With more of that award-winning restraint I’m showing tonight, I march toward the line where he stands, and thank fuck, a wooden barrier separates us. It might be the hero who maintains my restraint and the sole reason that I don’t punch him. “I thought you weren’t here, asshole.”
“I missed you, too, beautiful.” His lips quirk. “As for me being here: obviously, I wasn’t, and now I am since you refused to meet me around the corner.”
“You didn’t come to the barrier and ask for me?”
“No. I did not.”
Kane doesn’t lie. If he said that he wasn’t here until now, he wasn’t here until now. “Someone told me I had a visitor, right here at the barrier. That’s not a coincidence.”
“I’m sure someone did,” he says dryly. “And I could give two fucks about that someone. We need to have a conversation we can’t have on the phone.”
“Later.”
“You know me, Lilah, and I know you. If now wasn’t necessary, would I be standing here?”
No, no, he would not.
My lips tighten, and I walk around the barrier to step in front of him. He’s smart enough not to touch me in front of the live audience, who I can now feel watching us. Fuck them. Really, truly fuck them all. He motions to the wall just beyond the alleyway, and together, we step under the overhang, and I rotate on him.
“What the hell are you doing, Kane? Are you trying to get killed? Ghost showing up here, that was him telling us that Umbrella Man hired him to kill you. And clearly someone knew you were here, not where you said you were, because they told me I had a visitor, You’re being watched.”
“Ghost and I have an agreement. I pay him double to kill anyone who contracts against me.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’ve forgotten I don’t like fluff and bullshit. You think that matters to a man like Ghost?”
“That’s all that matters to a man like Ghost.”
“What if you’re wrong?” I challenge.
“We’re back to, you know me. Am I stupid enough to be standing here, or to let you stand here if I didn’t believe we were safe?”
“Did you or did you not just try and get me to meet you at the flower shop?”
“Was I supposed to tell you that I have a standing order with a hitman on the phone?”
I open my mouth to say what I’ve said too often, “You aren’t supposed to say that shit to me, ever,” but I live with this man now. It’s not that simple. The truth is, it’s never been that simple. “No. You couldn’t say that to me on the phone, and you’re right. I needed to know.”
His eyes narrow and darken. “That’s it?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“That’s never it for you, Lilah.”
“I have two dead bodies and one’s a cop, Kane. And the same asshole who killed them, hired Ghost to kill you. The biggest ‘fuck you’ that I can give this asshole is to catch him, which means I need to be talking to those bodies, not you.” I turn away and hesitate, eyeing him again. “That’s it for now.”
He laughs, low and taunting. I like his laugh, and I will be damned if Umbrella Man is taking it from me. I did a good enough job of that on my own not so long ago. I re-enter the crime scene, and Larry, a brawny cop I know from way back when is now at the barrier. “It’s true, then? You’re with Kane Mendez?”
I’m not in the mood for this bullshit. “Every fucking night, sometimes twice. Any more questions?” I stop in front of him and arch a brow.
“Ah…no. No more questions.”
“Good. Now maybe you can think about who might have killed these two women instead of who I might be fucking. Do we have a name yet for the victim?”
“Not yet.”
“I need that fucking name, now.”
I give him my back and stare at the brightly illuminated alleyway, spotlights beaming down on the crime scene, where tents now cover the bodies that are draped in dark-colored plastic with one thought: why the fuck is Roger here, and leaning over the dead body in the center of the alley? I now have two people to kill: him and Umbrella Man.
CHAPTER SIX
I kneel next to the covered body on the ground, smack in the center of a spotlight illuminating the alleyway, and under a tent. I’m also across from Roger, and I do what I’d once feared: I look directly into his eyes. “What the hell, Roger?” I say. “You can’t just show up and start working the case.”
“I’d think you’d enjoy my input,” he says, his blue eyes as piercing as ever. “You should. I was your mentor. I am your mentor.”
“Were,” I say, and he’s right. I should, but I don’t, and it has nothing to do with my fear of him looking into my eyes and seeing a killer. I’m here. I’m facing that fear. It’s done and gone. Because that’s how I roll. I have my moments where I fear what I am and then I have moments where I say “fuck it, I’m a killer, and I don’t care who knows.” I’m in one of the “fuck it” moments, and for now, that mood isn’t going anywhere. “This isn’t your case.”
“I invited him.”
Those words are spoken by Melanie Carmichael, the medical examiner who took over for Beth after I arranged to send her to Europe to get her out of the sights of Umbrella Man. Melanie squats down beside Roger but looks at me. “We were actually talking about this case when I got the call.”
I don’t need to weigh my reaction, which is decidedly more negative than my more frequent negative reactions. This isn’t me being territorial or insecure. I don’t need this fucking job. I choose to do it. It’s something else. I can feel Roger staring at me, his gaze cutting, his attention unwelcome, and therein lies the problem. This is about the chronic dislike that Roger has started creating in me. Perhaps I never liked him. In fact, I know I didn’t, and yet, I wanted to please him. God, I’m fucked up enough to need to drink over this realization, but not before I kill someone; before I kill Umbrella Man, I amend. I eye Melanie, a pretty black woman I haven’t bothered to age until now. She’s fifty-something I decide but could pull off forty-something, too young for Roger’s sixty-whatever-the-fuck-he-is. And yet, I sense they’re together. I sense that it’s a new thing, too. But then it could be his mind she’s drawn to. He’s smart, a keen mind, too smart for most criminals, except this one, or he wouldn’t be here right now, asking to be killed.
“While you were talking about Umbrella Man,” I say, “he was here with me.”
“Because it’s personal,” Roger says. “You need to let me help before you end up dead.”
I eye him. “He won’t kill me, not yet, but you, you he’ll kill.”
A gleam of something pierces those blue eyes before he arches a brow and asks, “And you know this how?”
“Because I know,” is the only answer I offer him, “so get up and get the fuck out of here.”
“Oh my,” Melanie exclaims. “Oh my. Is this why Beth was shipped to Europe. Was she a target? Am I target now, too?”
“No,” I say at the same time as Roger, both of us looking at her and then each other.
“You aren’t close to Lilah,” Roger says, answering for me, holding my stare. “He has no use for you.” He leans closer to me. “This case might not even be about you. It could be about me. It could be about my cases. You get that, right? He could want you to get to me. I’m not leaving, and frankly, I’m too old to give a fuck if I live or die.”
“And that’s why you just told our new medical examiner that he won’t go after her?” I challenge. I lean in closer to him. “Because you know, from me reviewing the case with you, that he goes after those close to the victim.”
His lips quirk. “You’re good, Love. The kind of good worthy of being my protégé.”
“What does that mean?” Melanie asks urgently. “Am I in danger or not?”