With that affirmation in my mind, I cross the street and enter the building, making a beeline for the elevator. “Lilah!”
At the sound of Roger’s voice, I stop dead and steel myself for the impact of looking at him, the impact of looking into his damn eyes. I give myself a pep talk: Don’t be a wimp ass bitch, Lilah. Pep talks work. They motivate. Or so my mother used to tell me. I huff out a breath and turn to face the judge and jury. He steps in front of me, tall, thin, and fit, his skin wrinkled from age, sun, and cigarettes. His eyes, those piercing blues eyes that always undo people, give me a once over. “You look good, girl. Give me a hug.” He opens his arms.
I don’t move. “I don’t hug, Roger. You know that about me.”
He laughs. “I see LA didn’t soften you up any.”
“No. It didn’t.” I meet his stare, and I find I don’t feel the intimidation I thought I’d feel. Roger rattles criminals. He doesn’t rattle killers. We’re too cold to be that easily affected. I forgot that fact. What I realize now, is that I just don’t like the man, and admiration is no longer there to fill the void and I don’t know why. Whatever the case, this is rather anticlimactic. “I need to get upstairs.” I turn and start for the elevator.
He falls into step with me and starts coughing. I grind my teeth and endure. Once we’re in the car, he glances over at me. “Any breaks in the case?”
“None that I’m ready to share,” I say, something Roger will understand. I don’t talk about what I think about. Well, except to Kane, but no one knows I talk to Kane.
He laughs. “I know how you work, but this one is really mine, babe. How about we work it together?”
I glance over at him. “In case I didn’t tell you in the past, I don’t like the babe thing. I get urges to lift my knee when someone calls me babe. And I don’t play well with others. You know this about me, too.”
“And yet, you enjoy the game the way I do. I’m sixty-four, Lilah. I’m retiring soon. Don’t take the game away from me.”
The elevator stops, and the doors open. I step into the hallway, and he joins me. “You’re here. You can join me for this meeting, but I make no promises beyond that.”
His eyes narrow on mine, something glinting in their depths that I can’t name. “I used to be the person you came to on everything, and now, I do believe that you’re territorial.”
He’s right, I am, and I’m not sure if that’s about this case or still about me. It has to be about the defense mechanism he stirs in me. “Let’s go talk to the medical examiner,” I say, and I don’t wait for a reply; I just start walking.
My cellphone rings, and it’s the station number. “Agent Love.”
“Agent Love, it’s Thomas.”
Creepy Thomas the forensics guy. This day just gets better and better. “Yes, Thomas?”
“Houston thought you’d want to know that we found matching unidentified male DNA at the scene of both crimes.”
“What about at Ralph’s place?”
“No. Nothing but him and Agent Williams.”
Interesting. I don’t think Umbrella Man goes to the secondary victims’ homes. He wouldn’t be able to tolerate leaving their houses dirty. Which means he hasn’t been to Lily’s house. So how does he communicate with them?
“On a separate note,” Thomas says, reminding me he’s still on the line. “You don’t like me, do you?”
“I don’t like anyone, Thomas. You fit right in. Do you need anything else?”
“You’ll like Melanie. She knows what she’s doing.”
“And you know this how?”
“Exposure.”
It’s a weird answer. “Do you have anything else for me?”
“I guess not.” He hangs up. For once, someone doesn’t make me hang up first.
I motion Roger to the room that is our destination. “Was that news?” Rogers asks as we pause at the door.
“Forensics guy. Nothing helpful right now.” It’s not a lie; it’s just not real information.
We enter the lab, and a tall, pretty black woman in a lab coat stands up. “Roger,” she greets.
“Hi, Melanie,” he says, greeting her. “Good to see you on this one.” He motions to me. “This is Agent Love, FBI. She’s my protégé and a good one she is.”
“Nice to meet you, Agent Love,” Melanie says, offering me her hand.
“What would be nice is for you to tell me you know the toxin that killed my victims.”
She grimaces. “I wish I did.”
I’m about to pull up the email that Tic Tac sent me when she reaches over to the lab table and slides a piece of paper in my direction. “That’s a list of the toxins that are difficult, if not impossible to identify. We are deficient in equipment to find a few of these, but Beth will have access to that equipment when she arrives in Europe. We’re just trying to get approval to send samples to her.”
“I’ll get you the approval,” I say, picking up the list and noting the way she’s given me ways these toxins could be used and acquired. I glance up at her. “You’re efficient.”
“Of course, I’m efficient. I’m the head medical examiner for the district. If protocol hadn’t been broken, I would have handled this from the beginning. This is about lives lost. I take that seriously.”
“What about the suicide victim, Ralph Redman? Are you familiar with that case?”
“I am. It’s pretty cut and dry.”
“Take another look. Pretend it’s not.”
“Okay.” She looks confused. “What am I looking for?”
“What you’re supposed to look for. Everything and anything. You called me. You obviously have my number. Call me. Text me. Whatever. I’ll get that sample transport approved.” I glance at Roger. “What’s your plan now?”
“I think I’ll catch up with Melanie for a few minutes. You got time for lunch, Melanie?”
“I think I could swing that,” she says.
I leave the room, and I’m bothered by Roger and Melanie having lunch for no reasonable reason other than that territorial thing he pointed out. I’m also bothered by that odd call from Thomas. I wait until I exit the building, and I call Murphy. “What can I do for you, Agent Love?”
“I need samples shipped to Europe. The lab here is having trouble getting it approved.”
“Consider it approved. I’ll handle it.”
“Beth?”
“Just landed a few minutes ago. She’s safe. What else?”
“I’m going to a fundraiser for my father tonight. That means our fucked-up friends will be there.”
He laughs. “I don’t remember that being our chosen phone nickname.”
“I’m moving in with Kane.”
“Did you need a house warming gift?”
“That’s what you wanted, right? You get him through me?”
“It is a bonus, Agent Love.”
“What don’t I know about the two of you?” I ask the question I forgot to push Kane over last night.
“We have mutual enemies, and I like to keep my allies close.”
“Kane is not your ally. It’s a mistake to believe that.”
“But he is yours. I have a meeting, Agent Love. Let me know if you need anything more.” He disconnects, and I need to think again. That means I swing by the station, get a read on Lily, and then I’m going to head to Purgatory and get lost for a few hours until I’m trapped at that Godforsaken party. That niggling something is right there in my mind. If I can just get a damn pizza and some quiet, I’ll grab it. I’ll understand it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I arrive at the station with the lunch hour fast approaching and go straight to Houston’s office. Based on the conversation that includes words and phrases like “fuck,” “bastard” and “are you serious?” he’s apparently pissing someone off. He scowls at something said to him, glances up to lift a friendly finger at me, but quickly gets right back to pissing off the other person. Whil
e I appreciate his conversation skills, I really do, I leave. I don’t have time to be entertained. I head to the elevator to travel down a level to the place where my new, but temporary, team works.
The car halts, and I step off to stand face to face with Thomas, who is still big, broad, and in my space currently giving me no room. “Personal fucking space again, Thomas,” I snap. “Step back.” He does. “And where are you going?”
“To piss.”
“By way of an elevator?”
“There’s a snack machine downstairs. I need a snack.”
“A snack?”
“I have low blood sugar.”
I scowl. “Is that a lie?”
“I don’t lie.”
“Okay, whatever. Take a piss. Get a snack. I don’t care. Have everyone on our team give us a DNA sample including all the emergency and law enforcement that visited the locations of our crime scenes.”
“They won’t like that.”
“Did I ask if they would like it?” I step around him.
“Agent Love.”
I grimace and rotate to find him facing me now. “Yes, Thomas?”
“You think it’s one of us?”
“Get me my samples, Thomas.”
“Detective Williams still isn’t back.”
“I know.”
“Her boyfriend killed himself.”
“I know,” I repeat.
“The parents of one of the victims killed themselves.”
“You really didn’t need to piss and eat a snack all that badly, did you?”
“A reporter cornered me this morning. She seemed to think Ralph killed those women, that this is all connected.”
“Reporters are like the guy who says he loves you to get into your pants. They suck. Go take a piss, Thomas.” I leave him there and walk down a hallway and into Detective Williams’ office. It’s, of course, empty. I walk to the desk and sit down. She’s not dead yet. I’m sure of it. He has her. That bastard is saving her for me. She’s going to end up an Umbrella Girl, and I haven’t done nearly enough to figure out how the victims connect. Tic Tac is working that angle, but I need to look beyond the data. For that, Thomas gets a cookie. He got me focused on what’s important in that connection.
Standing up, I exit the office, scanning the sea of desks, until I find Lily’s workspace in a wall of cubicles, which is my destination. “What do you have for me, Lily?” I ask, claiming the chair by her desk.
“Agent Love.” She sits up straighter. “I tried to reach the victim’s parents to tell them Shelly was dead like you said, but they didn’t answer. Someone else told them and—it must have gone badly. I think I would have known it went badly had it been me. I think I would have sent help. I’m good that way. I read people’s voices. Now they’re dead, but you’re right; when it gets personal, you get motivated. And this feels personal.” She holds up a pad of paper with a list of names. “I’m calling every person I can find who might connect our victims. I’m going to find something to help you catch this asshole.”
“You didn’t make those people kill themselves.”
“Maybe if I would have called sooner. Maybe I should—”
“No. They were already dead. I talked to the officers on the scene. They’d been dead for days.” I lean in closer. “I believe the killer uses the people close to a victim and forces them to do things by promising he won’t hurt the people they love. And then, he tells them to kill themselves or they’ll get to watch the people they love die.”
Her eyes go wide. “Ralph killed himself. Are you saying—is Detective Williams next?”
“I believe she’s still alive right now. We need to catch this guy. We need someone to tell us what they know because someone knows something. Who do you think that might be?”
“I don’t know.” She doesn’t look away. She doesn’t blink. “I can do research. That’s my thing. I’m good at research. She’s my boss, so I feel weird digging into her personal life, but I can. I want to help. I really want to help.”
I know then that I’m wrong about her. She’s not being held captive but that doesn’t erase the fact that she lied to me the other night about what Mia Moore’s boss told her. What the fuck is this? I need to think. I need to get to Purgatory. I stand up. “You have a new boss coming in soon. I’ll let him direct you.”
Houston pokes his head into the cubical and motions me down the hallway, and I follow him into a vacant office. “First off,” he says, “your guy, Greg, won’t call me back and Murphy axed that idea anyway. He said you already know that. Do you want me to just bring in my guy?”
Fucking Murphy. And fucking Greg. Even if Murphy got to him, he should at least be calling me back. “I’ll talk to Greg and Murphy,” I say. “Give me the weekend. I’ll get back with you by Monday.”
“Okay then, next, in about ten minutes, the mayor is going to claim in a press conference that Ralph’s suicide was a tragic accident and that his focus will be on improving courthouse security. If he’s questioned about the two murders, he’s going to call them isolated and unrelated.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? I thought this was what you wanted. I thought you’d be happy.”
“I might have been a bit too flippant on that topic. This is going to go badly, and you’re going to get fired. It was nice working with you.” I turn to leave and stop. “Damn it.” I rotate to face him. “Murphy says I’m supposed to trust you and all that shit. Call the mayor.”
“And say what?”
“Leave that to me.”
“All right. I just hung up with him. He should answer.” He makes the call, has a short exchange, and hands me the phone.
“Agent Love,” the mayor greets.
“If we don’t give the killer credit, he may lash out. If we do, he may lavish the attention and lash out. He’s just that kind of bastard.”
“How is he going to lash out?” he asks.
“He’ll kill Detective Williams who I believe he’s kidnapped. She’s his prize. Unless she’s him, which I doubt, but it’s possible. Either way, you’ll be blamed for her death because the killer will leak something about your mishandling causing this tragedy to the press.”
“And you know this how?”
“It’s what I do,” I say. “You have to choose to trust me or not, but you’re worried about how you look for political reasons. That tends to make people stupid. Don’t be stupid.”
“Stupid? Did you really just say that to me?”
“You have a serial killer in your city, Mayor. What did you want me to say? Please make smart environmentally friendly choices.”
“What are you advising, Agent Love?”
“I’d delay the press conference a few days and give us time to work. Of course, that’s a risk. He’s impatient for attention, but basically, we’re fucked either way, so I’d wait. If he’s pissed, he’ll act out and that means we have a chance to catch him.”
“He could kill again.”
“And your press conference changes that how?”
“The press is going to leak this anyway,” he argues. “I have to speak to them.”
I shrug. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“It’s your call. It’s not mine. It’s not Houston’s. But consider my advice official FBI instructions. If you so choose to ignore them, that’s also officially on you.” I hang up and hand the phone to Houston.
He takes it, and I turn to leave.
“Lilah, damn it,” he bites out. “Do not walk away.”
“I need to work, Houston. I need to find Umbrella Man before he kills Williams.”
“And I need to help you do it.”
“Okay then. There was matching DNA found at both murder sites.”
“Thomas told me.”
“And I told Thomas to get me samples of everyone who was at those crime scenes and everyone who is working the cases. He’s afraid to ask or just creepy. O
r both. Either way, make sure he does it and send a team out to get samples from neighbors and co-workers and process them quickly.”
“Fuck. I don’t want to lose Williams.”
This is one of those moments when people want me to say something encouraging or sympathetic. I don’t do that. It’s not natural. But hell, I try. “That would suck,” I say, and with that valiant effort, I leave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I decide I just need to run by the apartment I apparently rented for nothing at this point, and grab the small amount of things I have there. It’s a quick trip and what strikes me during this visit is that I haven’t heard from Junior. Could it be that Junior is Umbrella Man? It’s possible, but it doesn’t feel right. More likely, Junior is in the Hamptons, and it’s not so easy to stalk me when I’m here, and Junior is there.
It’s close to three when I arrive at Kane’s place, our place, and this time, there is nothing waiting for me at the desk when I arrive. I wave to the guard, another familiar face, and head for the elevator when my weather app sends me an alert: Hurricane season isn’t over yet as Tropical Storm Beth charges toward the Long Island coastline, bringing torrential rains.
Fuck. Rain. That’s what he’s waiting for and Beth? It’s really called Beth? I step into the elevator and try to call Beth, but I have no signal. Impatient, I wait until I’m on our floor, and I dial again. Beth doesn’t answer. I leave a voicemail. “Beth. You’re there? All is well? We haven’t talked since you got there, but I need you to have your security person call me. Now. It would be excellent if he could do that now.” Fuck. I just made her panic. I decide not to speak another word. I’ll just stop now.
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