Murder Notes (Lilah Love #1)

“No! No!”

“No,” I whisper, jolting awake to realize the door of the chopper has just opened, and I’m panting, drawing in air.

“How was your flight?” a man in a uniform asks me.

“Fell asleep,” I say. “Trying to wake up.”

“Understood. I’ll give you a moment or two.”

I shut my eyes, willing the adrenaline rushing through me to calm. Never, in all my nightmares have I heard that monster’s voice, but I did tonight and now I have to get it out of my head. I unbuckle myself and stand up, needing out of this metal cage. Grabbing my coat that is now on the floor, I pull it on and gather the rest of my items. There’s a storm brewing inside me, an emotional avalanche with it, that I’ve lived before but thought I’d pushed past. Not even my nightmares have triggered it since I moved to LA. But then, that’s the point. I wasn’t in this hellhole of memories.

Hurrying out of the chopper, I make a beeline for the exit and hire a car to take me home. I’ll deal with picking up my rental tomorrow. I just want to get home and get a damn grip on myself. Thankfully the ride is short. I exit the back seat of the car, and I’m half tempted to pull my gun from my ankle holster where I’d returned it at the airport but decide better. If Junior shows up, I might just put a bullet in him, or her, and then I’d never have a chance to share a cup of my attitude.

I enter through the front door, keying in the code for the security system and entering, and to my relief the lights come right on. It hits me that I could have checked the cameras remotely from my computer, but at this point, I’m not sitting at the computer and tabbing through hours of footage. I lock the door and hit the button on the security panel. “Has my system been unarmed at any time since five this morning?”

“Let me check on that, Ms. Love.” There is a short pause. “You’ve been armed since four forty-five this morning. Can I do anything else for you?”

“No. Thanks.” I release the button and re-arm the system, walking toward the living room, where I hit the switch and light up the room. I scan for anything out of the norm and then somehow end up staring at the sliding glass doors. Just beyond that door, my life changed. I changed. That storm begins to thunder inside me again, images of that man on top of me, touching me, kissing me. I press my hand to my face. I need to run this off. And I need to do it on this beach. I need to own this beach. I need to face this place and what happened there.

I turn away, heading down the hallway, flipping on every light in my path. I don’t stop until I’m in the closet, ripping away my clothes and replacing them with a pair of workout leggings, an exercise bra, and a T-shirt. Socks and tennis shoes follow, along with a heavy hoodie.

I stare at my weapon where it now rests on the nearby shelf, and I fight the urge to reach for it. This is supposed to be my home. My safety zone. My place of comfort. People run on this beach without guns all the time. I’m not taking the gun, but I’m no fool either. I’m not going empty-handed. I walk to a set of built-in drawers against the wall and open the third one from the top, removing a small container of mace and a Taser, both of which I attach to a small belt around my waist, under my jacket. If Junior or anyone else wants to play, I’m still ready, willing, and able without the weight of a loaded weapon.

My phone goes into my jacket pocket, my headphones plugged in, and I make my way to the living room and then to the sliding glass doors. Disarming the security system and flipping on the exterior light, I step outside, thunder rumbling in the not-so-distant sky, echoing over the water, as if in answer to the craziness in my head right now. I shut the door, and I don’t give myself time to let the past control me. I take off running through the sand, a fierce workout that forces me to think of nothing else and leads me momentarily over the exact spot of my attack. I keep moving and hit the wet sand with my lungs on fire, stopping for a moment to turn and face my house, looking for something, but I don’t know what.

I reach for my phone and turn on the song “The Bottom” by Staind, a dark, gut-wrenchingly gritty song. It won’t block the memories, but that’s not what I want right now. I have four murders to solve, and that night, that man with his tattoo might very well be a piece of the puzzle. It’s time to live it again. It’s time to face what I keep driving away.

I start running, the song playing in my headphones: You suffocate, you cannot wait for this to just be over. Those words have always spoken to me. They speak of everything I felt that night and since. My mind flashes back to those events. I can see and almost feel that man on top of me. He’s ripping my clothes, and the drug, the damn drug is wearing off just enough for me to experience every touch of his hands, but I’m still too weak to fight him off. He yanks at my shirt. I elbow him. He snarls and bites my lip. My instinct is to stop. To block this out, but I make myself keep reliving it. I make myself replay every graphic, horrible detail I can remember, up until the moment when he’d suddenly been gone, the weight of him lifted off me. When Kane had arrived and yanked him away.

I stop running, hands on my hips, and I suck in air. The beach ahead of me is a black hole, like the place I’m about to take myself. This next part of that night is the part that rips me apart every time I think about it. It’s the part that I can’t explain to myself. The part that guts me with guilt and makes me question who and what I am.

A single drop of cold rain splatters on my nose, the wind lifting. I rotate and start back toward the house, toward the location it all took place. I need to be in that spot now, I realize, to truly face the past, and I quicken my pace, running harder, faster, until finally I’m there. I stop by the edge of the water and turn toward the beach and that place where I swear I can still see my imprint. I walk forward, into the sand, halting when I know I’m at my destination. That’s when a shadowed figure appears just beyond the patio of my house. I am no longer alone.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It’s as if I’m living one of my nightmares: The beach. The blood in the water and sand. The murder. The man in his fitted suit, who is now walking toward me. I don’t move toward him or away. I stand my ground. I make him come to me, the questions he hasn’t answered, past and present, clawing at me, demanding they be heard. Pissing me the fuck off.

He pisses me off.

He makes me want things, do things, be things.

He stops in front of me, and the space between us is the exact location where that monster raped me. “Why are you here, Kane?”

“You should have told me about the tattoo on the body.”

“Why? So you could handle this for me? Like you handled things for me that night?”

“Yes. So I could handle it like I did that night. You were drugged, Lilah. I was protecting you.”

“Were you?” I demand, cold rain now beginning a steady fall, soaking my face and hair. “Because what I remember is me lying in the sand, naked and exposed, and when I pushed to my feet to look for help, you were talking to that monster. Talking, Kane. He didn’t deserve conversation.”

“You think I wasn’t going to make him pay for what he did to you? You think I wasn’t going to kill him? I had him in a choke hold, trying to find out if he was a fool alone or for hire when you came at him.”

He means when I saw the knife in that monster’s belt that I knew he’d intended to kill me with, and I grabbed it. And I’d shoved it in his chest, over and over and over again. Twelve times that felt so damn good it was terrifying. “I didn’t feel like waiting on you to finish your chitchat with him,” I say. “And how do I know that’s what you were doing? No matter what question I ask, you never give me a straight answer. I don’t know what is real and what is a lie with you.”