Murder Notes (Lilah Love #1)

My jaw sets hard and I type: Please Rich. Tomorrow.

My phone rings again instantly, and I cave to the inescapable need to just get this conversation the hell over with. I hit the button and slide the cell to my ear. “Rich, damn it. What part of please did you not understand?”

“You never say please, Lilah. What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

I frown. I never say please? “I say please.”

“No. You don’t. What’s wrong?”

My defenses bristle. “I do say please.”

“No. You don’t. And it’s okay. It’s how you are.”

“How I am?”

“You’re guarded, Lilah. You don’t show emotions. You have stuff you’re dealing with, and one day maybe you’ll—”

“Rich, I’m not—”

“I repeat. What’s wrong?”

“I arrived to a dead body and I’m now in self-exiled purgatory.”

“Okay then. That explains you not wanting to talk, but not the use of the word please.”

“I said please, Rich,” I snap. “Please can we talk in the morning times one thousand. See? Now I’ve said please at least one thousand and one times to you since I texted you a minute ago. Please can we talk in the morning? One thousand and two.”

Heavy silence fills the line. One beat. Three. Four. “I know you well enough to know that means you’re in your zone and I won’t get answers. But I don’t like it.”

And yet we’re still talking. Which, actually, is the definition of me being so bad at relationships I can’t even save the guy and end this one. “Tomorrow,” I repeat, because never wouldn’t end this call.

“If you need—”

“I told you—”

“I get it,” he supplies as if he senses where I’m headed, and just that quickly, he ends the call. “Purgatory. But we’re talking tomorrow if I have to come there to see you to do it.”

My eyes go wide. “Rich, I—”

“Good night, Lilah.”

He ends the call and I huff out a frustrated breath before setting the phone on the desk opposite Cujo. He can’t come here. I can’t let that happen. “And I say please,” I grumble, grabbing a wooden box on the desk in front of me and sliding it to me. And I don’t show emotions because I don’t feel them anymore. Not since I left this place, which I don’t intend to explain to him or anyone. Furthermore, and considering the damn burn in my chest that tells me the sooner I leave, the better, I need to get to work.

I lift the lid of the box and remove a stack of index cards from inside, and thanks to having the weekly maid service exclude this room from their duties, the dust clinging to them becomes a cloud in my face and open mouth. Because why wouldn’t my mouth be hanging open? I suck in dust that hits my throat, and it triggers a tickle that becomes a burn. My best attempt at hacking up a lung follows, a skill my mentor back in my NYPD days had mastered almost as well as his job. Roger Griffin was—is—my idol. He’s also a hard-ass old man and a chain-fucking-smoker who seemed determined to give me black lung via secondhand smoke.

Recovering from my dust-induced near death, I think of him now and how much I’d like to see him. But I won’t call him. I can’t call him. Not when I’ve avoided him for years, and in fact, he was one of the reasons I left New York. He was good at his job. So damn good that I didn’t want his sights turned on me should the unfortunate circumstances present themselves. He might love me like a daughter, but he’d hate me like a monster if he saw beneath my skin.

Really. Truly. I’m not sure how he didn’t see who I really am, but maybe I needed to see it for him to see it. Which is just another reason I will never let myself look in that man’s eyes again.

That said, if I did, and if Mr. Too Intuitive for His Own Good were here right now, he’d tell me to document what I know about my perp, of which I now have two. Perp Number One is my assassin, or rather the serial killer, if I listen to everyone else rather than my instincts, which has never worked for me. Perp Number One is an assassin. And Perp Number Two is King Junior. Unless, of course, Perp One and Two are the same person. A far-fetched thought, but then the tattoo is a common denominator, and I’ve seen crazier things since I started profiling. I need to treat them as two people until I know otherwise, and right now, the one who left me the note on the door is the direct threat that could stop me from doing anything else, including solving the assassinations. Perp Number Two is now my new King, until I dethrone him, which I will, and officially gets the starring role for now. But I’m not sure that’s what King Junior wanted or thought would be the outcome of tonight. And since I hate giving assholes what they want, I really hope it’s not.

I grab a pen from the silver holder to my left and start writing single words on note cards, one per card: —EDUCATED

—DEVIOUS

I tap the pen on the desk and think about my mother and every movie-star friend she subjected me to, thinking of all the egos they represent, before snatching up another card and writing EGOTISTICAL on it. And because no one, not even my mother, is that ego driven unless they’re covering up the truth of their insecurity, I grab another card and write INSECURE. I tap my pen again. This was someone who was there the night of the attack, who could be someone connected to me, to Kane, or to both of us. I need a list. I need a list, which means a new stack of cards.

I label my newly created stack KING JUNIOR and then scratch it out. “You don’t get to be King,” I say, and write just JUNIOR. Liking the way that looks and sounds a whole hell of a lot more, I stand up, walk to the wooden step stool under the bulletin boards cluttered with pushpins, and climb the three steps to the top. Once there, I place my “Junior” label at the center top of the board and then line up the word cards. Once done, I step off the stool and stare up at the beginning of my creation and grimace at the words: Insecure. Egotistical. Educated. Devious. I just described every politician and attorney on Planet Earth and, according to the guy that came before Rich, myself. Kane, as well, if you remove the word insecure—his confidence is something that has always drawn me to him. Damn it, Lilah. Don’t do that. Don’t think about Kane. I refocus on my board and the words I’ve written. I’m off to a worthless start, but then, I remind myself, every puzzle starts out with a seemingly impossible amount of pieces.

Sighing, I drag a hand through my hair and walk back to the desk. Sitting down and deciding I need fuel for my brain, I open my right-hand drawer. Bingo. My stash of chocolate is still intact. I pull it out of the drawer and set it on the desk, and, as is my ritual, I line up a dozen pieces of chocolate in a neat row in front of me. Each will be a reward for filling in a puzzle piece, and since I haven’t eaten all day, I don’t even have to suffer a morning jog to pay for them. Chocolate motivation in place, it’s time for a new card and a new direction. Whoever this is knows one of two people or both—me and/or Kane. I can’t avoid him. He’s a part of this and my life, forever after, because of that night.