Murder Notes (Lilah Love #1)

“Is innocent until proven guilty,” he assures me, despite his behavior and that of his staff’s saying he believes otherwise. “I do my job and do it well,” he adds.

“And that includes sharing FBI business with Eddie?”

“Eddie is the detective on the case. And why are you so damn against Woods as a suspect? What am I missing?”

“You do remember I’m investigating a series of murders, right?”

“Again. Why are you so damn against Woods as a suspect?”

“I’m looking at this as a series of murders, not one.”

“And?” he presses.

“He doesn’t fit the profile.”

“They don’t always fit the profile. And maybe he’s a copycat killer.”

“That’s insanity. This hasn’t been in the local news. Just—” I hold up my hands. “I need that transcript.”

“I’ll send it.”

“Tonight.”

He scowls. “I already told you I’d send it tonight.”

I nod. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

We glower at each other, and I decide to just go with the tone we’ve set. “I don’t like Samantha for you,” I say again.

He grabs me and kisses my forehead. “Got it. You don’t like her.” He releases me. “Stay around and you can harass her and me.”

“And endure dinners here, with her, Alexandra, and Eddie? Not a chance in hell. I’m going home.”

“This is home,” he says, reaching for my door. “Remember that.”

I back up and let him open it for me. “I’m pretty sure Dad will be glad for me to go back to LA and call it home.”

“Nonsense,” he says. “I’ll e-mail.”

“You’d better.” I climb into the car.

“You always need the last word,” he says, shutting me inside.

I roll down the window, shouting after him as he heads back to the house. “Yes, I do!”

He laughs, a low, friendly, wonderful laugh that makes me miss my brother, but not enough to stay. I roll the window back up and sit there for several beats. Why am I so damn against Woods as a suspect? He doesn’t fit. I dial Tic Tac. “You don’t give a person time to work, you know that, right?” he answers. “I guess I should be glad you’re not here and standing over me. What do you want to know?”

“Woods,” is all I say.

“I can confirm his clientele reaches beyond Manhattan and the Hamptons to LA.”

“Which connects him to all the victims. Loosely, but it’s a connection.”

“Loosely is right. There’s no record of him building in LA or even visiting.”

“We could probably connect dozens of contractors to those three places,” I say. “Is there any connection between Woods and the New York City victim directly?”

“No,” he says. “Nothing. No business dealings. No mutual friends. Not even a shared pharmacy. That’s how deep I went on this.”

“Did you cross-check phone records?”

“I checked pharmacies but not phone records? Am I an amateur? Of course I checked phone records. I haven’t gotten to the LA victims as of yet, but as far as New York goes, I have. Woods had no phone calls, e-mails, or texting exchanges that I’ve located. Of course, there could have been unregistered numbers or e-mails with remote-location access that I can’t see. I’d need any actual devices you find to be sure. As of now, I’ve pinged the phone we’re aware he owns. It’s dead or turned off. I’m watching it and his e-mail.”

I have a bad feeling this guy is going to show up dead. “I need to know if our LA victims are tied to him. Get help. Get me answers.” I hang up and sit there a moment before I make a call I dread. I dial Murphy.

“Agent,” he answers. “I thought you needed space?”

“I need you to know that there’s been a confession tied to the local murder,” I announce.

“So it was a coincidence that it happened when you landed,” he says. “That makes more sense. Had it been connected to the others, it would have been eerily timed.”

“It is connected.”

“Are you telling me we have an arrest for all these open cases?”

“No,” I say. “There’s a manhunt for the man who confessed.”

“He confessed, but he didn’t turn himself in,” Murphy goes on to assume. “And you don’t think he did it. Is that right?”

“No,” I confirm. “I do not.”

“Are you thinking a setup? Blackmail?”

“It feels like a cover-up of some sort.”

“This is a difficult question, Lilah. Are we talking cover-up by local officials?”

“It feels bigger than that.”

“Well then, screw the confession. Spare me the investigative details you’ll report later. Do we have grounds to claim jurisdiction?”

“We could, but what if I’m right? What if this is a series of assassinations? Assassins are hired. I not only want to catch the assassin, I want to know who hired this one, and that means letting them believe this cover-up is working.”

“You really believe this is an assassin?”

“Yes.”

“All right then. I’ll give you the benefit of your exceptional track record. What are you suggesting?”

“Ideally, we get to this suspect before he ends up dead and blamed for all the murders. Or even the local ones to push us out of New York. We get him. We talk to him. We convince him to work with us with the promise of protection.”

“We can lend the locals immediate resources.”

“I’d rather those resources be funneled through me and quietly. That way the locals believe I’m bowing out of this case but hanging around for personal reasons I’ll create.”

“The locals are your people, Lilah.”

It’s a statement, but it’s clear that he means it to be a question. “Not all of them.”

“A reasonable answer,” he says. “I’ll assign you a point person.”

“I want Jeff Landers. He’s already helping me.”

“He’s not my typical choice for point man, but consider it done. That said, let’s be clear: I’m not shutting down our local investigation on this end. I cannot have us back off a series of murder investigations and have your end amount to some sort of localized scandal, but Jeff will make sure there is no crossover.”

“Understood.”

“And I need to ask a question and have you answer it quickly and honestly. People are dead. More could die. Are you too close to this to do your job properly, Agent Love?”

“I am not,” I say firmly. “In fact, I’m uniquely positioned to recognize a problem someone else would not see.”

“And what happens if you find out that someone you love is involved?”

“I’ll do my job,” I vow.

He is silent. One beat. Two. Three. Until finally he says, “Make sure you do. Communicate. Update me tomorrow.” He ends the call and his question replays in my mind, taunting in a way not even Eddie achieved tonight: What happens if you find out someone you love is involved?

What indeed?

My mind turns to the easiest betrayal to swallow. Eddie and his hunger for power and a path to the higher ranks of the local elite. Alexandra’s stupidity, considering she and her money actually married the man. Of course, Pocher’s long-rumored corruption, in both the private and public sectors, has never been proven, but after looking into his eyes, I know at least some of the stories are true. Now that he’s involved with my father, I don’t like what that says about my father, but political misconduct doesn’t equate to murder. I hope.