“Get your team looking for Naomi Wells,” I order, “and get us an address. We’re going to her house. She’s the ex-sister-in-law to Emma.”
My brother, Mr. America, forgets all manners and curses, but he spurs into action, yanking his phone from his pocket. I turn to find Kane in the doorway. “Any chance you have men guarding the house tonight?”
“I have my own personal FBI agent,” he replies dryly. “And she hates when people watch over us. I gave them all the day off.”
Like Kane needs anyone to protect him, but we do seem to have a pattern. I’m the one who gets stabby. He’s the one who hides the evidence. I’d say it works for us but then we did just have a potentially crazy person, maybe even Emma Wells’ killer, cook for us. “How well do you know the chef?” I ask, contemplating the small possibility that we’ve already been poisoned.
“I used a high-end chef service and they came up with a few options. Chef Roswell’s name stood out. I remember his food from an event we attended several years back. You liked his food. The charity museum event with the horse statue, remember?”
Of course, he knows I remember that night. How could I not? I was still with the NYPD, gaining attention for my profiling skills. Kane had invited me to the event and I’d happily accepted. To my surprise, and Kane’s, my father, still the police chief then, had been in attendance. So had Pocher, though at the time I knew little of him. I certainly didn’t know he and my father were already in a political bed together.
Kane had stepped away to take a call, leaving me at the bar momentarily, and that was where my father, and his disdain for Kane, had found me. “Kane Mendez, Lilah? I sure as hell hope the plan is to use your assets to put him in jail. I’m exploring career options that cannot tolerate you making poor decisions.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d sensed a darker, harder version of my father. It was the first time that I felt it directed at me, not my mother. Anger had boiled in the pit of my belly. I’d stopped a waiter and offered my father an oyster. “I hear you can slurp them right down right along with your judgment. He’s not his father,” I added. “In fact, right now, I think you might resemble his father more than Kane. Did you know him?”
He’d bristled. “Of course, I knew him. He was a kingpin in my territory.”
“How well?” I pressed.
“Well enough to know Kane Mendez is the devil’s spawn.”
In that moment, Kane had joined us and I’d linked my arm with his. “I wonder what that makes me, father?”
“Lilah?”
At Kane’s prodding, I snap back to the present. “I remember that night,” I confirm. “What I don’t know is what it has to do with that woman in our house.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” he says. The devil’s spawn is always my devil’s advocate.
“Or maybe it does,” I counter. “My father and Pocher were both there. Chef Roswell was there. I’d like to know if Naomi was there.”
“Interesting,” Kane comments. “She wasn’t supposed to be here. Chef Roswell arrived with her instead of the sous chef he’d scheduled, who called in sick. Naomi was a last-minute add-in.”
“She lives in the city,” Andrew announces, joining us. “I put out an APB to have her brought in for questioning. I’ve got patrol on the highway, train station, and airport and I called the East Hampton police department. I’ll call the NYPD unless you prefer to make the call. “
“I’ll make the call,” I say, phone in hand, punching my auto-dial for Chief Houston who until recently, I distrusted. Now, I just mostly trust him, which is about all anyone gets from me.
“Lilah fucking Love,” he answers. “I didn’t expect a Happy Thanksgiving call from you of all people. A hell of a good surprise. Now, what do you really want?”
“We had a murder in East Hampton last night. Long story short, we need to bring the sister-in-law of the deceased in for questioning now, and we have reason to believe she’s on the run.”
“And she lives here.”
“She does. She’s here now, but we suspect she may return to the city.”
“And you’re calling me personally, why?”
“This may tie back to the Umbrella Man case.”
“Holy hell. Tell me we didn’t get the wrong guy?”
“More like an admirer of his work,” I say, quite certain Roger is deader than dead.
“Copycat?”
“Maybe.” I don’t offer more. I’m only a more person when I’m the one getting the extra serving of whatever I want. Instead, I say, “I’ll text you the pertinent details,” and hang up, eyeing Andrew. “I need her address and—just text me her driver’s license photo.”