CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Lilah,” Kane warns softly.
At the same moment, my cellphone rings again and I decide it’s best I don’t ignore it right now. Just the act of pulling it from my bag to kill the ringer, brings me down a notch, and the text message across my screen from Tic Tac that reads: Pick up! Urgent! is yet another needed distraction.
“I have to take this,” I say, stepping behind Kane and placing my back to his while the doorman stands inside the doorframe, blocking my exit.
He’d move if I shot him, and I just might before this is over, but right now my phone is ringing again, and Tic Tac is once again on caller ID. “Speak,” I order softly.
“Ann, the fake sous chef, did side catering gigs. She was scheduled for your father’s fundraiser. What do you want to do?”
Well, there’s a bombshell, I think, and as a bonus a way to get out of this damn charity event. “I want you to discreetly get the names of the catering company’s management and ownership, as well as everyone scheduled to work that night. I’ll call you back.” I disconnect and stick my phone back inside my bag before returning to Kane’s side and our little meeting with Pocher. “We have a problem,” I announce.
“We?” Pocher mocks. “Are the three of us a ‘we’ now?”
“Depends on how you feel about your guests at the fundraiser dropping dead.”
He leans forward. “What does that mean?”
“It means one of the accomplices in these murders was scheduled to work your event. She’s out of the picture, dead actually, but we feel strongly there are at least two other people involved in this. You need to postpone.”
“Not happening,” he says dismissively. “There’s no time.”
“Make time,” I bite out.
“No,” he bites back.
“I know you like sympathy press, but people dying at this event is not good for my father’s campaign.”
“Now you care about your father’s campaign? How sweet.”
“If my father can’t take care of the guests of a party, why would anyone think he could take care of an entire state? And you know his competition will state as much. He’ll look careless, incompetent, and reckless. Perhaps you will as well.”
He studies me, his green eyes cutting. “I’ll postpone. For when?”
“After the New Year.”
“And if you don’t have the killer by then?”
“I will,” I say.
“You’re confident.”
“I understand killers extremely well, Pocher. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
Something flickers in his eyes before he says, “You’re a worthy queen to the king of the Mendez line. You are nothing like your mother.”
“That’s true. She died. I survived. And now, I’m done here.”
“We’re definitely done here,” Kane agrees.
We start to turn away from Pocher, but I pause before facing him again. “The man who the world believes was the Umbrella Man was only his minion. But the real Umbrella Man is dead.”
Pocher’s jaw clenches. “And you know this how?”
“You know how I know.”
He studies me, one second, then two. He must decide I killed the Umbrella Man because he says, “Who was he?”
He knows who he is. He hired Roger. He used Roger to kill my mother. He just doesn’t know I know that Roger was the Umbrella Man, and not the man the rest of the world thinks was the Umbrella Man. “Roger Griffin, my ex-mentor. He was obsessed with me. He thought I was just like him.” In other words, I’m coming for you Pocher, I think.
With that, I turn and join Kane at the door. The doorman moves to allow our exit. And side by side, without a word, Kane and I exit the apartment and then the building.
Once we’re in the SUV with Kit behind the wheel, only then does Kane say, “You were brilliant, beautiful. You managed to give him the gift of murder and promise him his own. And you made sure he knows you are Queen Mendez.”
I blink and turn to Kane. “He called me queen. Kane, you do that. You just started doing that. How did he know?”
“After your encounter with Miguel, the men started calling you that.”
“Well, someone amongst them is talking to Pocher. That’s what he was telling us. That he’s got control.”
“The person who is talking to Pocher came to me the minute he was approached. I told him to go along with it, keep the money they give him, plus a healthy fee from me, and I, in turn, feed Pocher information as I see fit.”
“You’re in control.”
“Yes, beautiful. I am in control, but often control is subtle and unassuming, and therefore, far more powerful.”
My mind is still on my mother and some of Kane’s accusations about Murphy come front and center. “You said Murphy had contact with Pocher up to the time my mother died,” I say, aware that I haven’t followed up on this, aware that I don’t want Murphy to be one of them, one of the Society. I’m also aware that anything I hide from or deny, such as my own self, backfires.