Murder Girl (Lilah Love 2)

“If you want me to write a personnel review for you while I’m in the system, I’ll do it, but you won’t like it.”

“My attitude doesn’t suit you, Lucas,” I snap, getting back to business. “There’s a Barnes & Noble in Westbury, Long Island. Can you find out if they have cameras in the stores? If they do, can you download the feed for the cash registers for the past twenty-four hours for me?”

“That’s a piece of cake if they have cameras online. What are you looking for? Does the killer turn books into a deadly weapon?”

“Ha ha,” I say, ready to shake his attitude and him with it. “Not really funny.” I turn away.

“It was funny,” he says, giving his attention to his keyboard. “I’m ordering us lunch online from my favorite spot up the road. Then I’ll start with Barnes & Noble.”

I pull a cord from my case and connect it to my phone, downloading the photos that I took at my father’s office. I start tabbing through them when my phone rings. I note my brother’s number and hit Decline. I return my attention to the photos that look to be city business receipts and nothing out of the ordinary. My phone buzzes with a text. I glance down to find my brother again.

Did you hear that Kane filed a lawsuit against the NYPD and the NYC bureau? he asks.

I sigh and call him. “Yes,” I say, replying to his text message. “I heard, and I wasn’t surprised. I told you. You don’t embarrass a powerful man like him and not expect the same lashing you gave him and his reputation. The good news in this is that those idiots are out of the picture. I was given the authority to claim jurisdiction of the local murders or walk away.”

“And?” he prods.

“And we’ll talk, but not on the phone and not now. I have important shit I’m doing.”

“Now, Lilah.”

“Not going to happen, big brother, but I love you. Call you in a few hours.” I hang up.

“I love you?” Lucas asks incredulously.

“He expected ‘fuck you’ so every time I say ‘I love you,’ he gets all flustered.”

“You’re evil.”

“Yeah, but I do love him.”

My phone buzzes with a text, and I read it with a laugh before rereading it to Lucas: Fuck you, Lilah, and I love you, too, but you are not escaping this today. I will hunt you down and lock you in a cell until this is done if I have to. I glance at Lucas. “See. He loves me, too.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Love. Overflowing.” He changes the subject. “Check your personal e-mail. I just sent you a list of every book bought in Barnes & Noble in the past forty-eight hours. I know you said twenty-four, but I’m an overachiever.”

“You rock,” I say, pulling up my e-mail. A few minutes later I’ve imported the list into a spreadsheet and sorted alphabetically. And there it is: my mother’s biography, purchased yesterday afternoon. As if the killer expected me and was just waiting for my arrival.

I roll my chair to face Lucas. “Did the bookstore have active security cameras?”

He hands me a flash drive, and I slip it into my Mac. I tab to the time stamp I need, and a man in sunglasses and a baseball cap catches my attention. He walks to the register and checks out, but it’s impossible to tell what he’s purchasing from this camera angle, but I check the time. That transaction is exactly when my mother’s biography was purchased. It’s not absolute confirmation that this is Suthers’s killer. However, outside of who bought the book and killed Suthers, the timing of the book purchase tells me that my move had been anticipated and he was being killed.

That sends my mind to my call to the DMV, and damn it, I hate the idea that after all I did to protect Suthers, I may well have triggered some kind of alarm. But the book was purchased before that call. Suthers was already marked to die. “Don’t let it fuck with your head, Lilah,” I murmur, repeating Kane’s words.

“What?” Lucas asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “I talk to myself. You didn’t know that?”

“No. Thus far until now, when you’re with me, you talk to me, not yourself. But don’t talk to me or you right now. I’m focusing.” He turns back to his work.

I screenshot the photo and text it to Kane: Have you ever seen him before?

No, he replies. Who is he?

I reply with: Someone I picked up on a security feed at Barnes & Noble by Suthers’s house. He may be no one. He may be the killer. I’ll explain later.

Because you’re with Lucas, he says, and I can almost hear the disapproval in his voice through that typed message.

I purse my lips and type: Who’s a hacking genius.

So genius you had to save his ass from jail.

I could remind him that Lucas was set up by a rival hacker, but I’m not sure that helps his case in Kane’s eyes, or really in mine either. And since I don’t like to fight battles I’ll lose, I just don’t reply. I return my gaze to the security footage and expand the image, and freeze-frame the man’s face, a large scar now visible down his cheek. This is the killer, and as I hunt him he taunts me, only now the taunts are turning bloody. My gaze jerks to Lucas with a bad thought. What happens when the taunts get bloody and personal, too? And that leads me to follow that question with another: Is hanging out here with him putting him on the radar of the wrong people?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I dial Kane. “I need something.”

“I’m available. When and where?”

“Stop.”

“It sounds like you just told me to start.”

“I need you to put a man on Lucas and make sure he stays safe.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to protect a man who I dislike and who wants to fuck you?”

“Yes. I’ll explain later.”

“At my house.”

“Kane, damn it—”

“I’ll do it and you owe me, Lilah Love.”

I hang up on the asshole and his “owe me” shit.

“Lunch is served,” Lucas declares from the doorway, walking toward me with a paper bag in his hand, the smell of food traveling with him, but nothing my nose can identify, which must mean it’s not pizza, Cheetos, or chocolate. I doubt that I’m going to approve. “Lunch is served,” he says again, reclaiming his seat and handing me a bottle of water, followed by a Styrofoam box.

I set the water down and move my MacBook over to open the box and glance inside. “Grilled fish and vegetables? Really?”

“Really,” he says, opening his lid, too. “You eat like shit. This is brain food.”

“Chocolate and coffee is brain food.”

“Eat it anyway.”

I grimace but take a bite of the fish, which is edible and hopefully forgettable. I pull back up the security footage, and by the time I’m done eating, I’ve decided the dude with the scar is my man. I glance over at Lucas. “Do you have the ability to access facial recognition software?”

He glances over at me. “You’re out of luck on that one.” He returns to his work.

“How is it going?”

“Better if you weren’t talking.”

I return to my computer screen and decide this

man could be the assassin. I have to find out who he is before he kills again. I log into the FBI message system, where I direct a message to Tic Tac: Hello?

He replies right away: Hello.

I load the photo into a message and type: I need you to run facial recognition on this photo.

Give me fifteen minutes, he replies.

I downsize the screen and reload the photos I took at my father’s house, looking at personal investment statements, various town documents that amount to nothing but lawn care and a Christmas parade. Page after page, I dig for anything out of the ordinary, but this was a long shot anyway. My father is too smart to keep anything compromising in a place that might be searched. It hits me that he hasn’t called me to bitch me out for taking his booze, but it’s coming. Of course it’s coming. My messages buzz, and I pull up the direct-message box to read: No hit. His face is not visible enough.

“Damn it,” I murmur, downsizing the screen and glancing at a text message from Rich:

Just got to LaGuardia airport in NYC but won’t be back until late.

I need to reply, but with Rich it’s a delicate balance of leading him on, being civil, and being a bitch. I settle on keeping it simple: Let me know when you land in LA.

He replies with: Will do and be careful, Lilah.

“Jackpot over here,” Lucas say, drawing my attention. “I’m in the Suffolk County database and pulling the Rick Suthers file now.” He glances over at me. “Two of these cases are from Los Angeles. You can’t get those files on your own?”

“I don’t know who is dirty or what data they might keep from me. So no. I can’t get it on my own.” I scoot close to him to watch him work. He stops keying and looks over his shoulder. “Go away.”

“Okay. Fine. I will be right over here.” I scoot back to the spot in front of my computer. “Right here.” He ignores me. I tab through more of my father’s documents and stop on a few random scribbled numbers on a piece of paper. I dial the first one. “Pizza Jacks.”

“Fuck me! Oh.” I hang up and ignore Lucas’s glare.

I dial the next number and it’s a female. “Hello.”