“Cindy, it’s Lilah. I need Kane.”
“He’s not in yet.”
My heart thunders in my chest. What the hell is going on?
“He’s not in yet?” I repeat, when I hate it when people repeat what I just said like I didn’t just clearly say it.
“No,” she confirms. “I was expecting him, but he must be running late.”
“Has he called?” I ask.
“No. Is there something wrong?”
“I just need to get him some important information ASAP.”
“I can have him call you,” she offers. “Or I can try to reach him.”
“No. I’ll call him on his cell. Thanks.” I disconnect and there is a stabbing sensation in my chest. He’s okay, I tell myself. Of course, he’s okay. He’s Kane. Who is human. I just reminded us both that he’s human. I text him: I must really love you because I’m worried. I don’t worry. You know I don’t worry. And please, yes please, call me. Or text me. Or have someone let me know that you’re okay.
I dial the airport in the Hamptons. “This is Special Agent Lilah Love. I need to know if Kane Mendez boarded his flight this morning.”
The woman on the other end of the line says, “I’m not sure I can release that information. Hold on.” There is silence and then she’s back. “I’m sorry. I’d need a warrant to give you that information.”
She’s right, of course. She’s following the proper rules, damn her. I hang up and dial Tabitha, the wicked witch, Kane’s secretary in the Hamptons. “Lilah,” she greets, sounding like she has a stick up her ass. She doesn’t like me. I dislike her and her fake boobs even more, probably because she wants to rub them all over Kane. Not that I’m jealous. I’m not. Kane doesn’t want her and I’m fairly sure he has something on her, thus why he trusts her. Just another line item on the list of things I need to know.
“I need to speak to Kane,” I tell her.
“He’s in New York City today,” she replies. “I thought you both were.”
“I need you to locate him now.”
“Well, if you don’t know, I don’t know if I can—”
“Do it,” I bite out, “or I swear I will come there, pull your ass into the station, and lock you up for the rest of your fucking life.”
“You can’t—”
“Try me,” I dare. “Do it now, and if something happens to him before you call me back, Lord help you.”
I hang up and my fingers curl into my palms. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I exit the airport to find Jay standing next to yet another Escalade. Jesus. What is it with that vehicle? Who decided that terrorists and criminals take one look at a black four-door box and quiver in their shoes? Apparently, the greatest snake-oil salesman on planet Earth.
Heading in Jay’s direction, the cold wind whips around me with blistering impact, but I tune it out, with only one thing on my mind: Kane.
I stop close enough to Jay to speak for his ears only, not that anyone else is out in this cold-ass day. “Kane never made it to the office,” I say. “He’s not answering my calls or text messages. Call whoever you have to call inside his security team and make sure he’s safe.”
He curses in Spanish and reaches for his phone, not the reaction I’d hoped for. I’d hoped to be angry because Jay knew something I didn’t. I could live with kicking Kane’s ass. He’d live, too, but just barely. The idea that none of us know where he’s at rattles me. I don’t get rattled.
Hurrying around the vehicle, I climb inside the passenger side of the Escalade, heat blasting. Since I’ll go crazy if I don’t do my job right now, I pull up the addresses I put in my phone last night, namely the one for Naomi Wells. Jay climbs inside the automobile.
“I called Kit,” he says. “You know he’s the man Kane trusts over all others.”
Kit is the man Kane has working security when we’re in the city, and at our apartment. A man who is big and smiles a lot, but in his eyes, I see that he kills easily. And he’s right. Kane trusts Kit. “Yes,” I confirm. “I should have thought of Kit. And?”
“Kane didn’t arrange security today. He had his own car at the airport. Kit is sending a man to find out if it’s still at the airport. More soon. He’s going to call one or both of us. Where do you want to go?”
I glance at Naomi’s address and say, “Murray Hill,” followed by the cross streets.
Jay sets us in motion and with Kane’s warning in my head, I dial Lucas. Thankfully he answers on the first ring, skipping all preamble. “Nothing on those IP addresses yet,” he says. “But I’ll know when, and if, they sign-on. I’m on this.”
Which is exactly what I wanted last night and I was afraid of today. “Aren’t you working today?”
“You know I work from home when I’m not meeting with clients. And I got those employee records you wanted. I’m going to send you a secure email in a few.”
“Damn you, Lucas,” I snap because he’s good. Because I need him. Because he was so fast I may have connected him to this.
“What the hell, Lilah?” he growls. “I worked my ass off for you.”
“I know. Good work. Great. Thank you.”
“Good work? Okay, what the hell is going on?”
“I need you to step back from this one, Lucas,” I say. “It’s personal. It’s dangerous.”
“If it’s personal and dangerous, you need me. I’m not stepping back. In fact, I’m trying to create a hack to unmask the game users. If I can’t get it done, I know someone who can.”
“No,” I snap. “I said no, Lucas.”
“Lilah, I got this—”
“No. And if I find out you kept pushing, I’ll come and arrest you myself. Do you understand me?”
“What the hell is going on, Lilah?”
“Send me what you have. Now. I need it now. Include the two phone numbers you’re looking for IP’s on. Include all six the Jamie person bought at the store. Then stop hacking, Lucas. It gets you nowhere good.” I hang up.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I murmur. “And fuck.”
My phone buzzes and I glance down to accept a secure airdrop from Lucas. Once I have the file, I forward it to Tic Tac and then call him. I don’t bother with hello. I let him say it and then I get to the point. “There should be a list of cellphone numbers in the data I just sent you. Two of those numbers are registered on Banking the Billionaire. I need you to find the IP addresses.”
“Where exactly did the file come from?”
“A friend and he’s good. So good he can probably out hack you.”
“Please,” he chides. “That’s not possible.”
“Prove it. Get me the IP addresses.” I disconnect.
My cellphone rings again and this time it’s Tabitha. I answer hopefully, and most people who know me know hope is not my thing. “Did you find him?”
“No,” she says. “He’s not answering.”
“I hope like hell you did more than call him. I can do that myself.”
“Of course I did more. I called to check on his chopper and they won’t give me any information. I called the New York office and they haven’t seen him.”
“Again, nothing I didn’t know or do myself. Text me your contact to the elite chef service and a phone number.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Aside from the fact that a murder suspect showed up in place of the sous chef?”
“Oh God. Oh shit. Okay. I’m texting it now. What happened? I mean was it—”
I hang up and do what I should have done and would have done already if I was thinking straight. I call Lucas back. He doesn’t answer. “Damn it to hell,” I curse.
I text him: Ping Kane’s phone. It’s an emergency.
That’s when Jay turns onto Naomi’s street and it’s swarming with emergency vehicles.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Naomi
lives in the row housing, which dominates this area, with a private gate. The fact that the emergency vehicles are in front of her unit says it all. She’s dead. And while I might be okay with stabbing a monster here or there, I’m not okay with this. I was distracted by the intruder in our own home, and I didn’t have the foresight to see this coming. I had Houston check on her. I didn’t ensure she was protected.
I motion for Jay to pull us as close to the mess of emergency vehicles ahead of us while I shrug out of my coat, pull my field bag cross-body and then slide my badge around my neck. “Stay close,” I say when he halts, opening the door. “And call me if you hear from Kane.”
Exiting the vehicle, I head toward the police cruiser sitting at the curb behind an ambulance. An unmemorable cop with a beer and donut belly that I don’t know, and don’t wish to know, is leaning on the driver’s door.
I glance at his badge and flash mine. “Special Agent Lilah Love, Officer Kinsley.”
He doesn’t so much as straighten. He’s lazy. He’s fat. And yes, that’s judgmental but he is not a civilian. He has a duty to be his best to save lives. Thirty seconds can save or end a life. I learned that the hard way. I wasn’t ready the night I was attacked. I wasn’t ready to save me or someone else.
“What the hell is the FBI doing here?” the officer asks.
“While you’re holding up a car, I’m securing a murder scene,” I say. “Call for backup.”
He straightens and remarkably, since he takes his duty to hold up the car so seriously, the car doesn’t fall over. His lips press together. “It’s an overdose.”
“Considering her ex-sister-in-law was murdered two nights ago, it’s not that simple.” I don’t offer him a chance to reply. “Is she dead?”
“Yeah. I got word she’s DOA.”
“Call Chief Houston and tell him I’m on the scene, and for now, taking control.” I don’t wait for confirmation. I might not like my father’s name dropping, but I’m not above it on occasion, especially when I’m not claiming jurisdiction, thank you, Andrew. The chief is the holy grail of holy grails. I have Officer Kinsley’s attention.
I step around him and his car and head toward the sidewalk.
A short, stocky blond EMS tech rushes through the patio framing Naomi’s house and toward the gate. I meet him there, flashing my badge. “Officer Kinsley said it was a drug overdose.”
“That was no drug overdose.” He scrubs his jaw. “I’ve never seen anything like it. She’s bleeding from her throat.”
I don’t react. None of this is news to me. “Who called it in?”
“Her landlord,” he says. “I don’t know anything more.”
Sirens screech and Officer Kinsley appears by my side. “We have a second team on the scene now and more officers in progress. I told the chief what’s going on and called in CSI and the ME’s office.”
“I need an officer at the gate and the door,” I say. “And you can set a short perimeter. I know what to expect, but I need you grabbing camera footage and going door-to-door for witnesses now.”
“Got it,” Officer Kinsley states. “On it.”
“And where is the landlord?”
“She lives a few doors down.”
“Make sure she doesn’t leave,” I say. “I need to talk to her.”
“Got it. On it.”
He’s a broken record, but as he hurries away, he has no attitude at all remaining. Something tells me Chief Houston told him to mind his manners, even if I don’t. And of course, I probably won’t.
I open the gate and allow Kinsley to exit before heading through the patio toward the door. I grab my phone and check my messages, but they’re empty. Forcing myself to focus on the crime scene, I slide my phone back into my jacket pocket and pull out my gloves and booties. Once I step inside the doorway, I find a small living room that is neat and simply furnished. A couch. A chair. One picture of a bunch of flowers on the wall. Emma Wells had money. If her brother did as well, you’d think Naomi would have a little bit more to show for herself.
I grab my camera and shoot a few photos. An EMS tech exits a hallway and glances at my badge before offering, “She’s in the bedroom. We’re short-staffed today and there are calls coming in. We’re done here unless you need us?”
I wave him onward and he wastes no time getting out of here.
I make the short walk to the bedroom, still missing that anticipation I used to feel over dead bodies. Maybe that’s just who I am now. I pause in the doorway and stare at the woman lying on the bedroom floor. The one I could have saved and didn’t. I don’t feel guilt. I did feel guilt when I realized she was dead. But now, I recognize that there was nothing we could do about a pill that was likely already in her personal possession even as we did a safety check. What I do feel in the present moment is a responsibility to solve this crime, to give her and Emma justice.
The killer chose to pull me into this.
The killer chose wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The real Naomi is brunette, pretty, and petite. She’s also on her back, blood running from her mouth, over her throat. She is not wearing a wedding dress. I walk to her side and kneel, and with her head tilted backward, her neck exposed, as if she was desperately gasping for air. And she’s stiff. Judging from the state of rigor mortis, she died last night, probably not long after the wellness check.
I shoot photos of the wounds and then stand and study the area around her. There’s nothing on the ground around her but her phone.
Shoving my camera in my pocket for a moment, I grab it and try to check the messages. There’s facial ID. An easy problem to fix. I hold it over Naomi’s face and it unlocks. I quickly scan the messages. There’s a call from someone labeled “JJ.” It’s outgoing. JJ, who could be male or female, didn’t answer. And so, Naomi sent a message that reads: One more time for the history books.
JJ didn’t reply.
The history is cleared. This reads a little too similar to the exchange Emma had with Jamie to sit right.
We’re back to the game.
I screenshot the text exchange and shoot it and the phone numbers involved to Tic Tac with a message: Victim number two. We’re back to Banking the Billionaire. Find out if they ever played. And find out who JJ is.
He replies with: Yes, my Bitch Queen.
Bitch Queen?
That’s new and I’m not really sure if it’s him being a bitch or him being affectionate. I don’t really do affectionate. I’d rather him be a bitch.
I check my messages for Kane and when there are none, I check for anything from Lucas. Nothing from him either. Lucas hasn’t even responded about a ping for Kane’s location, but Lucas can be the real little bitch. He gets hurt and he shuts down. He’s probably drinking and passed out. I consider asking Tic Tac but asking the FBI to search for Kane Mendez is not a good idea, no matter how friendly Murphy tries to act with Kane. Kane’s team is sophisticated. They’ll find him. They probably already have.
Resolutely, I shove my phone in my pocket again and focus on the crime scene.
My gaze lifts to the bed, and on the one nightstand, I find a lamp and an empty wine glass.
Closing the space between it and me, I pick up the glass and find the remnants of liquid. She drank the wine, but there’s no way a sharp object got inside that wine and she didn’t know. I mean, unless she gulped it? Where is the bottle? And how did she make it from the side of the bed to the middle of the bedroom? I check the trashcan and find the bottle. Maybe she was so drunk that she stumbled forward as she was taking the pills? I open the nightstand and find a bottle of generic ibuprofen. Bingo. I dump some of them out on my gloved hand and study them. They all look normal, at least to the naked eye.
I bag them and set them on the nightstand before I glance around the room. There’s a chair in the corner next to a bookshelf. I walk in that direction and study the selection of books. All romances and self-help books. Maybe she was ins
pired to play Banking the Billionaire from one of these books. I find a journal and it seems a logical place to find out. I open it and find it empty. Apparently, it was a gift she never used or one of those self-help books told her to use it and she just couldn’t get motivated. Maybe she was too busy playing Banking the Billionaire.
Next, I head to the dresser and start digging through the drawers. One drawer, two, three. More. Everything is neatly organized and aside from a vibrator, I find nothing that doesn’t belong. Okay, well I guess that vibrator being beside the bed in the nightstand would be more logical, but maybe that’s just me.
I head into the bathroom, which is small, and quick to search. I bag the few bottles of medications I locate. There’s really nothing more. I reenter the bedroom just as Chief Houston steps into the room, and with his linebacker, fit frame, he shrinks the already tiny room. I give him a quick once over. “Boots and gloves. A rule follower. I guess that’s how you got your title, Chief.”
“I’m certain that’s meant as a jab,” he says dryly. “I’m also certain I don’t want to know what you mean.”
“You’re under forty and the chief for a year now,” I say. “That takes lots of rule following. And I’m actually not insulting you. I’m just thinking how suffocating that must be, always following the rules and yelling at everyone who doesn’t. I sure hope you have someone like me around.”
“I have you right now, like it or not,” he comments dryly, and then eyes Naomi, before glancing at me again. “What’s the story?”
“A near duplication to a murder in the Hamptons.” I motion to the body. “She swallowed something that cut her inside out. I suspect it’s ibuprofen she downed with wine.” I toss the bagged pills on the table. “She also has a similar text message exchange with an unknown person to that of the other victim. ‘One more time for the history books.’ They were playing some game, we think. We’re already working that angle. Assign a detective team I can tolerate. Communicate with Andrew.”
His brow shoots up. “You’re not taking jurisdiction?”
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