I scan the parking lot, but the strip mall is new, and Duck Donut is the only tenant. There are no other cars. Clearly, someone could have driven into the parking lot and posted the note and most likely they had been following us. Otherwise, they would not know I was in the passenger seat.
I walk around to Jays’ side of the vehicle. “I need my bag,” I say.
He reaches in the car and hands it to me, casting me a curious look. “What’s up?”
“Find out if there are cameras anywhere. Now.” I toss my donuts onto his seat. To his credit, he doesn’t ask questions. He’s already moving, shutting his door, walking back to the donut shop. I round the vehicle, bag the note, and glance down at the message. As in the past it’s short, not at all to any point, and created with cut out of letters from a newspaper. It reads: M is for money, M is also for more, and M is for Mendez.
Again, with the jabs at Kane. What the hell is Junior’s problem? And why now? I glance at my ring and decide the timing is no accident.
I toss the note in the seat and shut the door, with me on the outside, and start walking, checking the vacant spaces and finding them all locked and dark. When all is said and done, I’ve checked the perimeter and further, and I don’t even find a suspiciously parked vehicle. I head back to the Escalade and Jay is walking toward me. “No cameras. What’s going on?”
“Someone left me a note on my door,” I say.
“Then we were followed.”
“It looks that way,” I say, but I offer nothing more.
I motion to the vehicle and we make our way in that direction. Once I’m inside, I think about the timing of the note. They first started when I returned to the Hamptons after years gone. And now, they start again when Pocher returns to the Hamptons after weeks gone.
There is no such thing as a coincidence. And I know then that whoever this is, stands close to Pocher’s side. That detail makes Junior easier to find. And I will.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Never ignore a theme in your life. And never blame that theme on someone else. You’re responsible for it, at least on some level. And if someone else is controlling the theme, then you had better fix it fast. That’s where I’m at.
For me right now, the theme of my life is “the games we play.”
My father is playing a game with my life. If that’s what you call tormenting my mother and potentially helping to plot her murder. Pocher has long been playing a game with my entire family’s lives. Emma’s killer is dragging me into a game. Junior has long been playing a game with me. And I’ve let it happen. I give Junior props, though. She, for I’ve always thought Junior a female, chooses times when I’m hunting a killer and when a note writer is not my priority. And therefore, Junior goes untouched, but not this time. This time, I will find and deal with Junior.
I won’t be sidetracked.
This time I will deal with Pocher, once and for all.
Once Jay and I are on the road again, I do the only thing I can do at this very moment. I open my donut bag and start eating what turns out to be a delicious treat. And thank God, rather than asking questions, Jay does the same of his. Perhaps he’s silent simply because we’re stuffing our faces, but whatever the case, I’m starting to move past “I don’t hate him” to “I like him.” Especially since I didn’t buy a drink and he has bottled water in the car. He’s a virtual saint, no worry that he works for my future husband who is not. He’s also not a monster either, like his uncle and Pocher.
Whatever the case, by the time I’ve licked the last dusting of sugar from my fingers, he’s dropping me at the door of the medical examiner’s office. With my trusty field bag at my side, I head up the stairs and enter the building where a security post greets me. I disarm and pass through the metal detector, only to set it off. The next thing I know, a thirty-something guard with a scar is patting me down and getting about as handsy as I get stabby. At one point, my legs are spread and he has his hand on my inner thigh. I decide the scar came from some woman biting him. He goes a little too high and I’ve had enough. “If you touch me in my secret garden, you will lose your sense of smell.”
He yanks his hand back. “What does that mean?”
“Well, my secret garden is right there between my legs, and your sense of smell is right there on your face, right above my knee.”