Murder Notes (Lilah Love #1)

Going to a knee in front of it, I grab the silver lock attached to it, rotating it until the combination is complete and it pops open. Removing it, I lift the lid and focus on what I like to think of as my candy store: a good half dozen handguns, a supply of bullets, and several knives that my father never intended to leave behind with the house but they’re mine now and I love them. This really is my kind of candy, and it’s damn near orgasmic right about now, but it’s not why I’m here.

Snatching up the black case in the corner holding a fingerprint kit, I stand and head for the door, focused on winning the war this unknown stranger has just waged against me. That mission has me back down the stairs and entering the living area in all of a minute, and I don’t stop until I’ve returned to the sliding glass door leading to the beachfront. Pausing there, I reach for the security panel on the wall to disarm the system, hesitating only a moment, in which I tell myself going outside is crazy. Despite my eagerness to keep my secret a secret, I should wait until morning to work my crime scene, but I quickly rule that option out. This isn’t a suitcase in the car that can wait. It’s about a threat to expose my secrets, and if there is a clue to find out who’s behind it, I have to figure it out. I have to just go for this, balls to the wall like the man my father always wanted me to be. Make him proud and all that shit. Of course, if he knew what it was I was covering up, I’m pretty sure he’d be feeling a whole lot of things that have nothing to do with pride.

I disarm the system and flip on the exterior light that I hadn’t bothered with earlier. Lifting the curtain, I scan the illuminated area that spans far and wide, thanks to well-placed spotlights, finding no immediate threat. Going out there is dangerous. I know this, but the bottom line here is that there are two types of people: the ones that hide in a closet, and the ones that go find the problem. Of course, both die in every horror movie I’ve ever seen, but I’m FBI. I don’t wait for help. I am the help. Besides. If this asshole wanted me dead, someone would have already tried to make me dead by now.

Flipping the latch on the door, I slide it open and step outside, where I stop, scan the area, and stand for several beats, listening and looking for any indication of someone else. Here the wind whistles around me, lifting my hair, the only friend and enemy that my gut says is near. And my gut is a friend that never fails me. Confuses me and irritates me at times, yes. But fails me? No. It leaves that to everyone else. Still, I’m on edge, ready to find answers and erase this problem. I don’t like problems. I don’t like assholes. I survey the sliding glass door where the fake blood is concentrated, hoping like heck whatever it is comes off easily. Squatting down beside it, I open the fingerprint kit, and damn it to hell, my cell phone rings, and I all but jump out of my own skin. Gut feeling or not, I’m clearly on edge, all right.

Grimacing, I dig the damn thing out of my pants and glance down at the number to find Rich calling. I hesitate, debating the merits of having someone on the line while I’m out here and exposed, but this someone is Rich, and I can’t fight with him and be alert. I hit Decline but decide that keeping my phone handy is smart. In fact, I tap in nine-one-one but don’t dial the number. I’m now on ready, and one push of a button and I’d have help on the way. Standing up, I stick the edge of my cell back in my pocket and focus on the glass, where I get to work. But after some quick effort, I find there are no prints to be discovered. Moving to the door handle, of course, the story is different, and I lift prints that are most likely mine, but I have to take the sample to be certain. I turn and scan the beachfront again. A gust of wind, the chilly air touched by the ocean lifting my hair, brings the taste of salt, the flavor of ocean I’d once known as perfection, which touches my tongue. But it’s not perfection anymore.

For the first time ever, it’s bitter and wrong in every possible way, like me coming back here, but then so is someone knowing about that night and saying or doing nothing until now. Reality hits me fast and hard, powerful enough to earn a curve of my lips. This person wants me to fear them, but that’s because they’re afraid of me. Translation: I’m not the only one with a secret to hide. I’d like to be pleased about this realization, but the truth is that I know how desperate a secret you don’t want revealed can make a person. I know you might do things you wouldn’t otherwise do to keep it buried. To bury it in the first place. I swallow hard with the memory of what I did, and without giving my back to the beach or anyone watching, I slide open the door.

Entering the house again, I shut myself inside, lock up, reset the alarm, and flip off the exterior light to ensure the splatter on the window is cloaked in darkness as long as possible. I’ll deal with it in the morning. It’s then, still facing the glass door, that I look up, then left and right, processing the floor-to-ceiling windows, all of which remain shaded with thin but effective electronic blinds. Effective at creating privacy, I know, but tonight, I feel exposed in every possible way. No. I’ve felt exposed—naked, even—for years now, and I’m not sure there will be another day in my life when I do not.

Inhaling on that certainty, I rotate, and for a moment, my gaze focuses on the overstuffed, plush furnishings in the center of the spacious room and the vaulted ceiling above. The couch and chairs squaring off the space are dark gray, but that wasn’t always the case. They were a cream color my mother had chosen, and my mind’s eye takes me back to two years ago, to that couch, to an image of me covered in blood, and seeing the old one with those red handprints on the surface. To the moment Kane walked in the door, blood soaking his white-collared shirt, his jacket gone. I start to tremble inside, when I’d trembled all over then, and I shove aside that memory, viciously, fiercely, my feet moving across the room.

“Damn it, Lilah,” I growl. “Don’t let this get into your head.” Patting my cheek, I shake it off, clearing my mind, even as I start walking, or rather charging is more like it. Crossing the room again until I am back in the office and then the closet. I stick the fingerprint kit back inside the chest and shut it, flipping the latch back into place. Hands on my hips, I consider my options: Do I call Kane or not? Do I warn him he could be in danger? I laugh without humor, the cackling sound lifting in the air, brittle and unfamiliar. Kane in danger? Am I crazy? Well, yes. My craziness is really not in question, but it appears it’s exceptionally present in this moment. Kane is not in danger. Kane is danger. He doesn’t need me to hold his hand, but I damn sure need time to think this all through before I get that man and his penetrating stares anywhere near me again. What I need is to do my job, find my note writer, find my murderer, and get the hell out of the entire state of New York.

Heading across the living area, I’m irritated to find my mind conjuring an image of him leaning against his car tonight: tall, dark, and damnably good-looking, a glint of heat simmering in his eyes. Why the hell couldn’t that man have just gotten fat and unattractive? Translation: easier to dismiss. Sure, I know that makes me a vain, horrible bitch, but if I suddenly didn’t find him attractive, I’d be an unaffected vain, horrible bitch. And unaffected by Kane would be a welcome calm in the middle of one hell of a storm, I think, entering the kitchen and making my way to the garage door again, where logic forces me to a dead stop. I can’t get to my suitcase without taking off the security system. Damn it.

I hit the button on the panel by the door, and a deep male voice immediately asks, “Can I help you, Ms. Love?”

“Can you disable the garage door and leave the rest of the system armed?”

“No, ma’am. I’m afraid if you want to open the door without setting the alarm off, you’ll need to disarm fully.”

“Right. Of course not. Thank you.”

“Is there a problem?” the man asks.