Love Kills

by Lisa Renee Jones

  He replies with: You doubted that it was?

  My answer is: Someone told me hesitation is good. I tried it. It doesn’t work for me.

  He replies with: What are you saying, Lilah?

  He thinks I mean we’re a problem for me. I answer with: I need to be more like you.

  For the moment, he agrees, which isn’t his standard: The badge keeps us in the middle routine. It’s an endorsement for “shoot first, ask questions later.” Not that I need any shove in that direction, but my brother does. I dial him now. “I was about to call you. What the hell is going on over there? Houston says this serial killer is obsessed with you.”

  “We need to talk, but not on the phone, just make sure dad has extra security.”

  “Dad? He’s locked down since the pig at his event.”

  “Just make sure locked down is really locked down. And be careful.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He doesn’t get to hide in a dark corner and pretend he doesn’t know what’s going on anymore, but I can’t talk about the Society on the phone. “This killer I’m dealing with taunts and kills family members.”

  “I know how to use a gun, Lilah. And the pig at the event made it pretty clear dad needed extra security. It’s handled.”

  I open my mouth to tell him about the poster, but damn it, he’s close to our dad. Dad is part of the Society. He might blab to dad and that’s not a risk I can take. Not on the phone when I can’t look into his eyes. “He likes poison, Andrew. Be careful. I need to go.”

  “What about that talk you just said we needed to have?”

  “We’re having it. Soon. Just not now.”

  “Lilah—”

  I hang up, and I consider texting Kane again to make sure he has men protecting my family. But he does. I know he does. I trust him to look out for my best interests. I trust him more than my brother right now and that really sucks.

  My phone buzzes with Houston again. I decline and head for the door when it opens, and Nick enters, his sleeves rolled up to show off his ink. Nick, the flirt and player, who’d been at the first crime scene and suggested I take an umbrella with me. “Lilah fucking Love.”

  “Nick,” I say, and when my phone rings, this time, I don’t bother to check caller ID. I know who it is, and I answer with, “I’m in the building. I’ve been trying to get to you.”

  “Where in the building?” Houston demands.

  I hang up, and Nick walks to the coffee pot. “Heard you had a bad night last night,” he says.

  I start for the door but pause. “Were you on the scene?”

  “I was off duty,” he says. “Back on just in time to meet the press out front this morning. How many dead now?”

  “Too many.”

  “Any leads?”

  He and his hot boy attitude and curiosity feel off. In fact, he’s bugging the fuck out of me. I turn to face him. “You were off duty last night. Maybe it was you.”

  He barks out laughter. “Tell that to Vivian. She’s a hot blonde who works—”

  “Get me her contact information.”

  He sets his cup down. “Are you serious?”

  “As a lion hunting a deer,” I say. “And you’d be the deer. Get me her contact information.” I walk out the door, leaving him behind, with the sense that I’m in the warzone, right here, right now, in the police station.

  Like maybe Umbrella Man is right here under my nose.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It takes me less than three minutes to get up the stairs and onto the floor where Houston waits and all but tackles me when I arrive. “My office,” he orders.

  Men.

  Are.

  Pissing me off today.

  I follow him, proving that, every now and then, I can be obedient like that, though I doubt Kane would agree—but I do so now mostly because the little vein in Houston’s eye isn’t so little anymore. It might burst, and I do have medical training. A little. Not a lot. I can call an ambulance. He enters his office first, and I walk inside. He shuts the door.

  “Other than trying to get me fired, what are we discussing?”

  He scowls. “I was protecting you.”

  I laugh. “Such a pretty, nice boy you are.”

  Now he scowls. “The press got a hold of the truth. The words ‘serial killer’ are about to be all over the headlines.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  That vein throbs. “Okay?” he demands. “That’s all you have to say, Agent Love? Because I was expecting more than ‘O-fucking-K.’”

  “First off, Chief, it’s good to see you expanding your vocabulary. Secondly, he killed a pig and had it served at my father’s political function. He wants attention. He probably told the press himself. Did we get anything on the pig farm by the way?”

  “Yes. We got nothing. There were a shit ton of pigs. No one is going to notice or care about a few pigs that were swiped.”

  “You don’t just swipe a couple of pigs. You fight them, wrestle them, and load them.”

  “And you know this from all your pig wrestling experience?”

  “If you count a few men I’ve known, yes. And speaking of men, there was a pig in a dead man’s bed. Did someone walk him up there like a dog? Have we walked that neighborhood and looked for someone who saw the pig get walked like a dog?”

  “Pigs actually do get walked like dogs, Lilah.”

  “Not giant hairy pigs like that one, Mr. Someone Pissed in My Cheerios Today.”

  “You, Lilah. You did.”

  “And I take that as a no. No one went door to door asking about the pig. You didn’t want to risk the bad press a dead pig in a bed gets you?”

  “You’re thinking about your case. I’m thinking about an entire city.”

  “Someone saw this.”

  “He wiped out the cameras surrounding your father’s event,” he snaps. “You think he can’t handle some pig farmers or an apartment building?”

  He’s right. He could. He’s right, and I no longer wonder how he has the resources to do such things either. He has the Society behind him. And the Society is close to my father. An idea hits me, and I pull out my phone and text Tic Tac: I need a list of political contributors to my father’s campaign.

  Houston’s cellphone buzzes with a text that he glances at and then me. “Sergeant Morris is here. He wants to talk to you.”

  “I’m sure he does. Put him in an interrogation room. And I need to meet with the team.”

  “They’re all upset over Williams. They can’t handle your shit today.”

  “Oh Jesus, Houston. Aside from Williams making a shamble of the first crime scene, she set me up. She called me into that alleyway and into a booby trap. And yeah, I get it, I had more a shot at survival than her sorority sister—that we all should have fucking known about—but that’s another topic. She didn’t represent the badge, and I’m still not convinced there’s not more to it than that.”

  “And you think you do?”

  “Ah,” I say. “I see. That’s our problem, is it? You don’t think I represent the badge.”

  He scrubs his jaw. “I didn’t say that.”

  “You damn sure said enough. What’s the problem, Houston? I get the job done differently than you, so I don’t deserve my badge?”

  “I’m not going down this rabbit hole with you, Agent Love. Not now. We have bigger things to deal with.”

  “Bigger than your balls, Chief, that’s for damn sure. I’m going to leave before I try to find them and yank them out. Which could be embarrassing for us both since they’re so fucking small.” I reach for the door.

  “Don’t trash Williams,” he warns. “I came here to clean up the department. I can’t have a serial killer and a bad cop in the press at the same time. I’m sitting in on the meeting.”

  “Meetings,” I correct. “I’m formally interviewing them as co-workers of Williams. And, are you sure you have time? Shouldn’t you be changing the mayor’s diaper?”

 
“He’s just sitting on the shitter and staying there. He’s avoiding the press today and told me to get him something ‘good’ to say tomorrow, or he’d find someone who could.”

  “The Pats are 6-0. Now you have something good to tell him. Take some time to do that because if you come into my meetings and overstep, we’ll have problems.” I exit his office and leave him there to try to grow those balls back. Unless that was all an act. Why the hell does it feel like it was an act but to what end?

  I walk down the hallway and enter the empty office I used once before, sitting down behind the desk. I’d say he was too cowardly to be Umbrella Man, but he still got to the crime scene too fast, like he knew it was going to happen. That begs the question: is he with the Society, placed here to be their eyes and ears? My answer is maybe. Which is why he now gets only “need to know” information and not much of it. And why, as eager as I am to get back to Purgatory, more and more, it’s feeling like all the answers I need are right here, in this building, which means I’ll be staying awhile.

  I stand up and exit the office just in time to watch Sergeant Morris walk into Detective Williams’ office, and Roger is with him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Roger wants to piss me off.

  He’s territorial. He clearly can’t step back and let his protégé take the lead. One might say that I’m territorial as well, and I am. There are elements to this investigation that I’m not bringing to his attention. The old bastard will end up dead. He just doesn’t get that.

  And he clearly didn’t spend much time getting to know me in those years we spent together, or he’d know, I don’t react to these types of games. Not that I don’t react well. I just don’t react. I’ve known for a long time that I’m missing certain emotional chips. I hide that behind being hot-headed and loud-mouthed, by intent. It’s calculated. And it’s why I can sit across from a killer without unease. It’s also why I’m not going to burst into the office and break up the interview. At this point, he’s changed the tone of my interview with Morris.

  It’s done.

  I’ll take it in stride.

  I walk past the door, and I’ve made it all of a few steps beyond it when I hear it open, almost as if someone called and told them I was passing. I don’t turn. I keep moving, but Roger isn’t letting that fly. “Lilah.”

  Not Agent Love.

  Lilah.

  I’m no fool. That usage is meant to remove my FBI badge from the hierarchy. Been there, dealt with that before, and will deal with it again. I clench my teeth and turn to face him and Morris. Morris who is in his uniform despite being suspended. “Anyone know where I can find the donuts?” I ask.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you eat a donut,” Roger says, wearing dark-rimmed glasses today.

  “I pretty much inhale them, so I could see you missing the twelve dozen I must have eaten while working for you.” I motion to the glasses. “Your eyes are bad now, huh? Does the cigarette smoke fog those up?”

  “I stopped smoking. Well, some days, occasionally. And my eyes might be bad, but my mind is just fine.”

  Except he didn’t know I love donuts or that I don’t really get taunted all that easily. Umbrella Man he is not. I eye Morris, who is making a sour face. “Why do you look like you swallowed a bad egg whole. Without peeling it first?”

  “I’m on leave. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I guess your answer is, ‘I’m pissed off and that’s the face I make.’”

  “He’s working under me,” Roger says. “I’ll take responsibility for him.”

  My gaze shifts to Roger, and I laugh. “He’s your new protégé?”

  “Why is that funny?” Morris demands.

  Because Morris mocked my handling of the scene last night while behaving like an adolescent boy going through a pubescent testosterone rush, I think. I’d say that out loud, but he might have a meltdown, and I don’t have a towel to offer him. “Inside joke,” I say, and when he eyes Roger, I add, “With myself.” Now I glance at Roger. “Were you questioning him or calming his frazzled nerves?”

  “Seriously, Agent Love,” Morris says, “do you have to be this much of a bitch?”

  He took my bait, and I go in for the kill. “No. But it’s easier for me if I am. Is being a ‘little bitch’ easier for you?”

  Men really do hate being called a little bitch, and he scowls appropriately. I don’t believe Umbrella Man would any more than I would. “I want Roger to interview me,” he says.

  “I want a triple chocolate cheesecake. We all want, but we don’t always get what we want. Meet me in the interrogation room.”

  “What about my leave?” he asks.

  “We’ll talk,” I reply, “in the interrogation room.”

  “Do as she says,” Roger urges. “Go. Now.”

  He doesn’t “go now” before he gives me another scowl and says, “I didn’t hurt her.”

  “Sergeant Morris,” Roger snaps, and then finally, Morris walks around me and leaves.

  Roger steps closer. “He’s a good man, Lilah.”

  “Okay.”

  Amusement, not anger, lights his eyes. “You’re a piece of work, my girl. There’s a reason I picked you.”

  “Like there’s a reason you picked him?” I challenge.

  “That’s right. There’s a reason. I’ll leave now and let you do your job. I emailed you notes.” He steps partially around me and pauses to softly say, “Poison’s a female weapon, but you know that. I was your teacher.” And with that, he leaves.

  He’s right, of course. Statistically speaking, yes, poison is a woman’s weapon of choice, but I don’t second guess myself because of Roger. Umbrella Man guts pigs. But I think about the reasons for using poison. He’s smart, really damn smart. Who would know using poison made us think this was a woman? The answer is simple, and it takes me a place I’ve already considered. Umbrella Man is someone in law enforcement, someone in forensics. They’d know how to choose a poison and drown the evidence.

  My mind goes to Beth and my reasons to get her out of the country. I suspect now that I did what he wanted. I got her out of that lab. Because she was close to him. Because she had eyes on him and didn’t know it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I’m still walking, headed to talk to my team, if you can call them that, when it hits me that I’m planning to talk to them about Williams. Because I considered Williams a suspect.

  Fuck me.

  Maybe he’s not a man. Maybe Roger is right. I considered a woman while screaming that the killer is a man. It’s not like I won’t shoot someone, and I’m a woman. It’s not like I couldn’t make someone kill a pig for me. Actually, I could do it myself. I just wouldn’t like it. Animals are innocent, pure, free of human bullshit. But I’d do it to save a life, while our killer might do it because taking a life is as sacred as saving one can be to me. Okay, taking a life can sometimes feel pretty sacred as well, but that’s a whole level of fucked up I have that isn’t normal.

  I don’t know if I should curse Roger or thank him for opening up my thinking. I’ve been known to be stubborn when I decide I know the killer, even if I haven’t met that killer yet. I’m normally right, but I’m painfully human at my core, even if some, me included, could argue differently. In other words, I’m not always right.

  I weave through the cubicles to find everyone on our team missing from their designated locations.

  Rounding a corner, I enter the conference room, and there I find Houston along with Sally and Lily, two of our staffers, sitting in chairs forming a circle. Also present in that circle is the weird-ass freak of nature, Thomas Miller, the redheaded forensics guy, and my opinion has nothing to do with his looks. He’s a decent looking thirty-something guy, who just happens to exude a creep factor level eight out of ten. Houston, literally, had to have rushed down here in the three minutes I was in the empty office. He’s babysitting me alright. But is he protecting himself or the Society?

  Or both?
<
br />   “There she is,” he states, as Lily, the twenty-something teenager of the group, based on her display of maturity, swipes at her eyes.

  “I can’t believe she’s dead.” She sobs.

  I’m demonstrating that missing emotional chip, I know, but I hate tears. Like, I really, really hate tears, especially those shed at the office. What purpose do they solve besides making a woman look weak and a man look like a bitch ass loser? Thoughts I’m allowed because they didn’t leave my mouth. But they might. I really can’t make myself any promises right now.

  “She had a sorority sister she treated like family,” I say. “Why didn’t we know?”

  Lily bristles. “She never told us she had a sorority sister she was that close to.”

  I don’t even bother to step inside the doorway. “We don’t research a case based on what we personally know. We research based on facts. If this team is too personally involved to do a proper job, we need to adjust the members.”

  “I’m not emotionally involved,” Sally says, her wild brown curls straightened today, her fifty-something skin newly glowing, her eyes crystal clear. She’s not been crying. She’s been to the damn spa. How very cold and removed she is. “I knew her work persona,” she adds. “That’s all. That keeps this clean for me. What do I need to do?”

  “Your job,” I say. “What is it?”

  She doesn’t bristle. At all. I think about our last encounter. She wasn’t this removed. “I’ve started fact-checking witnesses’ stories,” she says. “Including those who live in the building where Karen lived.”

  “I loved her,” Thomas interjects.

  My gaze jerks to his. “You loved Detective Williams?”

  “Karen,” he amends. “I recorded her show every day. I watched it at night.”

  “You watch a soap opera every night,” I say. “How very different that is.”

  He bristles. “Do you know how many men watch that show?”

  I have three bristlers, including Houston, and one cold as ice bitch. Two, if you count me.