Bloody Vows

by Jones, Lisa Renee

  Andrew rather ceremoniously picks up his fork, as if he’s discouraging any words that might come out of Lucas’s mouth. Following that lead, Kane and I take a bite of the pot pie and the three of us share our approval. Even Lucas chimes in. “The pot pie is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. I had two on my own.”

  After that, we all just kind of look at each other and with good reason.

  It’s an odd, almost normal family moment. If you don’t think about Lucas trying to get me naked, and hacking illegally for the high of it despite a successful career in finance. Or about Andrew and Kane having slept with the same woman and buried the same body. Or about Kane being the son of a dead drug lord and nephew to a current drug lord. Or about my father who is not here because he’s a bastard. Or me. The stabby one. Still, I embrace the façade my mother would enjoy.

  “Anything on the fake Naomi?” I ask as Kane I both take another bite.

  “Nothing yet,” Andrew says. “That’s why I’m in a rush to eat and get back to work. Anything on your end?”

  “Chef Roswell was scheduled for Emma’s wedding,” I say.

  Andrew’s brows dip. “And then he ended up at your house? How?”

  “A service,” Kane replies. “But I had other options. I chose him because Lilah and I knew him from another event.”

  “One Pocher funded on behalf of Dad,” I insert.

  Andrew grimaces and accepts his drink from the waitress. “Are we really bringing Dad into a random murder?”

  “We’re following the connected dots,” I say. “I didn’t place Dad on the scoreboard. And I’m not saying he’s involved. I’m saying he’s a part of a circle.”

  “And you think the chef is part of that circle, too,” he comments. “No one made Kane call him.”

  “Which is true,” Kane agrees. “The circle here in the Hamptons is a small one. Once you’re in, you’re in. Obviously, the chef is in that circle.”

  “And someone used him to get to us,” I say. “Thus, our visit from fake Naomi tonight.”

  “Who’s fake Naomi?” Lucas asks.

  “That’s the question,” I reply. “We don’t know.”

  “The question is,” Andrew interjects with a lift of his fork, “was fake Naomi the one who left you that jar of blood and killed Emma?”

  “A jar of blood?” Lucas demands, leaning in closer. “Lilah, what is going on?”

  “My job,” I say, tuning him out and focusing on Andrew. “My gut says she’s a player in a game, not the creator of the game.”

  The waitress sets the extra pot pie on the table and Kane and I order iced tea. When she departs, I continue. “I keep going back to a text Emma sent Jamie. One more time for the history books, she’d said. That sounds like a game to me, and I’m not sure it’s related to sex.”

  “That’s exactly what it is,” Lucas interjects. “One more time for the history books is a part of a game called ‘Banking the Billionaire.’ It was meant to teach people how to invest. It took off and went nuts. It’s crazy popular. ‘One more time for the history books’ references one last financial score before you get out of the game, at least that set of the game.”

  Emma Wells was playing a game.

  And someone wanted me to find out, or they would have taken Emma’s phone.

  Someone wants me to play, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I grab the pad of paper and pen next to Lucas. Quickly, eager for answers, I jot down names to include the chef, Emma herself, her deceased husband, her fiancé, and of course, the real Naomi Wells. I slide it back in front of him. “Are they part of the game?”

  “Everyone uses a code name assigned by the game system,” he replies. “I’ll have to search IP addresses and phone numbers.”

  “Who owns the game?” Andrew asks.

  “Unknown,” he says, “and every time you try to track the servers, they show up in another part of the world. But that said, I haven’t tried to find out myself. I’ve just heard the chatter on random forums. There are rumors it’s used for nefarious communication of various types, but I can’t confirm that.”

  “Try,” I say. “I’ll get you a payday from the FBI and credit. That will help you find some level of immunity for your other activities we both know you didn’t stop.”

  At this point, I’m already pulling up the photos I took of Emma’s text messages. I write down her and Jamie’s numbers. “That’s the victim’s phone number,” I point to the first number. “And this,” I add, pointing to the second, “is someone named Jamie she was texting with about one more time for the history books. Jamie’s phone number is a throwaway. Show us what you can do.”

  He smirks and gives a small incline of his head toward Andrew. Andrew finishes off his pot pie. “I won’t arrest you until after Christmas. And since I’m told you’re an FBI asset, maybe not until after the New Year.”

  “Just do it,” I say, and Lucas doesn’t seem to need more encouragement. He tugs the paper closer. I pull Kane’s pot pie between us. We don’t touch it. Both of us are watching Lucas. It takes him all of two minutes to say, “Neither of these numbers are on the game system. But—Jamie’s phone can be partially traced.”

  “Not per our tech team,” Andrew says, motioning to the waitress, and mouthing, “Cake,” before he adds, “That was one of the first things we tried.”

  Lucas punches in a few more keys and says, “It was purchased at a smoke shop, aka a corner store, three months ago.”

  He grabs his notepad from me again, scribbles down the address, and hands it back to me. “It’s in the city. And they don’t have security cameras. I checked. However, there are street cameras. I pulled up the nearby feed for the timestamp. All I got was this.”

  He turns the computer around and shows us an image of a person in a large jacket and a baseball hat pulled low. “That’s doesn’t help,” Andrew says, “but what the hell, Lucas? What are you doing, man? Besides trying to get yourself in trouble?”

  “Working for the FBI,” I say, focusing on Lucas. “What about further down the street?” I ask. “Can we get a better image?”

  “The person goes down into the subway,” he replies, “and there’s no way to know where they come back up to the street level.”

  “In other words,” I say. “Jamie made damn sure he wasn’t going to be found.”

  “He bought six phones that day,” Lucas says, turning his computer around to face him again. He scrolls through some kind of data and writes down the six numbers. He then starts keying them into his computer. A minute later he says, “Bingo. Two of the numbers are registered on the game. If I can get to them while they’re on the game live, I can track their IP address.” He eyes Kane and gives him a little chin lift, like, “See, I’m a badass.”

  Kane actually laughs and Andrew and Lucas both look at him like he’s an alien. Because they don’t know the Kane I know. “Who are you?” Andrew asks him.

  “I thought you already knew all there was to know about me,” Kane challenged. “So you tell me.”

  Andrew’s cellphone rings and he scowls at the interruption, apparently eager to continue that challenge with Kane. Thankfully, for his own good, he glances at his caller ID and takes the call. “Talk to me. Did we get her?”

  I wait for that answer, disappointed at my brother’s scowl that tells me all I need to know before he tells his caller, “I’ll be at the station in twenty.” He disconnects. “We found the car fake Naomi was driving. No fake Naomi. The car was stolen from a Westbury, Long Island, address a good hour and a half away over a month ago.”

  “What about cameras on the highway?” Lucas asks.

  “Not on that stretch of highway.” He glances between me and Kane and adds, “Bottom line, unless we get some kind of DNA or prints from the car or your place, that we can actually match up to the database, she got away.”

  My mind flashes to the moment when fake Naomi brought us that plate of shrimp
. She was wearing gloves. “Fake Naomi was wearing gloves every moment I saw her in the house,” I say. “I’m guessing she wore them in the car as well. And even if you found DNA evidence, as you said she has to match up to the database. I’m betting she won’t. This was well planned and she was calculated in all she did. We might as well all be wearing clown noses. She made fools of us. And yes, she got away.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  By the time Andrew leaves, I have eaten cake and pie, and we’ve all agreed that Chef Roswell feels more like a token in the game, not a real player, but we’re not ruling him out. I order some cake to go, and once Kane has paid for our meal, we prepare to leave.

  “Don’t you need me to look some more stuff up for you?” Lucas asks, looking baffled.

  “Find me those IP addresses,” I say. “That’s what matters.”

  “I can set-up a program and capture those numbers when they sign on,” he says. “I can do more.”

  “Find out what nefarious acts are performed under the cover of the ‘Billionaires Are Bullshit’ site.”

  “Banking the Billionaire,” he corrects as if I’ve forgotten the name.

  “Banking your bullshit,” I say. “Maybe you can’t do it.”

  “Not this again,” Lucas snaps. “I’ll find what you need, but I want an official FBI role. I want to know I’m covered.”

  “I’ll make it happen,” I say when of course, I’m the one banking on bullshit. Murphy isn’t big on bullshit, but he wants me on his team, too. Almost too much, I think. But then, the man was in love with my mother. For now, that’s the only nefarious thing I’ve found on Murphy, though Kane has hinted at more. It’s time I push him for answers I should have pushed for long ago. He hasn’t been willing to talk, but that no more secrets part of our storyline is clear and present.

  It’s time to talk.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, with that and more on my mind, Kane and I are on the road when I motion to a certain street and Kane knows exactly what I want. This is the path to my old house, the one I inherited from my mother that burned down several weeks back.

  On the short drive, memories punch at me, so many memories, good and bad, and Kane is a part of most of them. No. Some of them. He pulls to a halt in what was my driveway and kills the engine. It’s a bright night, the moon high, the snowstorm long past.

  For a moment, I just sit there in the car, we just sit there, until I reach for the door handle, and step outside. Kane joins me at the front of the car. We lean back on the hood, side by side, and stare at the rubble that is left of my house, the ocean wide and long just beyond. The beach where I was attacked and grabbed that knife, is between the two. For a long time, that night and that knife was between me and Kane.

  The wind rushes over us and I snuggle deeper into my coat. “My mother came here to avoid my father,” I say. “She obviously knew what I’m only now finding out about him.” I glance at Kane. “She hated him. She wanted the divide. When I left New York to avoid you, it was because I knew I couldn’t stay away from you any other way. And I thought we were bad for each other.”

  “But you did hate me.”

  “I hated myself. My mom hated him,” I reiterate. “The night she died, she was with Lucas’s father. I need to know why.”

  “I dug around,” he says, which doesn’t surprise me. “I didn’t find evidence of an affair. I didn’t even find evidence of them communicating often.”

  “It seems like Pocher wanted them both dead.” I dive deeper into a hell hole when I say, “Or my father. Maybe it was my father. It felt like he knew about my attack.” I move on before he can reply. “Maybe she had something on him. Or Pocher. Or both. Maybe that’s why this house is rubble. That something was inside.”

  “Unless it wasn’t,” Kane says. “Would she really have kept something that big here?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, “but it was her private space. But then again, maybe it was with Lucas’s father. Or even a lockbox.” I step in front of him. “What do you know about Murphy? It’s time to tell me.”

  “I agree,” he says.

  I blink. “You agree?”

  “Yes. I wanted to know more before I told you, but I think I know enough now that it’s time we talk about this. There was a point when he was in rapid communication with Pocher, years ago, close to the time your mother died.”

  I blanch, and I never blanch. “What? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. The very man he says he wants to take down, he has had direct communication with. The very man who ordered your attack and your mother’s murder.”

  “Does that continue?”

  “No. Right after your mother died, that relationship died.”

  My heart is thundering in my chest. “I’ll kill him if—”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. Maybe he was undercover trying to take him down. Maybe that’s how, and when, he fell for your mother. It seems logical that she was helping him and they fell in love.”

  He’s right, it does, and I only believe that because of how damn passionate Murphy is when he talks about my mother. “Can you find out?”

  “I’ve tried,” he says, and to me, that means there are big roadblocks. Near impossible roadblocks. “We could just confront him. Together.”

  “And he could lie. Maybe Lucas can help get answers, especially if his father was somehow involved.”

  “You have protection, Lilah,” he reminds me. “In many forms. Your badge, your connection to your father, and me. Lucas doesn’t. Leave him out of this.” He catches my hip and changes the subject. “And marry me sooner rather than later. When, Lilah?”

  “You say that like I’ve put it off. You just proposed, Kane.”

  “I proposed years ago,” he reminds me. “I’ve waited patiently on you and I am not a patient man.”

  My hand settles on his chest where his heart thunders beneath my palm. Kane’s heart doesn’t thunder. Except for me, which is why I answer easily. “New Year’s Eve. Is that fast enough? That lets us start a new year the right way. Together.”

  “That doesn’t give you time for the dream wedding every woman wants.”

  “I’m not every woman,” I remind him.

  “There is a piece of your mother in you that most don’t see, but I do. Be that woman for your wedding. I know a part of you craves that.”

  “New Year’s Eve, Kane,” I repeat. “I don’t want to put on a show for anyone else. I want it to be about you and me. Small and intimate, in the living room, with the tree still up.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Very. But I’m keeping Lilah Love. I can’t lose my stripper name. “

  His lips quirk, “But the traditional Mexican man in me is a little too macho to let that happen.”

  I laugh. “You? Macho? Never. I’ll hyphenate. Lilah Love-Mendez. How is that?”

  “Lilah ‘fucking’ Love-Mendez? I can live with that.”

  I laugh and wrap my arms around him, sobering as I do. “I don’t know what to do about the house, Kane.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. I know your first reaction was not to rebuild. I know your mother hid from your father here, it was her sanctuary. But that also made you feel close to her.”

  He’s right which is exactly why I’ve gone back and forth about this decision. “I really don’t want to leave it like this and I don’t want to sell it.”

  “Why don’t we re-build and make it our place in the Hamptons? You can design a Purgatory just the way you want it. And before you answer, yes, you were also attacked here, but you survived here.”

  He’s right. I did. And in the end, we did. “What about your house?”

  “And there lies the reason to rebuild, at least one of them. You still call it my house. We’ll sell it. Or keep it. We’ll figure it out. But as a bonus, rebuilding and moving here would make a statement. It would tell the Society they didn’t get rid of you, or us. It would b
e a real fuck you to the Society.”

  “Sold,” I say, without hesitation, because, yes, fuck you to the Society. I’m coming for them. And I won’t stop until I win. And as for Director Murphy, he’d better pray he’s not involved with the Society. Or killing my mother. Or I will kill him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Once Kane and I are back in the car, with the heater blasting, I have tomorrow on my mind and still no update from DD on the autopsy. I shoot her a text message: Is there an autopsy in the morning or a fashion shoot?

  She replies with: You really are a bitch.

  I answer with: Thank you. I still need an answer.

  Eight AM, she replies. Room B. Sweet dreams while you can, Special Agent Love.

  It’s a weird reply that almost seems like a threat though she isn’t exactly someone who intimidates with such things. Rather than ask what she will deny, I reply with: Abso-fucking-lutely. I don’t have a problem with dead bodies, remember?

  She doesn’t reply.

  My mind goes to Andrew and all the new and old snakes slinking about around him. I shoot him a message: Call me when you get a break. Not urgent but important enough for you not to pretend to forget.

  Not long later, Kane and I arrive home to find the house is clear, and Jay is there waiting on us. Jay is a tall, dark, good looking enough guy, I guess, with a scar on his cheek, and a personality, I don’t hate. Which is saying a lot, considering he’s supposed to be my backup when things get dicey, but he might actually need my protection.

  We join him in the kitchen that is now spotless, free of all signs of a dinner and cops digging about. “Did you eat the mac ‘n’ cheese?” I ask him.

  “The poisoned macaroni and cheese?” he asks.

  “Unconfirmed poison,” I correct. “And why not? You dived in front of a bullet for me. Why not just test the food?”

  He crosses his arms as if protecting himself from yet another shot, this one coming from me. “You’re never going to let me live down jumping in front of that bullet, are you?”