One Woman

by Jones, Lisa Renee

  I press my hands to my face and rush down the hallway toward the bathroom where I ran into Echo, which has me all but running into the tiny room and locking the door. I pull my phone from my purse and try my brother who doesn’t answer. I try again. Still no answer.

  I have to tell Jax about Randall and this means war. My fairy tale is now ending in war. I can’t just hide in the bathroom. I should have chased him down. I dial Savage who put his number in my phone a few days back. He answers on the first ring. “Randall is here. He’s my brother’s right-hand. Stop him from leaving. I need to see him again.”

  “Too late. He just got in his car.”

  “Damn it. Okay. Thanks.” I hang up and decide I just need to tell Jax and I can’t wait. It has to be now. I open the door and freeze. There’s an envelope lying there with my name on it. I grab it and stare down at the writing that looks familiar and I don’t know why. I need to know what this is. I have to know and I enter the bathroom, shut the door again, and open the flap. I pull out a medical test, a DNA test. Hunter’s name is on the test. My stomach knots at the sight of yet another name. And that name is my father’s.

  Oh my God.

  Hunter wasn’t Jax’s brother. He was mine.

  There’s a typed note with the test that reads: He was the real heir to the Knight throne, the eldest son. He would have owned the Knight and North empires when this came out. There are only two people who benefitted from Hunter’s death. Your brother and his brother: Jax North.

  My heart is racing, and my knees are weak. I grab the counter, and steady myself. Jax didn’t do this. My brother didn’t do this. No. No. No. I shove the paper back in the envelope, and I yank open the door. I need air. I need to think. I exit to the hallway and cut right where I find a door leading to a garden outside the party. I quickly step into the night, the lights flickering on the trail as if there’s yet another electrical short that I thought was fixed. Or maybe not. We’ve been at the house. It doesn’t matter. I head to the beach and I don’t stop until I’m at the sand. I toss my shoes, walk into the water, and open the envelope again, yanking out the paper; tearing it into pieces. I toss it in the water, letting it drown the way I feel like I’m drowning in the results of that test. I repeat with the note left for me.

  I watch the pieces melt into the water and not until every piece is missing do I toss the envelope and walk back to the beach. I’ve just picked up my shoes and started for the gardens when someone steps out of the shadows. It’s a woman in a red dress and it’s not Jill.

  THE END…FOR NOW

  ***

  Readers,

  Thank you so much for picking up ONE WOMAN! But fear not! TWO TOGETHER, the stunning finale to the NAKED TRILOGY is just two months away!

  PRE-ORDER AND LEARN MORE HERE:

  https://nakedtrilogy.weebly.com

  ***

  What’s next for me? My LILAH LOVE series has a book coming out: LOVE KILLS which picks up right where LOVE ME DEAD left off. It will be releasing on October 22nd! And then I have a standalone cowboy romance titled: TANGLED UP IN CHRISTMAS releasing on October 29th! And lastly, SAVAGE is getting his own trilogy!! Keep reading for the covers and info!

  KEEP READING FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER OF MY LILAH SERIES, AND THE FIRST CHAPTER OF TANGLED UP IN CHRISTMAS!

  ***

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  SAVAGE’S TRILOGY!

  BOOK ONE IN SAVAGE’S TRILOGY, SAVAGE HUNGER IS RELEASING DECEMBER 17TH!

  Rick Savage, but they call him Savage and for a reason. He can make you laugh and then rip your heart out. No one knows that more than me, Jasmine Marks, the woman he left bleeding from the heart. I loved him. Lord help me, I’ve never stopped loving him.

  Now, I’m engaged to another man, a brutal man I’m trapped into marrying, when to my shock, Savage returns home. Savage who I haven't heard from in years. I want to hate him. I have ever reason to hate him, but I can’t. I still love him and I fear he will save me just to leave me bleeding one last time. He stirs my desires, a dark, delicious, and dangerous man destined to hurt me and leave me. This time I’m not sure I'll survive.

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  MORE LILAH LOVE!

  MURDER NOTES—AVAILABLE NOW AND FREE IN KINDLEUNLIMITED

  MURDER GIRL—AVAILABLE NOW AND FREE IN KINDLEUNLIMITED

  LOVE ME DEAD— AVAILABLE NOW AND FREE IN KINDLEUNLIMITED

  LOVE KILLS—RELEASING OCT. 22ND AND AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER EVERYWHERE

  CHAPTER ONE OF

  LOVE ME DEAD

  It’s a fucking disaster, a downpour of epic proportions, the mother of all storms, that came out of nowhere. The kind of storm that demands you hunker down in the company of Cheetos, strawberries, coffee and/or booze. The latter choice, at least for me, depending on how irritated I am at the world at the time. The kind of storm that makes you want to do those things inside and by a fire. Not here, walking the Manhattan streets, with no umbrella, on my way to a crime scene. I pull the hood of my rain jacket lower, down to my brow and round the corner to find a carnival of uniforms, flashing lights, and an ambulance that will be the ride to the morgue. Rarely am I called in when the victim lives to talk about the crime. Dead bodies are my thing. They talk to me. I understand them. Those who are still living and breathing, not so much.

  My cellphone rings, and I halt, digging it from my field bag that rests at my hip. Glancing at my caller ID, I find Kane’s number, when he’s supposed to be on a plane, jetting off on the kind of business we don’t talk about but we pretend is something it’s not. Kane and I are both masters of pretending to be something we’re not. Me, an FBI agent who would never cross the line. Him, nothing more than the CEO of Mendez Enterprises, a company deeply rooted in oil, not the man who took over the Mendez cartel when his father died. He damn sure didn’t take on the Society, the deep state that secretly runs our government as some might call them, and force their retreat, even if only for the moment, with nothing but oil money. I decline the call, shove my phone back in my bag and start walking again. I can’t walk onto the crime scene feeling like I’m as transparent as Kane makes me feel, and I can’t think about the war we’ve managed to enter with the Society, at least not with this particular crime scene to think about.

  Nothing about me being called in on this case, a suspected serial killer’s involvement or not, makes sense, not when that request, per Director Murphy, my pain in the ass judgmental boss, came from my old mentor, Roger Griffin. Roger’s NYPD. I’m FBI. I’ve never known that power hungry, grumpy old man to ask for agency assistance. Hell, he doesn’t ask for help at all, and he doesn’t need it. He’s so damn good at what he does that he can look into the eyes of a killer and see a killer when someone else might see Mary fucking Poppins. I don’t know what he saw in me when he snapped me up so many years ago and started training me. I just know that I don’t want to know what he’ll see now.

  Cutting across the street, I beeline toward the yellow tape establishing the police perimeter, flashing my FBI badge at an NYPD ran site, and I don’t stop walking, my strides steady right up until the point that I’m standing outside the building that is the crime scene. Fortunately, there’s a small overhang taking the beating of the storm for me now, so I yank my hood down while watching an officer and his muddy boots enter the building. I step in front of Carl, the beat cop who just let that happen, a cop I’ve known from years back when I worked at the local NYPD.

  “Lilah fucking Love,” he greets, because this is my home base, this is where I got my start before relocating to LA with the FBI. Everyone here knows that I like the word fuck. The word fuck fucks with people. If there
was a book about my life, it would be called “Lilah Fucking Love Says Fuck You.” And then all those delicate people who get their feelings hurt easily would go away, thank you, Jesus. Unfortunately for Carl, before we’re through here, he’s going to be one of the people I offend. “Heard you were in LA working for the FBI,” he says.

  “And yet, I’m standing right here in New York City, wearing an FBI badge.”

  “Are you here to work the case?” he asks.

  “No, I’m here to bring you lunch.” I reach in my field bag and hand him a package of cheese crackers that are about a year old. “I heard it had been a long night.”

  “Smartass,” he grumbles, staring down at the crumbled mess in his hand. “I see your attitude hasn’t changed.”

  “You mean the one I learned from all you old-timers who thought I was too young to profile?”

  “You were a kid when you started out. You still are.”

  I don’t bother to tell him that twenty-eight is not a kid, or that my brother is North Hamptons’ police chief, a job he inherited from my father, who is now the mayor. I stopped justifying my skills versus my age a long damn time ago, but my silence doesn’t matter. Carl is still talking.

  “Take it from me,” he adds. “Opt out of this one. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  In other words, a little girl like me just can’t play with the big boys. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “You haven’t even been up there yet.”

  “Exactly,” I say. “I should, in fact, be up there right now, but you know why I’m not?” I don’t wait for a reply. “I’m not up there now because I’m standing here wondering what idiot thought this spot where we’re standing isn’t part of the crime scene? Which idiot is that, Carl?”

  He blanched. “I—the detective in charge—”

  “Before you finish your sentence, there’s a person who lost their life tonight. If that was your mother, father, daughter, son, or wife would you want muddy boots stomping past this door?”

  His jaw clenches. “I’ll handle it.”

  “Get a tarp here ASAP and set it up as wide as possible. We need the teams to be able to cover up and clean up before and after they leave the building.”

  “Got it. Handling it.”

  “Is Roger here yet?”

  “Roger Griffin?” he asks. “I haven’t heard any mention to him showing up. I thought that’s why they called you.”

  He’s wrong. Roger doesn’t give up a crime scene. “Who exactly is in charge of this scene?”

  “Lori Williams.”

  “Wrong answer,” I say. “I am.” I open the bag I have hanging at my hip and pull out a pair of booties, stepping close to the door to slip them on my wet feet.

  Another cop, a big burly guy with brown hair, tries to enter the building. “Hey!” I snap. “Don’t even think about walking in that door without covering up.”

  He glares at me. “Who the hell are you?”

  “The girl who will bitch slap you, and it only took one meeting, if you don’t do what the fuck I told you.” I shove my hand into a glove and then repeat.

  “That’s Lilah Love, Reggie,” Carl chimes in. “She’s FBI and a profiler here to help. She’s also a bitch. I’d take her seriously if I were you.”

  I give Reggie a condescending smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t turn you in to your boss. I’m not that big of a bitch. I’ll just tell the family of the victim that we’re sorry that the evidence was destroyed, but Reggie hates covering up, and we don’t like to make Reggie uncomfortable.”

  “Bitch,” Reggie bites out.

  “Now you get the idea,” I say, pleased that he’s not the slow learner I’d suspected. I eye Carl. “What floor?” I ask.

  “Ten,” Carl replies.

  I shrug out of my raincoat and drop it next to Carl because, unlike the rest of these assholes, I don’t plan on contaminating the evidence with a dripping wet jacket. I enter the building, stepping into a small foyer with mailboxes to the left. Taking nothing for granted, considering the fuck show this has proven to be, I scan the area, eyeing the ground, and even looking up toward the ceiling. I find nothing of interest, but I repeat my scan because what we miss the first time, we might not miss the second.

  I start the walk up the narrow stairwell, which must be a bitch to travel after a big meal or a bunch of booze. For a big man, it would require skill to navigate quietly, a detail that I tuck in the back of my mind for later review. Even without overindulgence, for someone who doesn’t run five miles a day, much of it in the Hamptons on the sandy beach, like myself, this walk would be tough. That says something about the person who maneuvered the steps and disappeared without notice. Unless they were noticed. Maybe they belong here. Maybe they visit regularly. Maybe they’re a delivery person.

  Apparently ten is the top level, and that was too simple a description for Carl. I pause at the top of the steps and canvas the roughly seven-by-four foyer, another tight spot, in this case, a tight spot that would be hard to escape for a woman being overpowered. There’s nothing here that presents like obvious evidence, just a few bagged jumpsuits waiting to be used, which tells me the scene is bloody. That’s one of my dirty secrets. Despite my comfort level with dead bodies, I don’t like blood, at least not in excess. Blood is actually fine. A bucket of blood, not so much. Blood to the ankles, which I’ve experienced, definitely not. I freak the fuck out. It’s a weakness that I don’t share with anyone, and yet, today, I’m asked for, by name, and the scene is bloody. Some might call that a coincidence, but as Roger taught me years ago and has always proven true, there is no such thing as coincidence. The fucked up part of this equation is that Roger knows exactly how I feel about blood. He was with me the first time I freaked out, the only time anyone of professional consequence has ever seen me freak out. Okay my ex back in LA might have seen a little bitty incident, too, but that was literally ankle deep blood, and he wasn’t a superior of professional consequence.

  LEARN MORE AND BUY HERE:

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  READY FOR A COWBOY ROMANCE?

  I’M RELEASING A STANDALONE, CONTEMPORARY COWBOY ROMANCE ON OCTOBER 29TH! YOU CAN PRE-ORDER TANGLED UP IN CHRISTMAS ON ALL PLATFORMS NOW!

  THIS IS THE SECOND STANDALONE BOOK IN THE TEXAS HEAT SERIES—THE FIRST BOOK: THE TRUTH ABOUT COWBOYS IS AVAILABLE IN EBOOK AND MASS MARKET EVERYWHERE!

  CHAPTER ONE OF TANGLED UP IN CHRISTMAS

  Hannah…

  I sit next to “Joe from Houston” on my flight to Dallas. Joe, a mid-thirties guy who might be nice enough if he didn’t use the gap between his teeth as a resource to spew inappropriate remarks my direction. In the hours since we boarded the same flight in Los Angeles, his efforts to acquire my phone number have gotten less and less restrained, his crude remarks making it quite clear that’s not all he wants. I’m not sure what that says about where I’m at in my life right now, probably not much, but starting over at twenty-eight, well, that’s another story. One I don’t wish to live, but I am.

  The wheels hit the runway, and I stare out the window, wondering if Texas still smells like queso, margaritas, and hot cowboys to me, as it once had. I fear not, though. I know not. The day I moved away to Los Angeles, right out of college, I stepped beyond those distractions and others. Distractions like Roarke Frost, the man who ripped out my heart and shattered it, and did so at a time when I needed him more than ever.

  But I didn’t need him, I remind myself. I made it on my own and quite well, at least until now. Now my plane has just pulled up to the gate, and as soon as the pilot winds down the engines, I’m in knots, wishing I was back in Los Angeles. Maybe that makes me a coward, hiding from the past, but nevertheless, that’s what I feel. Only there’s nothing back there for me. My famous photographer boss is in trouble, and I’m blacklisted right along with him. My dream job is no more. And since the cost of living in LA is more nightmare than dream, an
d my studio apartment above his studio is now under siege by the bank, home sweet home is all there is for me.

  It’s time to deplane, and my heart thrums in my ears. Joe from Houston is speaking to me, but I don’t hear many of the words coming out of his mouth. “You make cowgirls look good,” Joe says, and yes, I heard that and what follows. “How about that number? I can show you how good over dinner.”

  This will be my first time on Texas soil in six years. I’m not spending one night with this man. “I’m on my way to Whataburger,” I say. “And that’s a religious experience that requires I go alone.”

  He blinks. “Religious experience?”

  “Joe from Houston, if you’re from Texas and don’t know that Whataburger is a religious experience, you and I should break up before we ever get together.” We’re now deplaning, and he stands up. I do the same, grab my purse, and dart forward in front of him, praying I can escape him as we exit.

  Nervous energy overtakes me and I slide the strap of my purse across my chest because I do. Because it’s something to do as I wait my turn to exit. Soon, too soon, and somehow not soon enough, I’m walking up the ramp and darting in between people to avoid Joe from Houston. This mission actually aids in my mental state, keeping it focused on the task at hand, not the past, not the return to a home that is no longer home. I clear the waiting area and turn left with one goal: the bathroom, but I make it a few more steps and stop. My camera. Oh my God, I left my camera on the plane. A really expensive camera. My only really expensive camera. I can’t afford to launch an event planning business, as I hope to, and replace that camera.

  Panic ensues and I race back toward the plane, running right into Joe. “She came back. I knew she would.”