Love Kills

by Lisa Renee Jones

  With more of that award-winning restraint I’m showing tonight, I march toward the line where he stands, and thank fuck, a wooden barrier separates us. It might be the hero who maintains my restraint and the sole reason that I don’t punch him. “I thought you weren’t here, asshole.”

  “I missed you, too, beautiful.” His lips quirk. “As for me being here: obviously, I wasn’t, and now I am since you refused to meet me around the corner.”

  “You didn’t come to the barrier and ask for me?”

  “No. I did not.”

  Kane doesn’t lie. If he said that he wasn’t here until now, he wasn’t here until now. “Someone told me I had a visitor, right here at the barrier. That’s not a coincidence.”

  “I’m sure someone did,” he says dryly. “And I could give two fucks about that someone. We need to have a conversation we can’t have on the phone.”

  “Later.”

  “You know me, Lilah, and I know you. If now wasn’t necessary, would I be standing here?”

  No, no, he would not.

  My lips tighten, and I walk around the barrier to step in front of him. He’s smart enough not to touch me in front of the live audience, who I can now feel watching us. Fuck them. Really, truly fuck them all. He motions to the wall just beyond the alleyway, and together, we step under the overhang, and I rotate on him.

  “What the hell are you doing, Kane? Are you trying to get killed? Ghost showing up here, that was him telling us that Umbrella Man hired him to kill you. And clearly someone knew you were here, not where you said you were, because they told me I had a visitor, You’re being watched.”

  “Ghost and I have an agreement. I pay him double to kill anyone who contracts against me.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’ve forgotten I don’t like fluff and bullshit. You think that matters to a man like Ghost?”

  “That’s all that matters to a man like Ghost.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” I challenge.

  “We’re back to, you know me. Am I stupid enough to be standing here, or to let you stand here if I didn’t believe we were safe?”

  “Did you or did you not just try and get me to meet you at the flower shop?”

  “Was I supposed to tell you that I have a standing order with a hitman on the phone?”

  I open my mouth to say what I’ve said too often, “You aren’t supposed to say that shit to me, ever,” but I live with this man now. It’s not that simple. The truth is, it’s never been that simple. “No. You couldn’t say that to me on the phone, and you’re right. I needed to know.”

  His eyes narrow and darken. “That’s it?”

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  “That’s never it for you, Lilah.”

  “I have two dead bodies and one’s a cop, Kane. And the same asshole who killed them, hired Ghost to kill you. The biggest ‘fuck you’ that I can give this asshole is to catch him, which means I need to be talking to those bodies, not you.” I turn away and hesitate, eyeing him again. “That’s it for now.”

  He laughs, low and taunting. I like his laugh, and I will be damned if Umbrella Man is taking it from me. I did a good enough job of that on my own not so long ago. I re-enter the crime scene, and Larry, a brawny cop I know from way back when is now at the barrier. “It’s true, then? You’re with Kane Mendez?”

  I’m not in the mood for this bullshit. “Every fucking night, sometimes twice. Any more questions?” I stop in front of him and arch a brow.

  “Ah…no. No more questions.”

  “Good. Now maybe you can think about who might have killed these two women instead of who I might be fucking. Do we have a name yet for the victim?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I need that fucking name, now.”

  I give him my back and stare at the brightly illuminated alleyway, spotlights beaming down on the crime scene, where tents now cover the bodies that are draped in dark-colored plastic with one thought: why the fuck is Roger here, and leaning over the dead body in the center of the alley? I now have two people to kill: him and Umbrella Man.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I kneel next to the covered body on the ground, smack in the center of a spotlight illuminating the alleyway, and under a tent. I’m also across from Roger, and I do what I’d once feared: I look directly into his eyes. “What the hell, Roger?” I say. “You can’t just show up and start working the case.”

  “I’d think you’d enjoy my input,” he says, his blue eyes as piercing as ever. “You should. I was your mentor. I am your mentor.”

  “Were,” I say, and he’s right. I should, but I don’t, and it has nothing to do with my fear of him looking into my eyes and seeing a killer. I’m here. I’m facing that fear. It’s done and gone. Because that’s how I roll. I have my moments where I fear what I am and then I have moments where I say “fuck it, I’m a killer, and I don’t care who knows.” I’m in one of the “fuck it” moments, and for now, that mood isn’t going anywhere. “This isn’t your case.”

  “I invited him.”

  Those words are spoken by Melanie Carmichael, the medical examiner who took over for Beth after I arranged to send her to Europe to get her out of the sights of Umbrella Man. Melanie squats down beside Roger but looks at me. “We were actually talking about this case when I got the call.”

  I don’t need to weigh my reaction, which is decidedly more negative than my more frequent negative reactions. This isn’t me being territorial or insecure. I don’t need this fucking job. I choose to do it. It’s something else. I can feel Roger staring at me, his gaze cutting, his attention unwelcome, and therein lies the problem. This is about the chronic dislike that Roger has started creating in me. Perhaps I never liked him. In fact, I know I didn’t, and yet, I wanted to please him. God, I’m fucked up enough to need to drink over this realization, but not before I kill someone; before I kill Umbrella Man, I amend. I eye Melanie, a pretty black woman I haven’t bothered to age until now. She’s fifty-something I decide but could pull off forty-something, too young for Roger’s sixty-whatever-the-fuck-he-is. And yet, I sense they’re together. I sense that it’s a new thing, too. But then it could be his mind she’s drawn to. He’s smart, a keen mind, too smart for most criminals, except this one, or he wouldn’t be here right now, asking to be killed.

  “While you were talking about Umbrella Man,” I say, “he was here with me.”

  “Because it’s personal,” Roger says. “You need to let me help before you end up dead.”

  I eye him. “He won’t kill me, not yet, but you, you he’ll kill.”

  A gleam of something pierces those blue eyes before he arches a brow and asks, “And you know this how?”

  “Because I know,” is the only answer I offer him, “so get up and get the fuck out of here.”

  “Oh my,” Melanie exclaims. “Oh my. Is this why Beth was shipped to Europe. Was she a target? Am I target now, too?”

  “No,” I say at the same time as Roger, both of us looking at her and then each other.

  “You aren’t close to Lilah,” Roger says, answering for me, holding my stare. “He has no use for you.” He leans closer to me. “This case might not even be about you. It could be about me. It could be about my cases. You get that, right? He could want you to get to me. I’m not leaving, and frankly, I’m too old to give a fuck if I live or die.”

  “And that’s why you just told our new medical examiner that he won’t go after her?” I challenge. I lean in closer to him. “Because you know, from me reviewing the case with you, that he goes after those close to the victim.”

  His lips quirk. “You’re good, Love. The kind of good worthy of being my protégé.”

  “What does that mean?” Melanie asks urgently. “Am I in danger or not?”

  “No,” I say at the same time as Roger again, but neither of us look at her. We look at each other, and the air between us crackles with a challenge. It’s not unfamiliar—he was always challenging me—but this i
s about power and control.

  He thinks I’ll push back and tell him that I’m in control now, but I learned well. I’m not the one in control nor is he. Umbrella Man is in control and the only way to take that from him is to catch him.

  “Roger,” Melanie presses urgently.

  His lips tighten, a hint of irritation there most wouldn’t notice, but I do. I know him. I’ve studied him for one reason: to be like him, to learn from him. He tears his gaze from mine and reaches over, squeezing her arm. “You’re fine.” It’s the only version of comfort I’ve ever heard him offer anyone, but then, I’ve never known him to maintain a romantic interest, which in hindsight is—odd.

  He leans in to speak to her, his voice low, for her ears only, and I don’t like how distracted she is by him. She needs to be focused on the evidence. His presence has distracted her and me, but it is also starting to rain again. Every second we’re in the rain risks evidence being damaged, which, no doubt, Umbrella Man knows.

  We need all hands on deck right now, and the truth is, if Umbrella Man gets distracted by Roger, maybe he won’t focus on Kane. Which is a really shitty thing for me to think. God. I’m a horrible person. All these realizations about myself seem to come by way of Roger. Maybe that’s why I don’t like him. While he’s looking at me, he’s not the one seeing me. I am. I’m seeing me in all the dark and dirty ways that don’t turn me on the way they do Kane.

  “Lilah?”

  I snap back to the moment and eye Roger before I glance at Melanie. “What do you know so far?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “I literally just arrived. The traffic was horrible and—”

  I tune her out, my gaze landing on the victim who needs me right now. She’s pretty. She’s in her twenties. She’s a blonde like the other two victims while I’m brunette. That fact has stuck out to me and stuck with me. I’m not like them. He believes I’m like him. He believes, like Ghost, that I’m another killer. I hope he does think I’m like him. I hope he underestimates me because I’m not the killer he believes I am. I’m the killer I know I am. She’s someone that no one fully understands, not even me yet, but my gut says we’re going to meet her before this is over, and we all hope she’s a bitch.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  People rambling generally piss me off, like now.

  Melanie and Roger launch into a conversation about the rain and the impact on the body, Forensics 101, which doesn’t matter right now. The damn body is covered in plastic because that’s how this asshole made sure this woman left this alleyway and this world. Wrapped in fucking plastic. I’m going to wrap his ass in plastic and that means I can’t keep listening to these two rambling. I need to be in my own world, my Otherworld.

  Blocking out more Forensics 101, I squeeze my eyes shut and go there now. Fuck Roger. He won’t be the reason I miss something I can’t afford to miss. And Fuck Umbrella Man. If he wants a me versus him showdown, a one-on-one matchup, he’s got it. I’m more committed than ever.

  Me versus him. I mentally replay it again.

  In this scenario, the hit on Kane doesn’t add up. Umbrella Man goes after the victim’s loved ones. If I’m not a victim, if I’m like him, why go after Kane? It could be a head game. It could be him trying to push my limits or distract me from what’s right in front of my face. And what is it that’s right in front of my face?

  I open my eyes and stare down at what amounts to a tarp over the body, replaying what I know. Three victims who died holding umbrellas. There’s Williams, too, and the family members of the victims, but staying focused on the core crimes, there are three victims holding umbrellas.

  All blonde.

  One was a natural blonde. One was a bleached blonde. I tied that to myself the only way I can. In her most iconic role, my mother dyed her hair blonde to play Marilyn Monroe. Anyone who knows who I am, who does any digging at all, would tie me to her. She won awards. She was on billboards. It’s not a far reach, especially if Umbrella Man is testing my skills and wants to make me work for my answers.

  I pull on gloves, grab my flashlight, and lift the plastic, scanning her face; there’s makeup smudged on it, clown-like when Umbrella Man is a man of perfection. He’s anal. He’s perfect. That doesn’t add up.

  I check the hair and find brown roots, which makes her a brunette like me. Her hair is bleached. Next, I yank the plastic higher to expose her hands, with the gun and umbrella taped in them.

  “They wanted to take the weapon because it was loaded, but I insisted they leave it,” Melanie says. “They removed the bullets.”

  My gaze jerks to hers, and I lower the plastic.

  “There are insights I might lose should they move her before I’m done,” she adds.

  I give her a deadpan look and try to bite my tongue. No. No, actually, I don’t try at all. “Now I know why Umbrella Man wanted Beth gone,” I say. “Beth doesn’t teach class. Beth doesn’t suck. She solves the crime. Solve the fucking crime. And don’t talk to the press to hear yourself talk some more.”

  She looks stunned, the kind of stunned that makes you think the person just had a stick stuck up her ass. God, what I wouldn’t do for a stick to carry around this crime scene right now. “Talking to the press will piss me off,” I add. “To clarify what that means, right now, this ranks as only mildly irritated.” I eye Roger, who also likes to hear himself talk. Maybe they’re a match made in heaven and Lord help us all. “That means you, too. No press.”

  I don’t give him time to reply.

  I push to my feet and shove my flashlight in my pocket.

  “They were all right,” Melanie says. “You’re a bitch.”

  “I prefer Dark Knight,” I say, dryly. “You know, like Batman. And really, he’s kind of a bitch, too, though I think he looks better in the costume than me. I’ll have to work on that.” I shrug. “Or not.” And with that, I step into the downpour of rain, tuning her out, tuning everyone out, but the two women and their killer. My hood protects me from the rain’s punishment. The tents protect the bodies from the same, but I wonder how much evidence was washed away before they were in place. I walk to the second tent, to Detective Williams’ new safe place, if you can call it that, where a CSI guy is shooting photos of the ground near the now covered body, working the area. I know that he’s CSI because of his jacket and a vague memory that places him at the NYPD in my past life.

  “Anything worth noting?” I ask, pulling down my hood.

  His look is grim, his jaw stubbled a salt and pepper shadow, his age mid-forties. His green eyes notably pale. I don’t know his name, or him. I’d remember those eyes. “Mitch McAllen,” he says as if seeing the question in my face. “And the rain’s a bitch, Agent Love, but I’m trying to get you something to get this bastard.”

  In another time and place, I’d ask for a moment alone with the body. It’s my thing. When I can get the time to have a little conversation with the dead myself, I take it, but today is not that day. Not on the timeline that the rain and wind, that is now gusting into the tent, creates. I pull my hood back up and motion him into action. “Keep going. Keep looking.”

  He gives a nod, his demeanor calm and calculated, his energy the same. He’s easy to tune out, and I do just that. I tune him out. I don’t, however, immediately step to the body. I think of the rain and how messy it all feels, but in reality, it’s water, and water is clean. Based on the immaculate crime scenes we’ve seen to date, he likes clean. Though pigs’ blood from a ceiling fan isn’t exactly clean. It’s filled with pathogens that a person who is clearly OCD wouldn’t appreciate.

  Unless—the person isn’t OCD at all.

  Maybe Umbrella Man is simply a control freak who enjoys making people do something uncomfortable and hard. And cleaning to absolute perfection while fearing for your life, or perhaps a limb, fits that mold. Expanding the suspect list to control freaks also prevents an overly narrow suspect list. It’s a premise to take to Purgatory with me when I finally have the chance.

  I walk to the b
ody, and the bright lights that CSI have shining down on the tarp at the moment make my flashlight unnecessary. I pull back the tarp, uncovering Detective Williams from the waist up, for my first one-on-one with her since she muddied up the crime scene several nights back, quite literally. She’d shown zero signs of OCD or that of a control freak. A control freak would want a crime scene done her way and right. And yet, a pretty redhead in her mid-forties doesn’t fit the victims either. She’s not him. She’s not one of them. What am I missing?

  “Love.”

  At Houston’s voice, I pull the tarp back into place and turn to greet him. “We have a name and address for the victim.” His look is grim, hesitant even. There’s something more, something he doesn’t think I want to hear.

  “What? Say it. This isn’t my first, tenth, or one-hundredth rodeo.”

  He pulls down his hood and fixes me with a piercing stare. “She lives in Kane’s building, Lilah. That means your building.”

  That sinks in nice and slow, kind of like the way a brutal hot sauce set in your mouth feels like it’s burning holes in your tongue. Umbrella Man thinks he has Ghost. He thinks we don’t know he has Ghost. Therefore, his message is a promise to me that he can get to Kane.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Umbrella Man came at me like a Pitbull in ballerina shoes, waltzing in right under my nose, with teeth bared and ready to rip out Kane’s throat. He underestimates me and Kane if he believes that’s going to happen. He won’t get Kane. He won’t get me. He won’t even so much as stir an emotional reaction in me, not here, not now, none that he will ever know exists. I focus on what matters right now, the ticking clock. “What about the victim’s family?” I ask because no matter how hard Umbrella Man is coming at me, I can fight. I can win. The family might not.

  “Her only living family here is her mother, who is lucky as fuck to be in Europe right now, where she’s likely safer. Of course, I know, I get it—one of the victim’s parents died while they were supposed to be on a cruise, but I’d like to think Europe helps. Her twin sister lives in California. I’ve reached out to those officials for safety checks.”