than it has to be. Go have coffee. Get it over with.”

“I don’t want to go to coffee with that man.”