Once our bags are in hand, we step outside, an early fluttering of snowflakes in the air and dusting our shoulders, but our pace is steady, relaxed. In control. I like this about Kane. He’s always in control. Control is good and it’s not long before we're inside the sporty black Mercedes he favors here on the island. He cranks the engine to a low, smooth hum and I’m remarkably happy to be here. It is the home to both of my crimes. My mind flashes back to the night I killed Roger. To me standing naked in the shower with Kane as he washed the blood off of me, my new diamond on my hand. We didn’t speak then, either. But when he pulls us onto the road, it’s hard not to be back on that boat where he proposed, and I killed Roger. “I don’t feel guilty.”
There’s a slight shift to the air, but Kane’s reply is nothing short of nonchalant. “And that bothers you,” he assumes. God, he knows me.
“I am an FBI agent. I should feel something different. I shouldn’t feel—”
He glances over at me. “I’m not the person you pause with, Lilah. You know that. Finish the sentence.”
“I felt guilt after killing that man on the beach. He raped me and I still felt guilt. I don’t this time, Kane. I feel happy he’s dead. That doesn’t feel normal.”
He halts the car at our front gate and punches in a security code, glancing over at me to ask, “Normal by whose definition?”
“My training. My textbooks,” I reply as he pulls us into the garage.
“All right,” he says, killing the engine and turning to face me. “Then per some books, you’re not normal. First of all, I doubt seriously anyone who wrote those fucking books faced a serial killer who also killed their mother. And if you were normal, beautiful, I wouldn’t be in love with you. And before you tell me how dysfunctional that is, how dysfunctional we are, you are not one of them. I know that’s what you think. That you’re one of the killers you hunt, but you are not one of them.”
“They’re drawn to me. Roger was drawn to me.”
“And therefore, you were able to kill him when someone else would have ended up dead. Do not let that bastard fuck with your head. He was drawn to you because you were a threat. He needed to control you and he failed.”
“Because it takes a killer to catch a killer?” I challenge.
“You’re not a killer, Lilah. You do what’s necessary. You’re willing to kill when necessary. Two different things.”
My cellphone rings and certain it must be Murphy again, I grab it to find my brother calling. “Andrew,” I say. “He must have heard about Pocher.”
Kane’s lips flatten but he says nothing. He exits the car and I do the same, answering the call with, “You heard.”
“I heard. Are you here?”
“We just got to the house. Why?”
“I have a dead body on my hands. I need you.”
“What dead body?” I ask and Kane is instantly in view at the end of the car, watching me. I guess when you buried a body the last time you were here, the words dead body get your attention. “And why do you need me? You have like seventy people on staff,” I add.
“A bride, Lilah. A woman in a wedding dress. I’m sure you can see why that makes me think of you.”
My spine stiffens. “Text me the address,” I say and disconnect, and Kane appears by my side.
“A dead bride, one week after you proposed, and the day we return to the island. The day Pocher reappears. There are no coincidences. This is not a coincidence.”
“No,” he says, handing me the keys. “It is not.”
CHAPTER THREE
It’s so cold that if I were a guy, I’d be a girl right now, and anyone who doesn’t understand that statement is probably a woman no matter how cold it is outside. The seaside town of East Hampton just loves to spit up weather changes where there should be salt water and sunshine. One minute it seems I was on a boat, getting engaged to my crime lord boyfriend that swears he’s not a crime lord, and stabbing to death my old mentor turned serial killer. The next, or so it seems, I’m here, freezing my ass off, climbing the mile-long staircase to one of the hundreds of overstated mansions clustered around the island, preparing to read the scene of a dead bride.
At the top of the steps, I reach the second layer of crime scene tape and the cop standing there—a tall, thin dude, who would only scare a chihuahua—no scratch that, chihuahuas are annoyingly loud and fearless. Let me start again. A tall thin dude, who would scare no one, greets me with, “Lilah fucking Love. What are you doing here?”