“I’m fine,” he says. “I don’t have wadded panties.”
“Okay. Good. Because they aren’t fun, I promise.”
He hangs up.
I push out air. Damn it.
I refuse to believe Beth is involved, but I have to do my due diligence. That’s all. This is due diligence, and since I’m considering the idea that someone in law enforcement might be involved in this mess, I have resources I can use to help me. They aren’t legal, but we do what we have to do. And if that’s what I have to do in the name of justice, that works for me. Just like stabbing a man twelve times also seemed to have worked for me.
If there is one thing this return home has proven, it’s that I didn’t kill my enemy. I killed my enemy’s messenger. My enemy is still out there, with me and Kane in their sights, which means we had better get him, or her, or them, in view now, before someone else ends up dead.
We.
Me and Kane.
One of us experienced with a knife and the other with a shovel. And therein lies the problem. We have a body that is our secret and can be used against us. It’s us or our enemy, and it is going to be us. Apparently, those who kill and dig graves together stay together. Because Kane is right. We are in this together. And anyone who thinks that’s good for them and not us is going to find out they’re wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I leave Beth’s office, walking a long hallway, with two goals playing out in my mind: catch a killer and defeat what appears to be a long-standing enemy. More and more, those things appear to be related, and I’m hoping like hell Laney’s brother will help me look deeper and in the right places. For now, though, I shove aside anything except my surroundings, and with good reason. I knew a cop who was followed. He didn’t cover his ass, and now he’s dead and so is the informant he was meeting.
And that’s exactly why my path to Rick Suthers is going to be turned into one of those algebraic equations you figured you’d never need again in your lifetime because they’re stupidly complicated.
Reaching the glass door that is my destination, I push the bar down and exit the medical examiner’s building. I immediately step out of the view of prying eyes and into the shadows of the dumpster I’ve identified to Uber as my pickup spot, the one with the big yellow X on it. I scan for trouble and any remnants of my collection of stalkers, which I don’t find. I check the time on my phone. Four thirty. It’s then, and right on time, that my Uber pulls into a spot beside me, having actually followed the directions I’d given.
I climb inside and shut the door. A wrinkled, overly tanned grandma with a baseball hat covering her long gray hair twists around to greet me. And I know she’s a grandma because it says so on her hat. “Where to, honey?” she asks.
“The park, sweetie,” I say, which earns me a laugh and a wink along with a look that’s a little bit too intimate to be innocent.
I’m being flirted with by a grandma. I think that means that I’m in the Grandmas’ Club now, and I can’t say it’s nearly as appealing as the Mile High Club, of which I am also a proud member. Thank you, Kane Mendez. And Rich. Once. Sort of.
Grandma pulls us onto the main road, and a tour bus for some musical group called Big and Rich pulls past us. Fuck. Rich. Kane. The FBI. I dial Rich’s phone, and he doesn’t answer. I dial my brother next. “Where is Rich?”
“He went with Tweedledee and Tweedledum to Kane’s place. I thought you knew.”
“No. I didn’t know, and how are we born of the same womb and you could think that was a good idea? I have to call Kane.”
“No, Lilah,” he orders firmly. “That could potentially be bad for you. It’ll look like you’re guiding him through an investigation.”
“Damn it, I hate when you make sense, but Rich—”
“Could be in danger because Kane really is a criminal?”
“Two exes together is a volatile mix, and you, as a long-standing member of law enforcement, know that. And the idea here is that Kane is pissed enough to act out against everyone but us.” My line beeps. “That could be Rich. I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t call Kane,” he warns.
“I get it,” I growl, before I click over.
“Rich?” I demand.
“Yes. Relax. I got this.”
“Got this? What the fuck does ‘got this’ mean?”
My old driver glares over her shoulder because apparently my language is an issue for her.
“I’m playing the role,” he assures me. “I’m on their side just enough to hear their side.”
“By giving them a conflict of interest they can use against us?”
The car jolts to a stop at the park, and I don’t have to look at the driver to know she’s glaring at me again. I get out on a curb beside a grassy median, and she screeches away like a mad teenager. “Hold on,” I say, my gaze scanning the huge mass of grass where dogs and people play.
“I don’t have much time,” Rich snaps.
“You don’t need time,” I say, walking toward a giant, old oak tree on the opposite side of the sidewalk, where I stand in the shade. “You need to pull back.”
“I’m not stupid, Lilah,” Rich says. “And neither is Kane or he wouldn’t have you convinced he’s one of the good guys.” He doesn’t give me time to counter. “This gives us insider information.”
“Kane is our insider information.”
“Because Kane will tell you everything, right?”
“Yes. He will. Kane and I communicate. That doesn’t mean we’re fucking. Do not face him with that in your head because you won’t like where that leads us. Understand?”
“Yes, Lilah. I do.”
“How are you calling me? Where is—”
“I have to go.”
He hangs up.
Damn it to hell, why is everyone always hanging up on me?
I glance around me, slowly scanning the area again, taking in faces, making sure that I’m familiar with who is around me right now. Once I get my bearings, I start walking, and it takes me a full ten minutes to travel to the other side of the park, where my second Uber is waiting. I’m on my third Uber in thirty minutes when finally, my driver drops me at the Long Island train station, which happens to be only a few miles from the accounting office Rick Suthers owns and operates. Not that I plan to ride the train, but crowds and transportation equal visibility.
I start the short walk on what has become a chilly day toward Suthers’s downtown Westbury office, which is more like a subdivision than a town and not an exciting one. It’s most definitely no New York City. There are no street vendors. No dogs pooping by street poles while owners happily scoop it up in little baggies like it’s the best gift ever. There aren’t even homeless people hanging out while fancy stuffed suits walk by and try to pretend they don’t exist. There is just a sidewalk that leads me past run-down offices and stores, all of which contrast with the fancy houses only blocks to the east and west of the road.
I stop at Rick’s office to find a CLOSED sign on the door, which works just fine by me. I’d rather talk to him in his home, which is to most people their safe zone. Cutting down a side street, still not a person or moving car in sight, I walk toward the east neighborhood, traveling several blocks straight and then to the right. The houses are big, their look old but elegant, the yards neatly manicured. An old lady waves to me from a porch. A middle-aged man rakes leaves one house over. Another block and I’m at Rick’s white wooden house, hurrying up the porch steps to ring the bell. After a respectable thirty seconds, I knock. And knock again. Still nothing.
My mind goes back to the last time I’d been here. He’d called me. He’d wanted to meet. I’d been in the city, hours away, but I’d hurried here. He’d taken forever to come to the door. He’d opened it quickly and stared at me. He’d looked like her, despite being in his late thirties when she’d been only twenty-seven. Good-looking. Blond. Blue eyes. Easygoing, but not that night.
“Go away, Agent Love.”
“You called me.”