Bloody Vows

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “All right,” Andrew agrees, softening some now. “Jay gets the rest of that bottle of whiskey, but why do I need him? Where are you two going?”

  “To find Lucas,” I explain. “I need him to hack now more than ever.”

  “He’s a stockbroker,” Andrew says. “What is all this talk about him hacking?”

  “He’s an investment banker,” I correct. “And I’d tell you, Captain America, but then I’d have to kill you. Consider him an FBI asset and leave it at that.” I glance at my watch. It’s now five o’clock. “Isn’t Micki’s diner open until like ten?”

  “Midnight,” he says. “They’ve become a late-night Thanksgiving tradition around here.”

  “Perfect. We’ll meet you there when you’re done here. We can eat and debrief. Or we can come to your house. You don’t have company, right?”

  He scowls because we both know I’m talking about Samantha. A moment later, he escapes that topic when his cellphone rings. He glances at the number and the pink of his cheeks tells me, it’s the Wicked Witch herself. “Micki’s,” he says, then answers the call with, “Police Chief Love.”

  “I wonder if she calls him that when they’re alone,” I say, glancing up at Kane.

  “Probably,” he says. “Meanwhile, the only thing you call me when we’re alone is asshole.”

  “With love,” I assure him as we grab our coats and get the hell out of there.

  By the time we’re inside Kane’s Mercedes and on the road, our exchange has sent me back to the text message Emma had sent to Jamie: One more time for the history books.

  I’d read it and believed they were talking about sex. But Emma was getting married in a few weeks, supposedly in love with her fiancé. So much so that him missing a holiday clearly upset her. I’m not naïve enough to believe that means she wasn’t sleeping with only one man. Or that she might have been seeking refuge with an old lover. But what if that text message with Jamie wasn’t a booty call? What if it was something else?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Twenty minutes later, Kane pulls the car to a halt in front of Lucas’s dark house.

  “Though I know you hate when people state the obvious,” Kane comments. “He doesn’t appear to be home.”

  “Actually,” I say, popping my door open, “I could use a big dose of anything obvious right about now. I’m going to find out if he’s hiding from us or someone else, sleeping, or dead.”

  “How about he’s just not home?” Kane offers.

  “Right. That too.” I exit the Mercedes, straighten, my firearm at my side, tucked under my coat, and shut the door.

  By the time I’ve raced through the bitingly cold wind blasting off the nearby ocean, and I’m ringing Lucas’s doorbell, Kane is by my side. There’s no answer. I ring the bell again and still, there’s no answer. Grimacing, and biting back words I’d rather save for Lucas, I snap up my phone and punch the auto-dial for Lucas. It goes straight to voicemail. Earlier, it at least rang. I’m really not liking how this is reading.

  Fortunately, Lucas has one of those fancy front door keycode entry points, and I just happen to have the code. I punch it in and glance up at Kane. “Before you bitch about me knowing the code, it’s been the same for years.”

  “You having his code for years doesn’t sound good, Lilah.”

  “Right. Well, maybe not, but for the record, it sounded good in my head. And we both know you know I’m haven’t, nor will I ever, sleep with Lucas.” I push open the door and flip on the light. “Lucas!” I call out.

  He doesn’t answer. I pull my firearm and head down the hallway. “Lucas!”

  Still no answer.

  “I’ll check upstairs,” Kane says, pausing by my side, just on the edge of the living room.

  “Look for his laptop,” I say. “Where it is, he is.”

  He nods and he’s already moving up the stucco-framed staircase, but Kane doesn’t pull the firearm I know he has on his person.

  I shove mine back in the holster, any sense of real danger simply not present. With my hands free now, I walk the lower level of the house, flip on the rear light to survey the pool area, all areas free of any signs of struggle or dead bodies. There’s also no laptop. My last stop is the kitchen, which looks clean and unused. I walk to the fridge and open the door, scanning the contents.

  “Looking for a jar of blood?” Kane asks, from behind me.

  I turn to find him leaning his shoulder on the archway. “More like the turkey pot pie he said he ordered for dinner,” I say, shutting the fridge again. “And the coconut cake he was supposed to bring for dessert. None of it exists.”

  “Unless he took it to someone else’s house,” Kane suggested.

  “Why would he lie about food? And why not just tell me he had plans?”

  “Good question. Maybe he took the food with him, came to our house, saw the police cars and panicked. He is a hacker.”

  “But why ignore my calls?” I walk to the trashcan and look inside. There’s no sign of takeout containers or even a paper plate that held a slice of cake. I glance at Kane. “Any sign of the laptop?”

  “None, but I did find a Taylor Swift poster. How old is Lucas?”

  “Considering he used to have The Backstreet Boys and Weird Al, Taylor is a step up. And now you know why you never have to be jealous over Lucas. Clearly, I’m more the Scarface or Godfather type.”

  He ignores my clear reference to him and his family and says, “There’s a difference between jealousy and my general distaste for all things Lucas. His desire to fuck you is disrespectful to me and you.”

  “And here we see my very own Scarface in your reply. It’s a game to him, Kane,” I say, pausing as I say the words, and remembering something Lucas had said to me recently about his inability to stop hacking. “And an addiction,” I murmur. “A high. In fact, the way it agitates you is probably part of the high. It’s dangerous. And he likes danger.”

  “Why do I know we are no longer talking about Lucas?” Kane asks.

  “It’s a game, a high,” I repeat, my eyes meeting his. “A dangerous one.”

  “What’s more daring than showing up at our house after challenging you with that jar of blood?”

  “Exactly,” I say, “but—” My brows dip. I’m back to those text messages Emma exchanged with Jamie. “Emma exchanged a text message with a person we can’t identify,” I tell Kane. “I thought they were about sex, but my mind is going elsewhere now.”

  “Why sex and now no sex?”

  “I keep thinking that this is a game. And her words were ‘one more for the history books.’ Maybe she was part of the game and it turned deadly.” I wave off my speculation. It’s nothing more right now. “I’m letting my mind run wild because I have no real facts yet.” I shift back to Lucas.

  “Lucas goes nowhere without his laptop. That means he took it with him, or someone took it and him. I need to look at his security feed.” I hurry out of the kitchen, walk down the hallway, and check his security panel. I try a code. It doesn’t work. I try another. After ten tries, I give up.

  At this point, Kane is standing behind me, his hand on the wall above my head. I turn to face him. “Be forewarned. If he’s not dead, I’m going to kill him.”

  “He’s not dead, beautiful,” he promises.

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I’ll have my men find him tomorrow.”

  And there it is. Reason number one hundred and one to marry him.

  He has men who really do know how to find people.

  Never mind that I’m an FBI agent, and his people that find people probably—okay, most definitely—also know how to make people disappear.

  Sometimes there are people like the Umbrella Man and say Pocher, who require those skills be put to use. The problem is, at least how I see it at the moment, Kane’s not the only person who knows how to make people disappear. And Lucas appears to be missing.

  CHAPTER TW
ENTY-FOUR

  Kane and I walk into the diner, two ants in an ant pile of hungry people.

  There are no open tables. We order takeout and Kane is paying the bill when my gaze lifts and lands on Lucas. He’s at a corner table, laptop open, a slice of strawberry pie by his side, the same strawberry pie I was just told was sold out.

  He scoops a big bite of that pie and must sense me staring at him because he looks up and drops that fork, perfectly good pie splattering about. Too bad he’s wearing a black sweater or he’d be looking like a strawberry pop tart right about now.

  I start walking toward him and by the time he’s on his feet, I’m in front of him. “What the hell, Lucas?” I demand.

  He holds up his hands. “I can explain.”

  “Before I tell you to talk fast and do just that and more,” I reply, “Kane and I were in your house, searching for your dead body.”

  “Oh hell.” He scrubs his jaw. “Kane was in my house?”

  “Yes, and since you’re so high-tech you should know that.”

  “Maybe I did,” he snaps, bristling.

  “You didn’t. I see it in your face. And wait for it,” I add. “Kane saw Taylor Swift.”

  “I hide code on the back of that,” he says defensively.

  Like he’d ever write hacking code down anywhere. “How many lies are you going to tell me in twenty-four hours, Lucas?”

  “Okay. Fine. I like Taylor Swift. Kill me, why don’t you?” He holds up his hands again. “Not literally, Lilah.”

  “And yet,” I assure him, “it’s so very tempting to at the very least bust your balls, but you know why I’m not?”

  “This is a trick question, right?”

  “Because I believe one day you might settle down and try to have kids and I will have taken that ability from you. I’m handling a murder case that’s gotten personal. You’re family. I thought you were dead.”

  “Wait.” His lips quirk. “Are you telling me you were worried?”

  “I’m telling you I’m pissed off.”

  Kane steps to my side. “Where’s my coconut cake I was promised?”

  Lucas’s lips press together. “That’s the thing,” he starts, obviously preparing an excuse. “I told Lilah that I bought food so she wouldn’t worry about me being alone. There was no cake. There is no cake. I came to buy one and they were sold out.”

  “And so you just didn’t come to the house,” I comment. “You’re such a little bitch, Lucas.” I sit down at the seat across from his faithful laptop and grab the pie beside it. Kane settles into the seat next to me. “They’re bringing our food to the table.”

  “Perfect,” I say, taking a bite of the pie and then offering him the fork. He doesn’t like strawberry pie, but he takes a bite.

  And I know very well it’s so Lucas cannot.

  Reason number one hundred and two to marry him, not that I need convincing.

  Lucas sits down across from me and slides his laptop to the side, his energy uncomfortable.

  As it should be.

  “I need more stuff,” I say, sliding the pie between Kane and I to save it for dessert.

  Lucas pulls his laptop back in front of him. “As long as it’s not more pie or cake since they’re sold out, hit me with it. And just so you know, I’ve pulled the data you wanted. I’ll download it all to a file for you before we leave.”

  “Anything good?” I ask.

  “There are connections between Pocher and almost everyone in the town. Every major event that is widely attended is a dot that connects to him. As of late, that means your father, as well.”

  “In other words, no,” Kane supplies. “He’s found nothing that good. I told you. He’s not that good. You need Tic Tac.”

  Lucas straightens. “All right. Challenge accepted.” He eyes the diner and then Kane. “See the woman in red? Give me fifteen seconds and I’ll tell you her life story.” He punches in a few keystrokes and says, “Her name is Nicki Wright. Age 32. Her social security number is 444-56-7734. She’s presently chatting on a dating site with some man twice her age who is loaded. Or so she thinks. He’s telling her his name is Madison Moore. It’s really Ricky Wilson, and he’s nineteen, and still lives at home with his mother.”

  A waitress appears and fills mine and Kane’s coffee cups. When she leaves, Lucas is still waiting on Kane’s kudos. Poor man-boy has a hard lesson coming his way.

  “That,” Kane says, “was equivalent to petty theft. And I have about ten guys who can do that on staff.”

  Lucas scowls at Kane and then looks at me. “I doubt that.”

  “Have you tried to hack me, Lucas?” Kane asks.

  The minute I look at Lucas and spy the guilt smeared all over his pretty face, like jelly on a bun, all I can think is oh shit.

  “You have,” Kane supplies. “And what, Lucas, did you find?”

  “That you are not your uncle.” He reaches into his bag where it hangs on the edge of his chair, pulls out a data stick, and slides it toward Kane. “That’s a peace offering, my way of showing you I’m loyal to Lilah, I’m loyal to you. He doesn’t know how to protect himself or his assets. You better clean that shit up.”

  I don’t look at Kane. I don’t have to. I can feel the spike of predatory energy in him. And I can feel his stare resting coldly on Lucas. And I know what is coming. Lucas may think he’s cornered Kane. He may think this is how he earns a place in Kane’s inner circle. Or maybe he thinks he can hold Kane hostage to therefore protect himself, and even his relationship with me, in some way. But he’s a mere rabbit taunting a lion. All the lion has to do is flick his paw and this is over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kane picks up the data stick, eyes it, and then fixes a hard stare on Lucas. “These are my uncle’s secrets?”

  “Yes,” Lucas replies.

  Kane leans forward and drops the stick in the glass of soda sitting near Lucas. “I’m not my uncle. I want nothing to do with his business. And if you have duplicates, I suggest you get rid of them. Or you could always offer your services to my uncle. That’s a good life-long gig. Of course, as my father proved, it will be a short life.”

  “Is that a threat?” Lucas demands, eyeing me. “Are you going to let him threaten me?”

  I shrug. “I don’t save people from their own stupidity on an empty stomach. I’m just not made that way.”

  “If I was threatening you,” Kane replies, “you wouldn’t have to ask. Don’t connect me to my uncle. Ever.”

  “Holy hell, this place is a madhouse.”

  At the sound of Andrew’s voice, I turn to find him rounding the table to join us. “Did you already order?” he asks. “I’m so damn hungry I could eat from the plates on people’s tables.” He laughs and sits down next to Lucas and across from Kane, but he’s looking at me. “Remember Mom said that in that one movie?”

  I actually laugh despite being suffocated by the testosterone at present, but I give none of the men at the table credit, not even Andrew. I give it to my mother and the fond memory of being on the movie set the day she shot that scene. “She had to shoot twenty takes, stuffing her face each time. She gained five pounds.” I glance at Kane. “You know the scene.”

  His arm slides around me, and instantly his expression softens. “I do. I believe we’ve watched it about a hundred times.” It’s a very human moment for him and me. Because together, we are human. Apart is a whole other story. Kane glances at Andrew. “And yes, we’ve ordered. You’d better grab a waitress.”

  At that moment, as if she heard us, our waitress appears and sets a bowl of freshly made bread with butter in the center of the table. Andrew grabs a roll. “What’s the fastest meal I can get? I have to get back to work.”

  “Turkey pot pie,” the waitress replies. “It’s a favorite and we’ve prepped well.”

  “Then I’ll have the turkey pot pie,” Andrew says, “and a slice of that coconut cake you guys make. And a Dr. Pepper,”
he adds.

  “They’re sold out of the coconut cake,” Kane informs him and eyes Lucas to add, “Isn’t that right, Lucas?”

  Andrew gives Kane and Lucas a strange look while the waitress confirms. “We are indeed sold out of the coconut cake.”

  “What do you have for sweets?” Andrew asks.

  “Chocolate cake,” she offers.

  He lifts a finger. “I’ll take it.”

  “Make that two,” I say. “I think I’m going to need chocolate when this meal is over.”

  “And a fresh coke,” Lucas adds, sliding the one with the data drive inside it toward her.

  “Got it,” the waitress replies, picking up the glass. “And the rest of the food will be right out.” She hurries away.

  Andrew looks around the table. “Why is it weird at this table?” He meets Kane’s stare and adds, “Aside from Kane being here.”

  Kane’s lips curve ever so slightly while Lucas motions to Kane. “I called his football team pussies.”

  I jump on that and say, “And I told Lucas he shouldn’t give away a name he wears so well.”

  He scowls at me. “You know, Lilah—”

  “Food is ready,” the waitress announces, cutting off what we all know would be a lame insult. Lucas is a smooth operator with women, an expert with money and technology, but he’s terrible at tongue wars.

  Soon Kane and I have pot pies in front of us, with bubbling sauce piercing the light flaky crust, and the delicious scent has my stomach growling. I’m ready to dig in when Kane slides his pot pie in front of Andrew. Andrew eyes him and says, “You just want to get rid of me.”

  “And you, me,” Kane says. “So eat and go back to work.”

  I slide mine in between me and Kane. “I’ll share with Kane. We share stuff.” I wiggle my finger. “That’s what this ring means.”

  Lucas grimaces at the ring and looks like he wants to say something but thinks better.